The juice dripped down my chin and the ripe flesh lit up my mind before sending chills down my spine. I have always been a sucker for instant gratification, but a piece of fruit at the end of a long day always struck me as an acceptable, innocent pleasure. Back in the day, I would be tossing back cheap whiskey at five o’clock, if not before, and I would be lucky if I remembered anything that happened after a couple of hours. There was never anything worth remembering though.
My twenties were this blur of shifts at a fast-food restaurant, cigarettes, pleasuring myself until I could not feel anything anymore, and binge-watching television alone in my parents’ basement. I was that girl, going nowhere, and yet I was quite content until the intervention, rehab, and my parents disowning me until I finally took it all seriously. It only took two weeks wandering couch to couch until I went back to rehab and actually listened. We do not need to talk about what happened. Everyone supported my parents after a couple of days with me on their couch. The point is that rehab suddenly became the only viable way forward.
After about a month of internment and a couple more of sustained outpatient therapy, I became this new person, like they had to drain all this festering sewage out of my body and replace it with new habits, thoughts, patterns, beliefs, and a new reason for being. It took a while to find a purpose in life though. So much of it was about survival at first, that and sustaining this new lighter me that was growing inside of me—survival as a burgeoning psychological entity, like a metaphysical sapling. Thus, I took the steps and I stuck to the plan. It got easier with time.
I started drinking sparkling water with lemon and decaf coffee instead of soda for breakfast. I also learned to love salads. You can really spruce them up once you learn to make your own dressing. I always complained about monotony—ranch every night—but I started making sesame dressing on Tuesdays, lemon vinaigrette on Wednesdays, green goddess on Thursdays, and you get the gist. I became a paragon of health.
Anyhow, I got my own place, and I kept pushing forward without finding a reason other than sheer necessity. The therapists that I had met with kept espousing this philosophy of investing into long-term achievements rather than constantly seeking empty pleasure, but I never really felt like I had anything to work toward. I liked all my new habits though, especially the gardening, and it was the one thing that seemed to fit into that narrative that I was receiving. There is also this extra joy to eating a salad that you have grown yourself, and I felt at peace when I went to bed after productively tending to my garden during my evenings. It was like I was accomplishing something every day, washing the dirt from under my nails and smelling the flowers on the kitchen table while they were in bloom. The garden became this magical fount of memory and experience that gave meaning to my life; it needed me and gave to me in return.
I also became the morning manager at the fast-food restaurant. One of my coworkers, my old manager, was really bitter all the time, but I always thought about what I would be doing if I had not turned my life around, and I just felt blissful despite how much I hated that place. Sometimes I watched the new guy washing dishes and prepping in the back. He was already asking for a promotion to cashier, and I remembered how I was satisfied in his position for over a decade. I never once wanted to have to deal with the customers.
It is deeply stress inducing, interacting with living people, and I almost had a relapse during my first week as a manager when a woman had a conniption about her special order. She asked for heavy ketchup and there was not enough, and she grew more upset with me when I cheerfully pointed out to her that there was a ketchup dispenser on the counter for guests to do it themselves. It was then, during a crisis call after I ran out the back door crying, that a therapist suggested an afterwork fruit as a simple reward to get me through the day. It is so simple and effective. “You just have to focus on that fruit”, she said.
I started with apples and oranges. It was a miracle. A customer stormed into the building after opening their drive-through order. The new guy had finally gotten his promotion and one day into it, he misinterpreted “I have a mushroom allergy” as “extra mushrooms, please!” The man was irate and threw his food in my face, but I continued to smile while thinking about oranges before taking stern and swift action to politely inform the man that his behavior was unacceptable, but that if he would please calm down, I would happily comp his meal and provide coupons for future mushroom free dining at our establishment. He quickly took the coupons and the money without apologizing though, but I just thought about oranges again. I was still smiling when I sent the new guy back to the dish station and took over the drive-through, and because I was so calm, administering discipline, yes, but clear, direct, and understanding, there was no confrontation and when he did return to the drive-through, it never happened again. It was as if my actions produced legitimate results and what was more, he began to demonstrate respect in the wake of the event.
