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Chapter 1

Friday

Amelia Brown performed a morning ritual that would be considered a part-time nursery job. Taking care of her 80 plants all spread out in her tiny apartment. With one human plant named Hans. Her boyfriend, her life partner, her taste tester. Besides her plants, she loved Hans with the consistency of a youthful lover.

Every morning at 4 am, Amelia rockets out of bed to prepare coffee and check on her first round of plants. The babies of her green family, all the sensitive plants. The Azalea’s, Fiddle-leaf fig, Banana plant, Elephant ear, Birds of paradise, Boston fern, and Wandering jew. All while she waits for her water to boil. As soon as the delicate children were fully tended to, she sat down and enjoyed her first cup of coffee, watching the gently changing morning sky. Her second cup of coffee was used to get her through the other plants. The standards she referred to them as. The bulk of her collection. Quietly tip-toping on the mahogany wood floors checking the rest of her plants. Slowly worked herself to the survivors of her collection. The hardy plants, the hard-to-kill, the plants that didn’t need her, but most importantly they are her first plants. Elegant snake plants reached up to the sky, the ever-growing golden pothos, Dracaena Marginata, the Rubber tree, the wax plant, and her favorite plant in her collection. Her large Monstera takes up an entire corner of the living room as if it was a big green dog. Welcoming everyone who entered the apartment with its humbling size.

Once all were cared for, her plants, her caffeine addiction, and her peace of mind. Taking a final scan around the living room and kitchen area before walking back into the bedroom with two cups of coffee in her hand. She strolled quietly into the bedroom, down the hall, which was like the rest of the apartment. Lined with plants and had two golden pothos framing the doorway.

Sliding between the door and the frame to not wake Hans a moment too soon. She quietly places his cup on the stand and sits down next to him. Rubbing his shoulders, Hans had the roughest wake-up phases she’s seen. A walking zombie until some undefined threshold of caffeine, light, and food is met. She thought.

“Sweetheart, your coffee is going cold,” Amelia said with a smile.

A loud morning ‘ugh’ came out of Hans mouth with his morning stretch.

“Good morning baby,” He said with the last effort of stretch, swinging his arm over to the steaming mug.

The morning sun had now started to flood the room with the vibrance of the day. Light danced off of the number of green landing pads from the plants, the wood floors became brighter, and almost sparked in the glow.

“Don’t you have a deadline today?” Hans said as he leaned up and started to become conscious.

“Already delivered it, just gotta wait for the revisions, if there are any, hopefully not. But it’ll probably be a few days” Amelia said as she finished checking a few plants she missed in the bedroom. A whale fin and a Swiss cheese vine was newly added to her collection.

“Oh nice baby, so what are you doing for the rest of the day?”

“Amanda is heading back home for a few months, going to have lunch with her before she goes. Other than that, I’m just going to relax. Get ready for the next round of shit that hits my inbox.”

“I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta, uhmmmm” Hans said, patting the bed and looking for his phone. Only finding it under the pillow. “Let's see,” he said as he checked his schedule.

Something he did in the morning that slightly annoyed her, always on his phone first thing.

“I’ve got a morning meeting before I start my day. Something about our European partners or something. But I’ll be home at my normal time. 5:30.” Hans said getting up from the bed.

Once Hans was up that signaled her morning was over, even though it was only 9 am. The rest of her day will be maintenance work. Cleaning, working, shopping, socializing, all the things she was required to do. Until it comes to the calming down of the afternoon, in which she and Hans would enjoy an alcoholic drink or a joint, either talk about their day or make love.

And it was the afternoon with Hans she fantasized about as she walked towards the diner nested in a row of red brick buildings, where she will meet Amanda for lunch. The day was bright, with clear blue skies and the scent of freshly blooming flowers clouded in separated air pockets. She couldn’t help but smile to herself. With her sunglasses, summer hat, and sundress. She was a welcome addition to the almost cartoonishly colorful scene.

Lunch was light and easy, she was going to miss her friend for the months she was going to be gone. But they planned a late summer hike when she got back. Amelia arrived home at 1 pm. With a badly damaged snake plant, she found it at a hardware store, on the discount shelf, where she gets most of her sturdy plants.

She was surprised to see her human plant Hans home before her.

“Hey baby, what's going on? Is everything okay?” She said setting her plant and purse.

“Have you seen the news?” Hans said standing from his desk

“Noooo, you know I don’t have alerts on”

“Come look at this” Hans said pulling up a webpage on his laptop

It was a video from China, people in white hazmat suits walking down streets, spraying them down. Cutting to heavy machines flattens the ground for hospitals. Italy is now completely shut down. It was the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. She felt a sense of fear, worry, stress, and concern.

“This was what my meeting was about, we are already preparing to set up a home office. I guess you’re lucky you already work from home.” Hans said

“To be honest, I don’t feel very lucky. You know what happens to gig workers when an economic downturn happens?”

“Shit didn’t think of that”

“We are the first to go, but I’ve worked with a few of my clients through the 08 crash. So I’ll still have some work to do”

“Just not a lot?”

“Just not a lot, but who knows what this time will bring about”

Hans looked at her with concern and worry, while Amelia stared at Hans computer screen with the calm and stoicism of a sea caption staring down a storm.

“Wanna see my new plant?!” She said with her eyes darting from the screen to Hans eyes with a smile of excitement.

“Of course I do baby”

Hans stayed seated as he watched Amelia run to the kitchen table only to return with an even larger smile stretching across her face and her arms behind her back. “Ready?” she said

“Ready”

With one fluid motion she presented the plant she was proud of. It was, well, damaged for sure. Not a single leaf wasn’t damaged, and the color was even wrong-looking. Hans had sat in this chair plenty of times he had a scripted dialog for when Amelia showed him a plant he didn’t really care about. But this time, he went off script.

“What an incredible find! Where are you going to put this one?”

“You really like it? I knew no one was going to buy it and I just had a good feeling about this one. As for where this one will live, I don’t know, I was thinking the kitchen, that way I can keep a close eye on it.”

“Well, where ever you put it, I’m sure it’ll grow under your care,” Hans said nice words, but when Amelia looked over to him he was distracted by his phone again. Taking a deep breath she took another look at her new addition. Yes, it was fucked up by all accounts. But it was her fucked up plant that she’ll turn into a prize to behold.

