Page 39 of Leaving the Station

Three Months Later, the Cornell Greenhouse

The Amorphophallus couldn’t hold itself in any longer. It had waited years for this moment. It had started as a seed, and then the person with

the lovely words came, and it grew and grew and grew.

That person had left, but they weren’t gone forever. They had gotten a job at a different greenhouse across the country. The

Amorphophallus knew this because it had roots everywhere. It heard tell from the other plants—this person spoke gentle words to them as

well; they helped them grow.

And there was someone else too. A girl who made the person with the lovely words happier than they’d ever been. They would

go to the greenhouse together and kiss among the plants. They would hold hands as the person with the lovely words explained

that this was how you water them and this is the best soil and this is how they like to be spoken to.

The girl did research of her own; she found scientific papers and read them aloud to the plants. The person with the lovely words would roll their eyes at this, but the plants loved to hear about themselves.

The Amorphophallus could feel all of this, could sense the stirring of a new generation of plants and caretakers.

Many small actions of countless people had gotten the Amorphophallus here, to the edge of something wonderful.

And so, after years of waiting, it bloomed.