There was this one day though, I had been exceptionally busy, it was during the holidays and my mother was in the hospital and the other manager’s wife was having a baby and it was like everything was falling on me. It was as if everything was on my shoulders, dragging me down when all I wanted to do was to be that woman dancing with fruit balancing on her head. It was then that it happened, my first great test. I had not kept up on my fruit purchases and, at first, I thought that I had just forgotten to put a delicious fruit in my car for after work. However, when I returned home, there were only bananas. I fell to my knees after frantically tearing through the kitchen and, as I wept amidst the savage debris, a sudden vision of whiskey’s warmth upon my lips rose from the darkness of my grief-stricken mind.
And yeah, you are probably thinking, “why does she not just eat the banana? Fruit is fruit!” You see, that is simply not the case. Bananas are a morning fruit. No one eats bananas after noon. I would judge you if you did, unless it were in a baked good, but even then, those should only be consumed during the morning, unless you are having breakfast for dinner, but I still contend that bananas do not belong in a breakfast for dinner arrangement, unless within the pancake batter. I need you to understand the gravity of the situation. I was faced with a step forward into one of two worlds and my mind, a raging storm, was the passenger of my animal cravings for some form of satiation. I salivate involuntarily when I envision the fruit that I love, and I used to find alcohol in my hands suddenly without remembering how I acquired it. Thus, after a moment of hyperventilating without collapsing into unconsciousness, suppressing the call of lips’ feeble thirst, I regained my composure, jumped into the car, and rushed to the store to buy an orange.
Apples and oranges only worked for so long though. The monotony began to set in after a few months and I had to find a variety of delectable fruits to sustain their calming and motivating effect. After incorporating a few more conventional fruits—mangoes, pineapple, pears, papaya, etc.—I made my first visit to the Asian grocery store on the eastside of town. It was an adventure, and I knew that exotic delights awaited me. I did not like most of it though. The name lychee was off-putting in and of itself and this other one, durian, let me tell you about durian.
The fruit looked fascinating at first, these spiky prehistoric teardrops as big as my own head, like blunt sea urchins, and as I admired their beauty, a clerk approached me and offered me a taste. She was so excited, a tiny woman in a hairnet insisting forcefully, repeating, “you must try!”, and I felt as if durian absolutely had to be something special. Then, to my delight, she pulled a machete from underneath the display and placed one of the smaller ones on a counter nearby. I wanted to be there, as close as possible to smell the first spray of the fruit’s goodness, yet as soon as the shell cracked open, a wave of gas assaulted my face and almost knocked me off my feet. It was like the concussion that travels from the site of an explosion, and I began to retch as my throat started to burn from the acid I fought to contain. Thus, horrifyingly embarrassed, and still fighting to regain control, I disappeared immediately without ever tasting the fruit and all that I can remember is the sound of the woman’s cackles wafting behind me as I exited.
Fortunately, there were more fruit markets nearby. The neighborhood was saturated with them and once safely in the fresh air and having guzzled a bottle of water, I got back to the hunt. The passionfruit I found at the neighboring store was incredible, especially the purple ones. I had only ever seen the yellow ones before. The purple ones are sweeter, but the seeds in all of them are very annoying. They should create a seedless variety that is just a shell containing all the pulpy goodness. It has to be a fruit though. It does not work for me if it is like candy or the illusion of a natural fruit. It has to be a real fruit. It has to grow on a tree, or I just can’t.
Anyhow, my fruit basket having grown more diverse, I pushed forward in life, and I eventually fell into this rhythm—work, fruit, garden, sleep, repeat. It worked for me for months, over a year actually. However, I was still searching for an answer to the ultimate question, something to really feel like I was living for a higher purpose, something beyond serving impatient people mediocre food in a sterile environment while finding little ways to cope with the malignant emptiness that was still growing within me just to provide another day of cheap, easily replaceable labor power to the vicious unnatural machine we all live within. Thus, I kept searching as the rhythm marched on, the days blended together like this fast-food establishment’s frozen treats—creamy with chunks to interrupt the steady flow of nothingness—and, eventually, the fruit provided seriously diminishing returns, but it kept me going. I showed up every day, I performed my duties, I savored my tiny reward, and then I prepared to do it again, every day.
Yet, there are moments that interrupt our monotony, moments like those chunks. Sure, there are moments with people throwing unwanted mushrooms in your face, customers’ children leaving presents underneath tables that your employees refuse to clean, so you have to do it yourself, and the Saint Patrick’s Day fallout from the bar next door, but there are also joyful discoveries.