It was a nice thing that Hans said, even if it was autopilot as he scrolled through endless bullshit. Yet, not a lot could distract her from caring and placing her new plant next to the stove top. A place that gets plenty of sunlight and plenty of attention. It’s neighbors happened to be a swiss chess vine that snaked it’s way around the main kitchen window and a money plant. After some subtle twists and turns to get it in the right spot. She rested her head on the counter and watched her new member take in the sunlight of its new forever home. Not knowing how long she looked at her plant, but long enough for parts of her body to get sore and Hans had now switched to staring at his phone rather than his computer.

Stretching out her back and arms she looked around the apartment at what to do next. The news and new plant had distracted her enough to bring the time to late afternoon. Walking distance to dinner, but not quite close enough to prepare anything. An irritating time of inbetween duties, the only time where phones come in handy.

She dove into the news and reaction of the coming pandemic. Gather some useful information on mask and social distancing. But also exposing herself to the ignorance of the world, which dug at her like a parasite burrowing it’s way into her brain. Eventually turning even the usefully content into a cynical money grab on the latest news. It didn’t take long for a overwhelming sense of frustrations to come over her. A feeling of true dread that the world will never be as she wishes it to be. Sane and sensible.

Looking up at the clock it was now proper time to prepare dinner, Hans was still locked in on a screen, and her ass was numb from sitting. Rubbing her face she realized that her brain was numb too, unable to form a single relative thought. Starting dinner she stayed in silence as Hans did whatever in the privacy of headphones. Letting her mind come back to it’s self from being torn apart by social media.

Preparing the salad was the last step in both dinner and her clear thoughts to come back to her. Setting the table a smile came back on to her with a meal well done. Even Hans noticed the smell and came, however, still on his phone. In another world, this could be considered attractive she thought as she watched him stumble with his attention fully on his phone and whatever remained was used on seating at the table. Yet, this was not a different world where he was a political journalist trying to get to the bottom of a scandal.

He was an accountant with an addiction to current events, distraction, and digital interaction. The only aspect of him she could do without. But she also figured there were things about herself he could live without. Thinking back to the time when they met, a concert in a dive bar 5 years ago, he was taller than everyone in the room. It was only when Hans picked up a joint she had dropped, like a stoner cinderella, he raced to return it. They smoked it together in her friends car, he was so carming in that moment, she always smiled when she thought about that dark, smoke filled backseat where he confidential asked for her number as a reward.

Fast forward to the two now sitting at a quiet dinner table as Hans scrolled the news feed while Amelia ate dinner.

“Any news?” She ask, despreate for a decent interaction out of him.

“No not yet, just speculation” Hans said

That was the last conversation they had before Amelia said goodnight. Hans was still deep into news, bouncing from news story to news story, youtube video to youtube video. Just trying to get a general sense of what the next month will look like. Trying to read first hand reports from people who are currently in lockdown. But what he found conflicting reports from bloggers and vloggers alike. For the first time in a long time, he reached the end of new information on a subject he was obsessed with. As if the information out there wasn’t quenching his thirst for knowledge. He couldn’t even remember what time he got tired, or what time he fell asleep, but he awake to a sun drenched room. Sitting up he didn’t hear Amelia any of the normal sounds that come with this time of the day, no music, no Amelia dancing around the apartment taking care of her plants, no movie on, no sound of breakfast, it was just silence. An uneasy feeling as if something wasn’t right came over Hans. Jumping out of bed and making his way down the hall in a hurry, he found Amelia sitting at the table with headphones on scrolling through her phone. When he tapped her on the shoulder, it made her not jump up but just kind of shacked.

“Oh Jesus, when did you get up?” She said looking up at him then back down at her phone.

“Like 7 baby, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just scrolling through Tik Tok I just can’t stop watching the videos from the shutdowns. Did you see Italy?”

“The sax player? Yeah it’s fucking sad”

“Do you think it’ll be that bad here?”

“It won’t be that bad, I believe our Government should be more prepared for the coming wave”

Hans thought to himself as he watched her thoughts drift to the darkness of the coming reality. ‘I’ve never seen like this, depressed, down, low energy. Even when her beloved cat passed away she had energy to take care of her plants.’ He noticed her phone was already on low energy mode, before noon. Hell, even before 10.

“How long have you been on your phone baby?” He asked wrapping his arms around her

“Since I woke up, I just woke up in a rabbit hole, it started by checking my emails and it lead to me doing deep dives on pandemics and lock downs.”

“Not even coffee to comfort you?!” Hans examined noticing the empty French press from yesterday.

“Ughhhhhhh, I hate this” she said still smothered in Hans arms.

“It’s okay baby, I’ll start coffee, how about you take a shower, clear your mind, and I’ll prepare breakfast for us.”

“Thank you baby, I’m leaving my phone out here” Amelia said getting up and headed to the bathroom. Once Hans reached the moment in cooking eggs and heating water for coffee, he checked his phone. For a Saturday morning of an approaching pandemic. The news was painfully slow for him, with only a few stories from last night that peaked his interest. Ports now being closed and airports slowly becoming ghost towns. Nothing that was too dramatic for him, but what was dramatic was the email he received from his boss. Outlining the coming requirements to switch the office to remote and it came with a tone of panic. For the life of Hans he couldn’t figure out why he would be panicking, remote work is easier than ever he thought to himself.

At the very moment Hans finished cooking eggs, brewing coffee, setting the table and even able to read one news story. The shower shut off and Amelia came out wrapped in a towel, steam and the scent of her soaps filled the hallway.

“Feel better?” Hans said

“I do, what did you make?”

“Eggs and toast, an American Classic”

“Well look at you taking change of the kitchen for a change”

“Hey, it isn’t a lack of skillset, it’s a problem of scheduling, you are up before me typically”

“Well, if you keep this up I may sleep in for the whole lockdown then”

“I think thats the plane for a lot of people over the pandemic lockdowns”

They ate together, undistracted from phones, news, or the world. Having a true moment of togetherness. Hans even held her leg as he ate with one hand, which normal he’ll be holding his phone with one hand and mindless eating with the other. Amelia couldn’t help but feel rare for a moment. Like she was living in a memory that’ll she’ll revisit over and over again. A core memory. She held a smile and locked eyes with Hans as he talked about his plan for the pandemic. Something about making a flamethrower or something. While Amelia mind explored her other core memories to see why she felt so strange about this one.

She thought back to an elementary school dance in a old gym. A truly traumatic time of youthful rejection and acceptance. Sitting alone crossed arms and legs, defending herself from an unseen enemy of embarrassment. Until, one of the quiet, well medicated kids came up and asked for a dance. She smiled and reached out her hand and what surprised her the most about this whole experience was the fact the kid that hadn’t spoken a word all year, walked her into the middle of the dance floor and wrapped his arms around her. A shocking twist for the shy young man to do to a loud mouth, youthful Amelia.

