An event that changes everything for the main character.
As cryptic, mysterious, and important as that message sounded, I couldn't worry about it now.
There were bigger and more important matters at the moment.
Inside the house, I started wiping off my feet on the mud towel, conveniently placed for the use of wiping off the mud of one's feet. For obvious reasons. I'm pretty sure no one, both family and guests alike, would like a house full of mud and soil.
The plants outside clearly weren't alive. No pulse, no voices (other than the last bit, but does that really count?), and no butterflies (though there is a 90 percent chance I scare them off). Which could only mean one of three things.
1) My whole life is a lie and I've been hallucinating my ability to talk with plants and I'm actually a crazy person. 2) My parents somehow secretly sold the entire garden and plants without my knowledge, for the cause of science or to get more money. OR 3) I'm just overthinking all of this and everything is fine, and I'm just over reacting because the plants didn't talk to me one time.
I preferred the second and third option better. It made me sound sane, or at least somewhat normal, like everyone else in this world.
I looked back down at my feet. Most of the mud was wiped off by now. Not as clean as water would work, but clean enough so the mud wouldn't stick onto the wooden floor. I threw the mud-towel into one of the laundry bins and walked inside.
Whatever the reason was, for the garden to disappear like that, my parents would definitely know. And if they didn't... let's just say things would get more complicated. Everything would be on the news, world-wide authorities would be panicking, global pandemic, etc.
Either way, I wasn't going to be getting my answers anytime soon. My parents were still at work, and wouldn't get back until sometime later in the evening. Meaning I had a lot of time to kill. I just had to figure out what to do...
***
"What happened to the garden?" I asked the moment my parents stepped foot into the house.
"Wh-what?" my mom asked wearily. "Xeni, what are you talking about?"
"What happened to the garden?" I repeated.
"Xeni, we just got in the house," Dad replied. "Give us a minute to settle in."
"Is this another one of your pranks?" Mom asked.
"No! The garden is missing. All the flowers are fake!" I think, but I don't say that last bit out loud.
They exchanged glances with each other. Uh oh. That's not a good sign. It's never a good sign when your parents know something you don't and purposefully never told you about it.
"What... what is it?" I slowly asked.
"Well, about that sweetie," Mom started. I don't like where this is going.
"Xeni, we sold our garden to science this morning," Dad explained.
I yelled. "WHAT?!"
"Calm down Xeni," Mom ushered me. "We had to do it. For the money, for knowledge. Our department needed it to learn more about plant DNA and how to grow sustainable food."
"But- but you sold one of the last remaining gardens in the world!" I was at the top of my lungs. "How come knowledge and money, money, is more important than all natural flowers?!"
"Look, we had no choice," Dad tried.
"Yes you did!" I was on the verge of tears. Wiping my forming tears with the back of my hand, I turned around and ran outside.
"Xeni, let's talk about it!" I heard Mom's voice call out. But it didn't matter. The damage was done. Once the flowers were used, there was no way they would be naturally grown or preserved again.
No more flowers, no more butterflies, no more fresh air.
There weren't many places I could go to hide and cry, but I went near the next best thing to our former garden: the trees. I hid myself behind the trunk, next to the now-cemetery of flowers.
I rolled myself into a ball and I cried. Tears spilled from my cheeks and onto the soil. The earth absorbed each and every drop of sadness and betrayal I owned.
How could they do that to our garden? How could they do that to me?
The flowers didn't deserve it. None of the plants did.
YOU ARE READING
The Protector of Plants (UIC 2023)
General FictionXeni has lived with the garden for as long as she could remember. It was the one place she truly felt alive. She could talk to flowers and lived with one of the only gardens remaining in the world. Everything was perfect. However, the paradise didn'...