One such lifechanging occurrence in my life was the day that I first laid eyes upon and tasted the Huani To To orange varietal. I was seated upon a park bench on an ordinary Saturday afternoon, watching people walk by with their families, lovers arm in arm, and fellow loners wandering. The late Spring sun was breaking through the leafy canopy while light-footed squirrels and robust robins frolicked amidst their branches, like trapeze artists and a chorus. They rarely visited my own garden and being here always brought me closer into touch with something I felt missing in my life, something elusive. I always liked to imagine that the squirrels felt the way that I do about fruit, and I always left one for them at the base of a tree before returning to my own garden.
This day was different though as the robin’s song was interrupted and my eye drawn to a brilliant flash of color suddenly manifest in my peripheral vision. A man was approaching in a tight-fitting purple suit and singing a cacophonous song about miraculous fruit while seated upon a brilliant yellow bicycle upon which there was latched a tiny basket with wheels like a chariot following in pursuit, containing who knows what loot. Thus, his dazzling eccentricity captivated me, and my focus became singular, my eye following him as he circled around the park’s pathways, darting around trunks, and finally coming to rest at the bench alongside me.
I hesitated at first as he dismounted and began rummaging through the basket, too nervous to say anything until he finally stood up and held a magnificent purple orb, deeper and darker than his suit, above him toward the sun into which he peered as the mysterious fruit shimmered in the light, his face obscured in its shadow. Thus, all else grew quiet to me, and my muscles that were previously tight with anxiety, torn between remaining seated and breaking free to inquire further, became a pure lightness as I rose to walk over to the man.
My movements felt free as I approached, and though I startled him, interrupting him without even a stutter, I look back upon it all as a dream come true. It all began with a simple “hello” and the jolt of his neck as he accidentally dropped the fruit and his eyes locked upon mine. A glimmer of intrigue ignited within them, and a subtle smile began to grow as he responded softly, “why, hello!” He said very little at first, merely smiled more satisfyingly before he bent down to pick up the fruit and handed it to me with a wordless nod and keen eyes.
Without a single question, the peel began to tear at itself with my hands and once upon the other side, I bit in, and I travelled through the magnificent fruit into a fantastic new world. Thus, our dance began as the man laughed in witness of my delight and began to tell me his story, the legend of the Huani To To. They grow on one tiny island and the tree can only mature when fertilized by the droppings of an island specific creature, these little Huani To To monkeys that only eat the Huani To To fruit. They have essentially developed a closed system where they cannot live without each other.
Their symbiosis is beautiful to me. It is like me with fruit. I would wither and my whole psychological being would die without fruit to sustain me in my present form. The only difference is that fruit does not need me beyond my own humble garden. No one needs me, but as soon as I bit into my first Huani To To orange, I finally found my purpose. Its bright purple and pink zest smells like the flowers that I visit in my newly sober dreams. I have those now, and I can actually remember them. It is as if something within me had been preparing me, compelling me to commune with this magical plant.
The flesh beyond that familiar and alluring scent was sweeter than any orange and it was as if mangoes were swimming within them prior to the acidic citrus shocking one’s tongue in the wake of an initial wave of sticky sweet. I found the experience to be reminiscent of the way that ghost pepper has been described to me as bringing the heat when one least expects it. In the wake of our first kiss, the Huani To To’s potent aftertaste lingered, grew, and as it did so, a sensation spread throughout my body as if I were truly at peace for the first time in my life.
I floated upon this cloud of welcomed dissociation from my body and reality, feeling as if I were flying upward toward some great light that I had always been seeking. However, the moment was so fleeting, and a panic began to rise as I felt myself returning to the present, as if weighted down by an inability to sustain my connection to paradise. Eventually, I had to open my eyes again and I looked straight into the man while assuming an identity as an inscrutable businesswoman, just like the ones that I had seen on tv, keen on striking a mutually beneficial partnership with the eccentric stranger, “I will buy all of them. I have two hundred dollars right now, but I can get more.”
His eyes lit up and he twirled his moustache, “Oh, that won’t be necessary! You can have my last one and I will even give you these seeds!”
The man’s kindness shocked me. It was as if the universe were conspiring to bring about my fantasies, the clouds parting to reveal my purpose in life. I had to bring this fruit to the people, to release it from its tiny island prison and begin industrial production so that others might come to know my bliss. It was mostly selfish though. I had to recapture that feeling. I needed to go further. It felt like the Huani To To had opened a portal to a new world and I merely needed more of it so as to successfully cross over and to finally experience true living.