But why, almost 26 years later this moment feels like that moment to her? She only wrestled with this thought for a second before snapping back to reality. Where Hans was now starring at her with a grin.

“Where were you just now?” He said noticing she was deep in thought.

“The place that lead me to you” she replied with a cheeky smile as she grabbed her coffee cup with both hands.

‘Aww that ever rare smile of confidently unsure if she said something funny’ Hans thought to himself as he couldn’t help but smile right back at her. But then, an news alert disrupted the moment.

Hans reached for his phone and with the abrupt interruption, Amelia smile went away as her eyes focused on her drink.

Getting up with his eyes still focus on his phone, he went over to his computer and bounced his gaze from computer screen to phone screen. Amelia still felt down on herself for wasting her morning, but now felt sick as she watched Hans preform the same fruitless act of consuming. God, I hope he isn’t stuck in his phone all day she thought to herself as her smile turned to disappointment.

Maybe I should have left him while I had a chance’ a thought so sudden and so intrusive that it scared her it came from inside her mind. Rubbing her hands on her face, trying not to dread on it. Yet when she turned her head to watch Hans scroll mindless through pointless information that has nothing to do with us, here, in this room. It almost solidified the thought into her minds eye.

For the first time since she can remember, she took care of her plants in the mid afternoon. Just checking the soil and leafs for any damage, she did it in a slight hurry as it felt wrong to be checking her children so late in the day. However, as she reached the bedroom and her last plant to check. The sense of accomplishment in the face of complacency put a smile back on her face. With being in the bedroom alone now, quiet and still. She looked around the room as if to have new eyes. Everything seemed the same, but with a layer of ‘anew’ covering over. But was the a new from the pandemic or the solidified thought that now challenged her surroundings.

The bedroom was the most well decorated place in the apartment. With the bed pushed into the far corner it had ample floor space for a plant themed rug. A book case filled with fiction and non-fiction alike, the very top was decorated with vine like plants. A Golden Pathos, Swiss cheese vine, and a string-of-pearls, creating an almost mystic piece of furniture. Next to the bookcase was the reading chair which was nested in the opposite corner of the bed. With a tall floor lamp that arched over the head of the chair. The walls were lined with planters and stands of various heights creating a almost little bedroom jungle. The large window over the bed provided the natural light to fuel the plants. The over head light burnt out long ago and had a type of screw that went the way of the dinosaurs. Unable to change it.

Therefore they had a number of Chinese lantern lamps hanging from the ceiling and placed strategically on the floor. Hans had done some sort of nerd magic on them so they can all be turned on from an app on his phone. He was so excited to show her what he had accomplished. He was so cute she thought to herself, but it was bittersweet as now that memory was an argument against her leaving. Like a defense attorney. She didn’t want to tackle this problem right now, if she would leave or stay in this relationship when the pandemic ends. It was too powerful, too painful, too sensitive to even think about. As if it was a blazing sun in her mind, too intense to look at.

“Hey baby can I show you something?” Hans said coming down the hall.

“Of course sweetie”

“Look at this”

Hans put his phone right in front of her face. It was a video for a group of people sitting at a table on the streets of Brazil, then a motorcycle pulls up, kicks the table over and the people scatter.

“The Brazilian Government isn’t taking this seriously. So the Brazilian gangs are. Isn’t that wild?”

“Jesus, that is wild. Why isn’t the Government doing anything about it?”

“Because the guy is an idiot. At least the gangs have some sense”

Amelia didn’t mind this news, it was informative, entertaining, and justified. Hans always enjoyed showing her things he found interesting. It was a love language for him. For his interest are wide and vast, so when he brings people in close, he shows them what makes him excited to be alive.

It reminded her of her little cousin. Running up with bugs and creatures he found in the yard, excited to depart knowledges to her. And then, the case to stay got stronger. As the imaginary court room in her head roared with a tally going in his favor.

Hans didn’t stop with the first video, skipping down to the next video which was a cute one, of a cat and it’s owner high-fiving.

“What do you want to do for dinner?” Hans said with a large smile on his face.

“I don’t know, what are you feeling?”

“Mhmmmm” He said as he wrapped his arms around her and look up at the ceiling as if he was thinking really hard.

“How about subs?”

“Perfect”

Hans went to the kitchen and started to pull out sub bread, cheese, meats, and two bags of sliced peppers. Never getting tired of cutting into fresh bread, a memory from his past flooded into his mind eye. A scene from his childhood that intrusively breaks in his mind eye in still moments. Coming home while his family lived in East Germany during the horrible acts of the Stais Zersetzung attacks on his family. Sometimes his favorite toys and teddy would be gone, family pictures missing, and sometimes his sister and mother would go missing for weeks. Just living his father and him alone, just waiting for the Stais to attack again.

Taking a sharp breathe in bring him back to his apartment, in America, with Amelia, away from the horrible events of the savage and brutality of the Stais. His hands moved automatically cutting the bread down the middle and layering in the meat and cheese together. He could hear Amelia foot steps coming closer down the hallway. He shook his head again to make sure those horrible memories were truly cleared from his mind, as if the very presents of them would bring them back. He reached for his phone to truly clean the mental state with whatever could distract him.

Just as Amelia passed the threshold into the kitchen, Hans held his phone right in front in his face as he read intensely at some “breaking” news story. Her face was already twisted with annoyance with the sight of his phone in his hand. Just as he did just moments ago, she took a deep breath and went to the fridge for a drink.

“Are you going to be on your phone all day? Like yesterday?” She said to the fridge but obviously directed towards Hans.

Thrown off guard by this attack, he quickly moved through the proper responds to this aggressive inquiry.

He thought if i lie I’ll be able to apply importance to me looking at my phone, however this wasn’t important. she’s mad so is it safe to be honest with her? Or does she just want to yell at me. Just say sorry, she doesn’t get this angry without compounding reasons. You don’t want this fight. Shes got ammo and a line on you. No reason to be shot down before dinner

“I’m sorry” He answered back, locked his phone and slide it in his pocket. “Phones gone, I’m sorry I can get a little obsessive”

Thank fucking god he apologized. Amelia thought to herself as she let out a tightly held breath. “I didn’t mean to snap, I’m sorry too. Just felt a little shut out yesterday thats all” she final said too him, turning around to face him with the fridge still open.