Then, as he handed me the seeds and the final miraculous fruit, I noticed that my fingers were bright purple, and I experienced a wave of confusion. The secretion from the fruit was thin and not sticky like fruit juice; it was like Kool-Aid if you do not add sugar, and the stains upon my skin were so stark. However, the man quickly noticed my searching mind attempting to decipher the peel’s truth.
“Ahhhhh, yes, yes! That is why the Huani To To monkeys are purple, the fruit’s overflowing desire to give. It is truly a sight to see. They are born white as snow, but they gradually become purple. You can tell how old one is through comparing it to the purpleness of the others. They are like the rings of a tree—the Huani To To monkeys’ shades of purple. The eldest ones are almost black as night except for the little glint of purple in the right light. It is truly, I tell you, quite a sight!”
“How fascinating!”, I shouted excitedly as my focus became singular, noticing the illustrated purple monkeys grinning on the label of the clear plastic bag of seeds. Then, growing momentarily sterner, he finally explained the unique conditions required to cultivate the Huani To To, the presence of the monkeys themselves, and I suddenly felt as if the man had just run over my puppy and was making me look at it.
He could see it in my eyes. “Oh, no, but not to worry”, he said, laughing as a grin similar to that of the illustrated Huani To To monkeys grew upon his face and his mustache appeared to curl autonomously. “We have devised a system for people like you, people who truly understand the miracle of the Huani To To and wish to give it life beyond the confines of its tiny island where no one but my associates and I has ever travelled.”
The relief that I experienced upon learning that I could one day become a producer of Huani To To, perhaps the greatest producer ever, felt like biting into the fruit anew. It was orgasmic, as if weights had been lifted from my shoulders and a door to the path to purpose had finally been opened. “This”, I told myself, “is what I have been searching for. This is the meaning of the Earth. The Huani To To is my reason for being here.” Thus, I abandoned all reason, overcome with ecstatic joy, passionate curiosity about how best to begin, and a fervent belief that the seeds of a brighter future were now firmly within my grasp.
Then, having sensed that I was dedicated to the cause of the Huani To To, the man cleared his throat, and we began to discuss the finer details of our business relationship. “You can buy a two-year supply of the monkeys’ dropping if you have adequate storage space. We absolutely recommend purchasing in bulk as our ability to supply this life-giving resource is variable and oftentimes, we are unable to respond for months during our voyages to collect the specimens. Additionally, the voyage is treacherous, and we cannot guarantee our safe return, so we absolutely recommend that those who are able to do so, purchase a lifetime supply upfront as we absolutely wish to ensure the longevity and fecundity of your Huani To To plantation. I can accept payment right now or the information for our website may be found on the label of the seed packet and you can use the promotional code on the back for discounted shipping.”
I squinted then, nodding pensively while processing everything, and I felt myself struck by a moment of brilliance. Thus, I questioned, “do you sell the monkeys?”
The man seemed uncomfortable at first, “we wish, we absolutely wish that we could sell the monkeys, they are so joyful in person, but it is actually a terrible story. There is a reason you have never heard of them or seen them in a zoo. You see, we attempted this in the past, but they are such enigmatic and social creatures that without their entire family and social structure, all of our previous transplants have ended in abominable tragedies of which I fear it is too painful to speak.”
“Oh,” I responded hesitatingly, “I am so sorry for asking. I wish only the best for these monkeys. That is so heartbreaking!” I too was on the verge of tears, imagining what exactly might constitute an “abominable tragedy” of such proportion.
He took a deep breathe then, clearly soothed by my demonstration of understanding, and added, “yes, fortunately we were able to save several of them and to return them to the island, but even then, so few of those that we attempted to save actually survived the return journey. They began to rip out their own fur and their screams could be heard echoing throughout the vessel. It only grew worse if you had to see them. There is nothing sadder than a naked and distraught Huani To To monkey that is no longer purple.” A tear was visibly dangling from his eye as he drew upon the painful memories. Then he adjusted his posture, his expression still glazed as he wiped the tear away, and he resolutely declared, “never again! Never again!”, as if he were speaking only to himself. However, only a moment later, he quickly regained his composure and added, “Our relations with the monkeys were damaged for several years until they finally began allowing us to harvest their droppings again without attacking.”