Hans turned around with the completed subs in both his hands. “It’s okay, I’ll try to be more attentive when I’m not working. Since I’ll be working from home, we can come up with hours and times we can just have personal time. No screens or distractions.” He said as he placed the two plats on the table standing back nervously.

She watched him do his little nervous actions, she smiled as her eyes bounced from him placing the plats down and then to his face.

“Thank you, I just felt a little shut out yesterday” she said

“I can’t promise that won’t happen again, but I will promise to be more conscious about it.”

She nodded and smiled, this was the best out come of a micro fight. The two ate they’re subs at the table for awhile, then moved to the living room to watch a few episodes of a yachting show.

With the sun setting and the two yawning together, Amelia suggested bed before they fell asleep uncomfortable comfortably on the couch.

The next morning Amelia bounced awake as she normally does, Hans still asleep twitching every few seconds in his sleep. Gently getting up she felt a sense of happiness as she approached the kitchen. Even before coffee, the care of her plants, and the brief writing she had to do of the coming pandemic. She felt as if she could dance on the thinnest layer of air. Preparing coffee and tending to the plants in the living room the smile grew and grew on her face. But as she waiting for the water to boil, something caught her eye in the silver moonlight. Her new addition to the kitchen plant line up, the damage, near death snake plant she brought how had now grown into a full health snake plant.

Chapter 2

Hans woke to a phone call ringing on his phone. Illuminating the bedding around it like an emergency “red alert” light, at least it felt that way when Hans finally jolted up and answered the call.

“Hello….” He said in a raspy voice.

“Hans, sorry to call so late. It’s Adam, we have an emergency with setting up remote work, is it possible for you to come in today?”

Hans didn’t say anything at first, just rubbed his hands on his face and try to process what’s going on.

“Yes, give me an hour and I’ll be in”

“Than..” Hans hung up the phone before his boss or his boss assistant could say thank you. He typically knew if it was Andy, his boss, or Adam, his boss assistant based on the voice. But he couldn’t tell, or care who it was. Sleepy Hans moved even more on autopilot then distracted Hans. Yet, he still forced himself out of the comfy warm bed and made his way down the hall. Rubbing his eyes and yawning. The kitchen was lit up like a breakfast restaurant kitchen, the overhead light was on and a few living room floor lamps were moved in and hastily plugged into counter outlets. His eyes squinted and struggled against the bright light against the dark background of night.

“What’s going on?” He said out loud still rubbing his eyes awake.

“Oh! Why are you awake so early?” Amelia answered from a vantage point he couldn’t locate. She quickly appeared from behind the half wall separating the living room and the kitchen. Holding a table side lamp from the corner of the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“You remember that damaged snake plant I brought home a few days ago? Well look at it now!” Amelia was very excited to share the anomaly.

“…..What?….” Hans asked again as he supported his weight by leaning on a chair.

“LOOK” Amelia pointed towards the now vibrate plant sitting on the counter

“Oh, thats quick right?”

“Uhh, yeah its amazingly quick”

“Huh, Oh, I have to go in, thats why I’m up. Is there coffee ready?”

“Absolutely!”

Amelia poured him a cup and handed it to him.

“Why do you have to go in?”

“Something about Huh, something, I’m still waking up sorry” Hans chuckled a little as he sipped his coffee.

“Mhmmm, would you mind picking a couple of things up while you are out?’”

“Of course, do you mind just texting me what you need, just to make sure I remember it”

Amelia hadn’t thought of her phone this morning, from riding the high of waking up and the unbelievable discovery of her magically growing plant. Yet, the thought of getting her phone set an almost unnoticeable chill into her spin. Looking around the kitchen to see if she absently mind grabbed her phone when she left the bedroom.

She had to retrace her steps to the bed side table, where her phone sat full charged. Picking it up she tried to text the list to Hans, but had to bounce from social app to social app to YouTube where she got filled in on the news she electively ignored.

She stood in the dark room scrolling and watching content until Hans tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey baby, I’m leaving, I should be back before noon hopefully. Don’t forget to text me what we need, love you”

“Oh, I love you too. I’ll do that right now” Amelia said, only peering up at him as he kissed her forehead and headed out the door.

She quickly jumped over to the text messaging app and set him the list.

Milk

Butter

Extra bag of coffee

Condensed milk

Canned food (Just in case)

Eggs

Toilet paper

Ventured into the kitchen where she sat with her coffee and phone. While Hans stepped out of the apartment into the partially covered landing, the sun had just started to rise, turning the sky into the salmon colored he rarely got to see. It almost brought back a memory from his childhood, as he gazed into the horizon. Quickly stepping down the concert steps into the small parking lot and headed in the direction of his office building. The walk was a very pleasant walk, Porkland was a walkable city for the most part.

With basically everything they need in walking distance, Hans and Amelia didn’t own a car since they moved into they’re current residence. A decision they both made to save more money and live a more sustainable life. With in a few blocks Hans was out of the neighborhood streets and coming to the Main Street. Where they’re were most of the commercial buildings were. However, what he found was a deserted, empty, almost ghost town like street completely still. He looked at his phone to check the time, 7 am, a time that should be some what lively. He stopped for a second and took in this truly rare sight of what should be an explosion of life, now still as death city.

“Oh right, lockdowns” he said to himself and then remember all the requirements that were needed to be out.

He didn’t have a mask, but luckily there was no one out. Starting his walk again with a bit more urgency after the realization he was unprotected. With his leather shows providing an actual echo through the empty streets he took this rare moment to live as much in this time as possible. Within a few moments he could see his office building tucked away in between more large towers. His building was built out of this bright pink metal, making it look like a sour thumb sticking out of the grey and black skyline.

Looking up to his floor he could see only a few office lights on from the departments heads. The elevator opened to a dark and empty cubicle floor. With the only illumination coming from his boss office, Hans entered the small office to see the three other departments heads, looking worried.

“What’s going on boss?”

“Hans, thank you for coming in so early. We are in a bit of a pickle” His boss, Mr. Adams said. A tall over weight man who looked as if he drank a bottle of wine each night. With a bloated face and red checks, he typically looked jolly, but now, his face just whispered ‘I’m worried’.

“What’s going on”

“Well, nothing right now”

Hans felt his nerves hit his stomach like an atomic bomb.

Meanwhile Amelia was digging herself into a hole of social media and news. Until she leaned back and realized her back was sore from slouching. The sun was now blaring through the kitchen window warming the tile floor. For a brief moment she had forgotten the amazing mystery that happened last night.