I interjected right then, “I absolutely understand, sir. Those precious monkeys must be protected at all costs. I stand with you in that conviction!”
He nodded and set his hand upon my shoulder then as we stood eye to eye, “God bless you!”
We parted ways shortly after that. I assured him that I would arrange a large storage unit and place my order as soon as humanly possible. The visions of those poor monkeys haunted me as I watched him ride away on a brightly colored bicycle with his now empty basket of miracles trailing behind him. Yet as I looked down, there they were, the keys to the future and one final reminder of the sweetness that I would soon be cultivating, harvesting, swimming within, and sharing with the world. I savored each bite as if it were my last and it felt as if each one only grew more intense, pleasant, and somehow more unique. Thus, alone again, I skipped about throughout the park while planning it all: step one, acquire storage unit; step two, purchase monkey droppings; step three, prepare garden bed; step four, plant seeds and step forward into a fantastic wonderland.
It was only a few hours later that I entered the website. It was woefully anachronistic, as if an elementary student had designed it with an html code from the late 1990s. That is what a website would have looked like if I were to have built it, so I was not judgmental. I saw everything that I needed to see. There were low quality animations of purple monkeys frolicking about and biting into Huani To To fruit as their eyes grew wider and their smiles comically oversized. There was also one live video of a fluffy purple thing darting through a forest in a blur. The caption read, “the monkeys are camera shy, and they get angry and take our cameras away whenever we attempt to capture them. Please enjoy the animations.” Then I discovered the pictures of the fruit growing upon the trees, bright purple and pink amidst green and blue leaves. It was like a fabulous window into a fairy tale.
Thus, my journey began. Two days later, I skipped the discount and paid for expedited delivery. One week later, I had five storage units full of Huani To To monkey droppings and an empty savings account. It did not smell good, but the memory of the fruit tasted absolutely worth it, and I paid extra to secure the silence of the storage facility’s owner. The seeds were planted within minutes of delivery. I had only received three seeds and I treated them each with great care. I kissed each one prior to burying it within the fertilized soil where my vegetables had once grown. It was like how one must feel while digging for gold, except I was planting diamonds that would one day rise as the foundation of my escape from menial labor, anxiety, misery, and what now felt to me to be a world of ordinary fruits. “Someday,” I thought to myself in that moment, “I will travel to Huani To To and eat one fresh from the source with the fortune that I will earn from this investment.” Suddenly, a vision flashed within me, one of the Huani To To monkeys handing me a slice of the fruit and I held the monkey in my arms, as if within the vision, and I squeezed him lovingly, but then my arms were empty, and all that I could taste was bitter sadness.
Thus, I purchased a stuffed monkey the following day and dyed it purple. It brought me comfort as I waited patiently for the seeds to become saplings. All my evenings were filled with salads, banal fruits, and the preparations for the second coming of the extraordinary. I performed my research on citrus cultivation vigorously, and I joined numerous online forums with information from my new peers. There was so little information available on the Huani To To website and, since my purchase, their email only ever returned responses indicating that they were currently travelling to Huani To To to retrieve new supplies for “the small and elite group of Huani To To cultivators around the world.”
I often found myself wondering who these other cultivators might be, but I determined that as a businesswoman, it was too dangerous to post openly about my investment into the Huani To To space lest others attempt to enter before I established my dominance. Thus, I conversed with ordinary citrus people, and I learned a great deal. Additionally, one particularly friendly man was locally based, and we became fast friends. He was very passionate about citrus, blood oranges in particular, and his animated avatar was also quite handsome. I had never before felt interested in developing a relationship with a person beyond the surface or spending my free time with another human, but suddenly, after I mentioned knowing about something even more magnificent than blood oranges, he declared me to be the most fascinating person that he had ever met. It was then, when we finally decided to meet in person, that I truly understood that the Huani To To had brought great transformations into my life.
Our first meeting was on my tiny front patio where we spoke entirely about fruit. I had insisted that we meet privately so that the details of my operation would remain secret. I knew that I could not actually show him the emergent sapling in the backyard. I had to determine whether he was sufficiently trustworthy, and even then, the risk felt as if I were putting my own life on the line. He was actually handsome too, perhaps even more so than the avatar, which was a surprise and made him seem more trustworthy. It was not because being handsome makes one trustworthy, if anything, it is the opposite for me; it is simply that “I am not an idiot”, I thought to myself, “and I know that people misrepresent themselves online, but look at him. He is real!” Thus, the revelation of the accuracy of his digital representation in animated form relative to the real gave me solace.