The damaged broken snake plant now had full vibrate leafs. It might as well has been a giant green question mark. A endless possibility of how such a thing could happen, but none of them came to her mind. It was a black pit where not even the light of insight could shine out. Yet, she was the Sun of this apartment, bring light and life into everything she interacts with.

Getting up from the table she started to examine the seemingly normal plant, as if it held the secrets to the universe. Looking into the center of the plant where the towering leafs jetted out, she noticed it even had substantial new growth as well. However, the strange thing she noticed that sent her mind racing was the fact, these were not new leafs. Not all of them. The two tallest stocks were in fact the same damaged leafs as before, she knew that due to the strange pattern in the middle of the stock.

“How did you heal a damaged leaf?” She said to the plant, now examining it further as she could just see the tiny brown spots of damage pushed to the very edge of the leaf.

Something is very strange with this plant she thought to herself, turning the planter around and noticing that there was another small green point sticking out of the dirt. Yet, it didn’t have the same characteristics as the snake plant, noticing it was skinnier than the snake plant stocks and had a distinct different color of green. A more darker green then the snake plant. Moving the dirt around it, just enough to see if it was a germinated seed or attached to the plant. Yet, with the investigation into it’s origins she could not find where the small ‘vine’ like plant was growing out of.

Stepping back and rubbing her chin she mindlessly went to her phone and unlocked it, with the full attention to search “how would a plant heal it’s leafs?” But all she found was information she already knew, nothing remotely to what she meant. Annoyed with the lack of information she bounced over to YouTube where she was immediately distracted by a make up tutorial coving fall colors. Like a shy boy looking at the girl he had a crush on, stealing glances of the mysterious plant. Yet, not even her phone could distract her enough from the mystery. Putting the phone face down on the table, she got up and examined it again. This time a bit more aggressive, she was getting frustrated at the lack of information she could gather on it.

Probing around in the dirt with her two index fingers she found another buried vine waiting to emerge from the soil. This one was pure white and appeared to be very underdeveloped. She tried to examine it as much as possible with the naked eye before covering it up with soil again.

Hans came into the apartment empty handed, looking shell shocked.

“Wow, is everything okay?” Amelia asked, noticing the obvious facts that he wasn’t.

“I just got laid off”

Chapter 3

“What the fuck!? How could they lay you off, especially now! When the world is on fire!”

“They are restructuring the company, they laid off almost 90% of staff. It’s not just me, its everyone”

“Fuck”

Hans had stumbled to the kitchen table and slumped down in the chair as they discussed what happened and what’s going to happen.

“I have enough in saving to get use by for a year, I think”

“Yeah but that was money for our house, for our future”

“Well, we need it now”

“Fuck, this sucks.”

“And I forgot the groceries”

“Don’t worry about that right now, we have enough to get us by for this week. Let’s just get you on a good foot, heal those wounds, then we will worry about getting groceries”

Hans took a deep breath and let the comfort of Amelia wrap around him, as she hugged and kissed him every where on the face, till he had to push her back with a chuckle.

“Thank you baby, but looks like you are going to be the bread bringer for a little bit, just until I find a new job”

“We got this, you got this, and I got this” She said as she cupped his face and brought it up to her, his checks spilling over her dainty hands.

“God, I love you so much” He said.

“I know”

“Don’t Solo me! You can’t Solo someone named Hans, that’s just insane.”

“Oh! Do you want the dark lord gun you down in the Death Star trench? Or do you want a Yahoo!”

Hans laughed and said he wanted a yahoo.

“Don’t get cocky now kid” she said after a moment of silence

“Can we both be the Solo?”

“I believe so, we all need someone to cover our back in the Death Star trench run. I’ll cover you this time, you’ll cover me when I need it.”

“Well, Yahoo then”

“How about this, I’ll make you some soup and grilled cheese, do you want to distract yourself?”

“Oh fuck yes, your okay with me zoning out?”

“Baby, I just don’t like it when it takes over your days, no one can be focused in all the time. Go heal.”

Hans got up from the kitchen table and got comfy in front of his computer. Opening all his social media sites. Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube were his favorite and he used the other social media apps on his phone.

While Amelia went to making canned tomato soup and started making grilled cheese as she listened whatever YouTube personality he got his news from. Phil something she thought to herself trying to place the high-pace, quick cut, and weird sound effects. It wasn’t as bad as mainstream news to her, but it was still annoying.

Yet, as the noise of modern news aside, she still stole the occasional glance at her plant and thought to herself when would be a good time to talk to Hans about it.

With the red soup boiling now and the grilled cheese golden brown, preparing for a delicious, soul healing, and happiness.

“Hans! We got hot soup and grilled cheese!”

It took a few seconds for Hans to emerge from the living room with his head down in the phone. The two sat, Hans put down his phone and said thank you for the meal before dipping the grilled cheese in the soup.

“Wasn’t there something weird this morning?” he said looking up after a few bits

“Yeah, I was waiting to tell you, you know that new plant I got? Well, it healed itself, look.”

Hans looked over to where Amelia was pointing and had a hard time comprehending what he was looking at, it was a normal looking plant that apparently had grown from a disgusting mess into a health plant.

“How does that happen?” Han ask

“No idea, tried googling it nothing came back. A true anomaly, baby”

“Wow, not even google can give you a good answer”

“What do you think?”

Hans leaned back in the chair, tucked his hand under his chin and looked up in the direction towards the plant.

“Could it be something with the soil maybe? Like something new or unexpected making the plant grow in such a way?”

Shit, why didn’t I think of that Amelia thought.

“That’s a good point, I definitely discounted that fact due to the low quality soil that typically come from hardware stores”

Hans got up and looked up into the plant and examined it a bit. Picking it up, rotated it and examined all around the base, sides, and top of the planter.

“Well, I don’t see anything weird with the outside. Could it be like a type of fungus or some sort of parasite type of thing that’s making it grow like this. Like those invasive species of vines… what are they called again? The ones that swallow up forests and stuff, its all over the south right?”

“Kudzu?” She said

“Yeah, Could it have something to do with that?”

“Maybe, but then that’ll me it’s a completely new species I think.”

“Well, you know people are picking up diy projects to focus on over lock down, I think your covid project fell into your lap”

Amelia didn’t say anything just watched Hans examine her mystery plant and place it gently on the counter. Then preform his required actions to get his phone to his face.

They finished eating while Amelia say quiet for most of the day, deep in thought about the plant. There’s something really off about this plant, but it was present enough to notice.

The next morning. Amelia woke and proceeded in her ritual. Quickly and quietly making her way out of the bedroom to the kitchen. With the silver moonlight illuminating the small apartment creating long fingers of shadows from her plants. Casting a dark jungle of shadows on the walls.

As the stove coils started to glow red under the kettle she took time to look around the dark kitchen as she woke up. With the only life coming from the stove top light she looked around the kitchen and living room for anything out of sorts. All her plants were vibrant green and healthy, even in low light. Nothing stood out at first, until she got to her mysteriously quick growing snake plant. It hadn’t grown taller, but wider. Spreading out to the edge of the planter with fresh new stocks sprouting out of the dirt. All of the new growth looked norma, expect she noticed something odd with two of the stocks. They weren’t quiet the same as the others, instead they looked like vines.

The hot water hissed, pulling her away from analyzing the budding mystery. With the coffee scoop scraping the bottom of their air tight container she knew that the luxury of freshly ground coffee in the morning was at stake. Tilting the container towards the stove light she looked to see how many mornings they have until they needed to go to the story. They had enough for three days it looked like, enough to not stress about it right now. Walking around the kitchen she check the cabinets, fridge, and pantry like a prepper. Hans had forgot the list yesterday but it was understandable and no reason to hold any grudge against him for it. Just the reality of going out in the middle of a pandemic freaked her out. They had enough to theoretically scrape by for a month, with dried and canned food, pre ground coffee and teas, and some frozen meats in the back of the freezer that had been forgotten about.

Taking a deep breath she hated what she was doing, giving into the worst of her anxiety about the going to the store. In public with Masks. Accepting the new reality.

She tried to take in the full moment of drinking the first sip of coffee. As if it could be the last, like a death row inmate. The sun began to peek and another wave hit her, she has to work. Not that she didn’t work every day, but as a freelancer with a partner working a stable job, it was wiser for her to take more risky jobs that may or may not work out. She did have a stable income, but that stable part wasn’t going to pay for much, Hans had savings so it wasn’t full blown red alert quiet yet.

Finishing her cup of coffee as she quickly walked around the apartment eyeballing the soil of each planter. Then she went back to the bedroom, grabbed her laptop and set up on the kitchen table. With headphones in, coffee within arms reach, and she type furiously.

Hans had woke up naturally, but as a right of passage of being laid off, he raised his head, searched his brain for what he needed to do today, which was nothing, and proceeded to lay back down and get more sleep. He felt immediately depressed when he realized the reality he was in. Jobless in the middle of a uncertain pandemic. Fuck he thought to himself as he drifted back into a light sleep.

Amelia had drank down the French press and was on her last cup. It was even more bitter sweet pouring the last bit of coffee in her cup .Realizing that Hans would need coffee as well, placing it further way so she wouldn’t mindless drink. She went back to writing, finishing two pieces that were ready to go out to the blogs. Those were her consistent money makers, always good for a few hundred dollars of views. Now she switched her attention to the long investor letter a start-up had contracted her to write.

Hans emerged from the bedroom around 11 looking somewhat confused.

“Good morning baby, is there any coffee left?”

Amelia undid her headphones, said good morning, and pushed her cup towards him. She was still typing even as she acknowledged. He picked up the cup and headed over to his computer. Within a short amount of time he had at least six tabs open most of them being news and social media, but to keep the depression and anxiety of being a jobless looser he opened one more and type ‘remote accountant jobs’ quickly bounce to the more engaging tabs. As much as he wanted to see what jobs were out there, it was still a painful sight to behold for him. Like a break up he wasn’t ready to move on from.

The news was surprisingly light weight, almost wholesome. With most of the stories he was reading about fun projects and activists people were doing during lock down. The videos of people playing concerts on their front yards. All of it filled him with a sense of ‘shit, we may get through this even better’. But as he clicked over to world news, the sight of the rest of the world statue made him double down on that feeling. With the death total rising and the world map slowly turning completely red with lock down states.

“Hey sweetie, we are going to need groceries sooner than later” Amelia voice came from the kitchen.

Shit Hans thought as he realized he had forgotten completely to do that yesterday, but he reminded himself why he forgot. Which gave him a bit of a landing to forgive himself on.

“If you get a list ready I’ll get the groceries. I think I saw something were you can order them only now”

Opening the tab to the grocery story down the street, he saw that they had in fact added an area were you can order your groceries online.

“Do you wanna come look at what we need and can get?!” Hans said leaning over from around his computer.

“Yeah hang on”

He could hear Amelia typed hard, as if she was angry at her computer. But she landed on a good spot to stop and went over to Hans computer desk. They went down the website list picking out what they need and what was available.

“Alright, so it should be ready to be picked up around 4pm” Hans said clicking the submit button.

“Perfect, well, I’m down with work now, wanna watch a movie?”

Hans took a minute to answer back, he was bouncing from web page to web page.

“….Yeah, what movie do you have in mind?”

Hans was becoming more and more distracted with his dives into news.

“Deep blue sea”

“…wait what?” Hans was a little shocked, it was his favorite ‘sick’ movie to watch and the thought of watching it now brought him back to a sense of a teenager.

“D.B.S baby, lets get comfy and settle into a world wide sick day”

Hans smiled at Amelia and said “God damn, I love you so much, that is exactly what I need”

“There is only two things I know well, how to care for plants and how to care for you. I love you too, come on, lets cuddle” She ran her hand down from his shoulders down to his hand which gripped the mouse. Leading him to the couch where they settle.

Yet, it didn’t take long for Hans to take out his phone and start the same process which began at his computer. Endless scrolling and endlessly distracted. She could sense his consciousness slip away to algorithms, not even his favorite movie with his girlfriend in his arms could keep him fully on this couch.

“Can you please watch the movie with me” Amelia desperately asked

“I’m sorry just got a notification on a potential job” Hans lied to her, but he needed to be distracted, focusing on just one thing he’s seen over and over felt like torture.

Amelia didn’t know it was a lie, she accepted what he just said, yet it still bothered her, because she knew that was going to be his main excuse for awhile. Notifications that were important for his future.

He finally locked his phone and placed it face down on the coffee table, just as Skarsgard got his arm torn off. Amelia took a deep breathe and cuddle closer to his chest. But, every single time his phone went off with a notification, he would check it and be distracted, then watch some short form content on Tik tok or YouTube shorts. It was the double sound of the television and Hans phone that drove Amelia most mad.