As of our second meeting, he too had come to fervently believe in the Huani To To without ever having even seen or tasted it. He looked into my eyes upon hearing me recount the tale of my first bite and asserted, “your passion alone is proof of this miracle.” He adored the videos on the website too. They elicited a long-forgotten memory of his early days exploring the world. “When I was in Uganda doing missionary work,” he told me, “I saw these purple ducklings running everywhere. People laughed at me when I told them that I wanted to bring purple ducklings back to my people. I never understood why, but I know exactly how you feel. You must bring these fruits to the people. They are even more fascinating than purple ducklings! I absolutely must try one now, and I am here, at your side, to make this a reality.”
Then, forgetting entirely about the purple ducklings, he began sharing his most closely guarded secrets about how his own citrus trees had become so productive, “I sing to them while they are growing. I read somewhere that plants respond to being spoken to and loved.” Thus, I too began to sing and to speak to the little trees, quietly to ensure that the neighbors did not begin to pry into what I was doing, and they grew, and they grew, and I imagined them growing further. The trees take years to grow though, and even longer to begin producing bountiful harvests. I knew that going in, and I was in it for the long haul, but hearing another person’s tales of success in the early days truly struck all the right strings for me, a harmonious and compelling chord.
After the first year, they had grown to a foot tall, and I found myself questioning why none of the leaves were blue. “Perhaps only the more mature ones grow blue, like how oranges and lemons are green when they are young”, my new friend suggested credibly. That made absolute sense to me.
“Of course, the blue only happens later, like the monkeys growing darker! How silly of me to be concerned!”, I thought to myself, my sense of peace having returned to me after a few days of deepening alarm as my frantic emails to the website went unanswered. The trees were growing, and their roots were more firmly established within the soil as well as within me as my reason for being. Sure, I had a new friend, but the Huani To To was all to me. Sure, he tried to kiss me, and I did not know what to do, so I kissed him back and his lips tasted like oranges; it was not terrible, but our friendship was just about me getting more information to ensure the vitality of my nascent Huani To To plantation. One day soon, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, I was going to buy land and have Huani To To trees growing as far as the eye could see. That is all that truly mattered to me.
Yet time continued to pass as the trees’ growth spurts became monthly millimeters and I grew more distraught. We grew closer as he consoled me, always presenting a new innovative solution to bolster their growth. We celebrated minor changes that felt momentous, such as the sprouting of a new leaf and especially the sprouting of new saplings alongside the sprouts from the original seeds. They were growing up slowly, yet they were spreading.
“Soon”, I thought to myself, “I will have a whole forest of them and at this rate they will all grow up together! Perhaps the forest will become so thick that I will be able to transport the monkeys, a whole family of them, and we can all live together!” I spent many afternoons on my days off and evenings after work in my humble backyard admiring the thickening flower bed of Huani To To saplings amidst which a member of my collection of purple stuffed monkeys was seated. This brought me great calm in the wake of particularly stressful days at work. There were even days where I no longer needed to eat fruit; I could just imagine it and I felt at peace again. I can still taste the Huani To To as if I had ceased eating entirely after that final bite before entering this period of waiting, patient tending, and anticipating the return of the miraculous fruit.
Our moments together, this fellow fruit enthusiast and I, have also grown pleasant. The kisses linger with the faint hint of citrus, and I feel light with him, yet nothing can ever replace the fruit of Huani To To. If I needed to fertilize the soil with the blood of a human sacrifice to commune with the fruit once more, I would do so gladly.
Nonetheless, he continues to visit me despite occasional demonstrations of ambivalence. I enjoy how he always provides new suggestions on how to speed up their growth and to finally bring about the return of the fruit, like a frame keeping me from falling into despair. He seems to understand how I feel and sometimes, even when we are in bed together, I begin to worry that he is not here for me, but for the Huani To To fruit itself. Thus, in my quiet moments of meditation while he is away, I did not judge him, because I discovered deep within my heart that in all truth, that is exactly why I would be here if I were in his position, aware of the existence, but without access to the seeds. I had to remain extremely wary, I realized, as I possessed the only seeds that he could possibly lay his hands upon. I had to protect them at all costs.