Annoyed she opened her phone and started in on the same habit she despised so much. It did distract her from the odd reality of everyone having they’re own personal screens with a bigger screen to fill in any gap of silence. A literal mad house with the inability to produce a single original thought. The movie ended and the two still laid on the couch endless scrolling until Hans stomach started to growl for hunger. Mindless and almost as an animal blindly searching the ground for food. Opening the fridge, cabinets, and pantry to find nothing to quickly grab. Amelia was getting annoyed with what she was seeing on social media and the internet. Stupid people post how shocked they were a pandemic was here, like they never opened a history book before. She thought to herself as she watched people slowly loose their minds on social media.

It caused a pit in her stomach as if she knew society was doomed from the lack of foresight. Eventual the pit made her physical sick, locking her phone and push her face down into the couch, trying hard to separate her emotions and thoughts from the rest of the world. I hate this fucking place, I hate the fact people are dumb and comfortable. I just want to have my own thoughts, my own emotions. I hate how everything is manipulating and plays to the lowest part of human emotion. Fear and anger. I’m almost always afraid and angry at something or someone I’ll never encounter. How can Hans look at this stuff all the time, how can he be plugged in at all times? How is he not mad? Her thoughts screaming in her head. Pushing out the garbage that had Accumulated from looking at shitty news media. It was the hand on her shoulder that brought her focus t the world.

“Are you okay?” Hans voice was warm and gentle like a summer breeze.

“I hate the world right now, I seem to only focus on the most negative aspects of things or, that is where my mind runs too. A story about a drowning puppy being saved and I’ll search out for the one comment, the one phrase, the one person that just has to be a cunt and fixate on it.”

Listening to the words flow out of her like this worried Hans, as he had never seen her this upset over her own actions before. A rare sight of self awareness of a emotional mistake, like a alcoholic aware of their own mistakes. Running his hand down his face before he answered.

“How about you let me have your phone for awhile or for the rest of the day, just to give you a break from the chaos.” He said as he carefully moved her phone from her limp hand.

“I’ll just hold on it for today and see how it helps” he said as he kissed the small part of her face that was revealed by her hair.

“Thank you” she said after few seconds of silence.

Hans got up and placed the phone on his desk behind his keyboard and turned on a playlist he typically used to chill out. A mix of smooth jazz, hip hop beats, and slow tempo. Seeing her tuck into a nap position he sat at his computer and lifted the phone to his face.

While Amelia fell asleep.

Chapter 4

Amelia woke up in a long hallway with high ceiling. A red carpet covered stone laid floor with lighting coming from an unknown source above her. It was lined with fine paintings from her life, she could see her first memory painted in a mid-evil, rudimentary style. The closest painting was her entering into the kindergartner in Alaska. She was a young girl sitting at a table surrounded by other kids. The painting across it was of her meeting her first friend and longest known friendship, Amanda. As she walked down the seemingly endless hallway she took time admiring the detail of each painting, each life event so elegantly captured and the more recent the memory the more detail in the frame.

Once she passed her teenaged memories she could see where the hallway ended. A distant light shined down on a podium that held a planter. However, she was already looking at her modern memories painted in almost photorealistic quality. The last painting was her asleep on the couch with Hans sitting at his desk looking at his phone. The rest of the paintings were completely blank canvas, she kept moving now only focusing on the podium which the closer she got the more a green steam grew out of it. With each step it grew taller, sprouted leafs and flowers. Until she got to three steps that lead up to the podium, now the top of the plant reached up to the ceiling. Reaching her hand up towards the steam it bent down in a mirror like fashion to her, on top of the steam was a large bud that stopped in front of her. Resting on her open hands, the bud open to a flower the rippled in amazing color. As if the peddles were made of rainbow light, dancing inward towards the center. As it slowly unfolded the flowers center revealed a small infinite sleeping peacefully.

It looked like her and Hans child, if they would have one. Her red brown hair, his noise, her eyes, his pale skin. It was definitely their child. She felt a longing towards it, as if it was forming a bond to her. Then it opened his eyes looking directly at her. Deep green surrounded by brown outline, it had an intensity and a friendliness that were beyond his age. As if it truly was a old soul trapped in a new born. She could feel love towards him, growing like the morning sun casting light over a dark landscape.

Break the cycle, it needs correction it spoke in a doubled voice

Amelia jumped awake to pitch black living room. She could still feel a lingering love for the unnamed child, but it was fading as she came to realize it was a dream. Taking deep breathes looking around she could see the bedroom light on down the hallway. Getting up she went to the bedroom stumbling down as Hans typical does in the morning.

She discovered Hans asleep with the light on, his phone on his chest. She yawned, turned off the light and laid back down next to him. Feeling all the strong emotions from her dream but the perspective remained. She never thought of being a mother in her mid twenties, she knew woman a few years older than her seemingly bitten by the hormone bug to reproduce. But was this it? Was this how it started?

She wrapped her brain around the dream trying to find meaning and logic in it. However she didn’t get very far, falling asleep next to Hans who was fully clothed still.

Amelia woke up at twilight, with the sky turning dark navy blue, Hans had kicked off his pants and shirt sometime in the night and his phone was on the floor. Amelia sat up and scratched her head as she searched for a motivation to get up. Coffee and plants was the only thing echoing in her mind, she didn’t even think of the crazy dream or the break down she had yesterday. She didn’t look for her phone and had no desire to even check it.

Stepping into the kitchen, shaking the sleep from her eyes. She turned on the stove top and placed the kettle on it as she moved to the living room to check her plants. They needed water, she didn’t even have to check all of them to know what they needed. Turning back to the kitchen she walked to the sink and thats when she noticed the strange, quick growing snack plant had done something, she again, didn’t expect. The stocks of the snake plant now reached the ceiling and the neighbor plants had grown large versions of their leafs as well. The money plant and the Swiss cheese plant had new growth just from the last few days that had doubled in traditional size. Examining them woke her up more then coffee ever would, because she noticed a truly new plant behavior. The snake plant pot had sprouted something that wasn’t a snake plant. On each end of the potter a vine had bridge the gap to the Swiss cheese plant and the Money plant. The vine was a dark green with light yellow stripes. A vine she was completely unfamiliar with.

Where the fuck did this come from? She though to herself. The water had started boiling which broke her concentration on the ever growing mystery on her kitchen counter.

Taking the few seconds to prepare her French Press she poured her self a cup and leaned up against the opposite end of the counter. Examining the massively growing plants near the sink.

Let’s see, how could this happen? I know of tree root systems in the wild sharing water during harsh summers and fires. But how is a vine jumping to different plants? That have different water needs, light and nutritious needs? And again, how could this all happen within a night? Thinking back to her last night experience she couldn’t place the time she walked past the kitchen or if this phenomenon had already happened.