Then the day finally came, the day that changed everything, and I say for the better. It was his idea, contacting the plant whisperer, three years into the arduous process of building my Huani To To empire. “Surely”, he suggested, “she will be able to get to the root of the matter and determine how best to support these nascent miracles.” It seemed to be a brilliant idea, but it was also dangerous.
Thus, I called her and explained the sensitive nature of the situation, that absolute discretion would be required, and that I would need to perform extensive background checks to determine her trustworthiness and abilities. After a period of researching her, I invited her to my home for one final test. She passed with flying colors. I hid a penny in the pot in which my basil was planted on the front patio, and she claimed that the basil was complaining about some sort of metal obstructing its roots. I was astonished. It was then that I became convinced that the answer would surely be revealed through the interaction of this woman with my most treasured family members. Thus, I permitted her entry into my secret garden and introduced her to my children. I explained everything, the gravity of the situation and how deeply I felt that this plant needed to spread throughout the world.
She knelt alongside their bed and brushed her hand along the soil prior to caressing one of the leaves. “Hmmmmmm”, she muttered gravely, looking over her shoulder and back toward me suspiciously. I felt as if I had been struck by lightning and my legs became jelly. I had to sit down immediately, and my thoughts became clouded, racing from what I might have done wrong to concerns about the weather and whether I should transplant them all to somewhere tropical. They have fast food restaurants in tropical places I assured myself, seeking tranquility, but these black clouds were still swirling as the woman began to thrust her face into the foliage and my confusion became even deeper. All that was clear to me was that whatever she had to say would finally be credible and, from the looks of it as she pulled her head back out from the leaves and looked back to me momentarily before thrusting in once more, it might not be good news. I was not prepared, I realized, for anything but the most positive of details that might emerge about the challenges that my Huani To To miracle babies might be encountering.
Yet she finally emerged and rose, walking gracefully to sit at my side, placing a hand on my leg and taking a deep breath before looking me in the eyes. “They identify as bushes,” she declared point blank, “They are not fruit bearing, but they are terribly afraid of disappointing you. They are trying to grow to sustain your love for them, but this one says”, she continued in a high-pitched animated voice, “the jig is up!”, before looking to another and squeaking, “She’s on to us! Savor your final moments on Earth.” She was almost smiling when she turned around to look at me again, and her lips began to curl upward as her chest and face began to vibrate ever so subtlety, a laugh swirling within, and suddenly the air felt clammy. I looked around me, into my garden, and they all looked like bushes now, like I was seeing them for the first time, and they had always been bushes. I could feel my stomach churning, and I looked to my boyfriend, and he was running toward me as all the light began to grow dimmer and all that I could see was him, him becoming this dark blur rushing. I did not realize it, but I was fainting, and he caught me, and as I laid there in his arms, my awareness gradually returning, I looked into his eyes.
My return brought a smile to his face, and in the haze between us, the past echoed like flat guitar strings struck again and again and again, and the smile, his whole face, suddenly it disgusted me as I struggled to break free from his embrace. Thus, I pushed him away to stand on my own two feet and he stumbled backward in disbelief. Then I looked to the woman, the plant whisperer, and she was not smiling anymore either. As I glared into her feigned expression of concern, I felt the abyss within me compressing into the depth of my being, and I finally saw with the purest clarity. I saw straight through her, straight through them both, and into the truth, for it was in that moment that I remembered telling him about the penny. Everything was lies, all of it, every filthy word, and the whole rouse was just an elaborate coup against me.
Thus, with a vigorous conviction and the utmost urgency, I grabbed a hoe, raised it above my head, and told the motherfuckers that if I ever saw either of them ever again, heard even a whisper of my miraculous Huani To To plantation traveling throughout the community, anything, I would cut their fucking faces off and their families’ too. Yet, he just stood there protesting as I waved it menacingly; he told me to calm down, said that he understood.
“Yeah, you think you fucking understand me?!”, I shouted back and with a lunge and a swing, I made him understand. The wound was shallow, just a tiny slit on his arm because he was too slow in recoiling, but his blood is all that remains of him here in my garden. As soon as I made myself vividly clear, my will undeniable, they both ran because their lives depended upon it. Then, in the wake of their disappearance, the weight of it all sunk into my skin, my arms trembling as the surge of adrenaline gave way to a withdrawal, and I ran into my bedroom and embraced the largest of my purple monkeys as I wept, understanding the loneliness that lay ahead of me on my quest to give life to Huani To To.
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