She finished her first cup and before she poured herself a second she checked the rest of her plants in the apartment. Tending to their needs she came back to her original spot and kept picking at the mystery by the sink.

She didn’t know how long she starred at the plant, long enough for Hans to wake up on his own again and stumble down the hallway.

“Morning baby, what are you. OH” he said as he noticed Amelias sight, followed it and had a similar shock she had only a few hours ago.

“Yeah, it happened again.”

Hans poured himself a cup of coffee, tipping it dramatically to get every last drop of it. Then he leaned against the counter next to her.

“I take it that this isn’t normal behavior for plants right?”

“Not even close, I really feel out of my depth with this one. I may need to call a actual scientist or something”

“I think they are busy with solving covid, do you have any theories?”

“Well, plants sharing water with each other is common with some tree species, like you said it could be a new vine that create rapid growth. But I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Should I break out that old microscope?”

“What old microscope?”

“The one we got at the state sale a year ago?”

Amelia thought back to that day was a lost in a sea of experience, that day they caught a movie, went to lunch and ended with a walk around the neighborhood. Where they found a state sale being held. As a act of pure instinct they checked it out as they walked by. The person appeared to be some sort of scientist, they had models of body parts and weird paintings. Hans was the one that picked up the microscope with a boyish excitement. While Amelia found a lamp she liked.

“Oh right, where did we put that?” She said

“It’s in the closet, I’ll dig it out later today if you want?”

“I would like that, I guess I should document this discovery huh?”

“I mean, I would. Do you know what this could lead too?”

“Large house plants? Probably a couple of thousand dollars on Etsy.”

“Well yeah, but what if you could apply this to like an apple tree? Or cannabis? I mean think about the effects it would have if we could grow apples the size of tables.”

Amelia didn’t say anything at first and focused in on Hans face as he drank his coffee looking at the large plants.

“What?” He said as he noticed her stair

“I’m just happy you still surprise me from time to time” she said with a cheeky smile

“Hey now, you forget, I’m a smart cookie sometimes”

“I love you so much” she pulled on his shirt indicating she wanted a kiss. He leaned down and kissed her deeply. “Are you getting hungry?” She added as they backed away.

“I’m probably good with just toast, I ate late last night.” Hans said, careful not to bring up the few displeasing facts from last night. He didn’t want them to jump days, she was already in a good place of discovery. She didn’t need social media, news, and most importantly. Her phone. It would fuck up the roll she’s on.

“Oh yeah, why didn’t you wake me up last night when you went to the bedroom?”

“Well, you just looked so peaceful and I didn’t want to fuck it up. I’m sorry if that bothered you.”

“It’s okay, I probably needed it and I guess I need my phone today too”

“Hang on” Hans said as he walked to his desk. He came back to the kitchen with Amelias phone and handed it to her. A bit hesitantly. But she only opened the camera and started recording and taking pictures of the anomaly. He watched her trying for different angels of the plant saying “Can you stand by it for perspective?” Which he gladly did and put on a big goofy smile like a happy child who was holding up a fish he just caught. Then his phone went off with alerts and messages after he had plugged it in to the charger. With in a few seconds the sound of YouTube news personality’s and short form content from his phone filled the air.

Hans didn’t mean to sit down at his computer, but a new story about rampant looting and lawless acts caught his attention.

“Hey baby where is the microscope?”

“Uhhh, hang on baby”

Hans was learning about the spreading violence in his city and it was making him think critical on the state of the world. For some strange reason a child like fear formed deep in his stomach, as each word he read slowly unlocked a repressed memory from his father storming the Stasi headquarters. The smashing of windows and the screaming, men being thrown from windows and landing like broken dolls.

“Baby?” Amelia’s voice was getting more tense

“What?!” A snap from Hans was almost an knee jerk reaction as he was thrown from his childhood trauma to current events the to annoyed girlfriend.

“Never mind, I’ll get my fucking self. Just where is it?”

“Hallway closet, just give me a second please”

Fuck he thought to himself as he covered his face. I shouldn’t have snapped, fuck, I hate the fact I even have that in me. She was just asking for help and I just needed a second. Why can’t she just give me a second sometimes? Fuck. I wish I had just done what she asked. I hope she isn’t scared of me now he thought to himself rubbing his mouth and forehead. As if he was in agony.

He heard the hallway closet open and Amelia struggle to search for the microscope. Boxes being slide out onto the hardwood floor and large being unzipped. I should go help, but I’m sure she doesn’t want my help he though to himself. Until the grunt and a loud crash came from the hallway. He raced through the kitchen and found her on the ground with a large duffle bag on top of her.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, just go back to your fucking shit” she said glaring at him.

I deserved that he thought, but didn’t say anything. Just calmly bent down, helped her up.

“I’m sorry, I was just in a middle of a….thought, I didn’t mean to snap.” He said

“Thank you, are you okay?”

The question took Hans back.

“Yeah I’m just a bit short due to…..not being productive.”

“Well, wanna help me find the microscope, that’ll be a good start to making me never bring up the ‘snap’ again”

“Deal, lets see, I’m pretty sure it’s in this box here” He said as he stepped into the closest and reached to the top self.

A very colorful package fell down to Amelia’s feet as Hans struggled in the closet. Picking it up it was fireworks from two years ago. “Whoa, remember when we got these?” Hans looked down and saw her examining the firework box.

“Oh yeah, were we saving those for New Years or the 4th?”

“It was for the 4th, I think it’s from when we first got together and you wanted to make sure I had a good 4th. Since you know, I’m not from here”

“Ahhh yes, I remember now, we were going to a bbq and catch a baseball game”

“The only thing that was missing was an apple pie.”

“Why didn’t we do those things?”

“Well” Hans said turning around to face her, he found the microscope and was presenting it to her like a new puppy. “We just ended up being with each other. Which was a way better experience”

Amelia took the microscope from Hans and kissed him. “Now, you need a project” she said with a smile.

“Oh I know, but I think my new project should be getting groceries in the morning”

“Why are you going in the morning?” She asked while she moved into the living room and started to unbox and setting up the microscope on the kitchen counter.

“Less people, less anxiety I predict. What do you think you’ll find with that?”

“Well, I have two questions now that I know I can look at it under a microscope. Is what happening to this plant creating more cells or just enlarging them. I don’t know what that’ll mean or if it’ll make a difference. I want to know what’s going on. Thank you again for this, it really makes me feel… excited”

“Well at least you get to use that 5th grade science. What was the powerhouse of the cell? Mitochondria!”

“You just know that because of the meme. But yeah I’m going to have to brush up on that stuff”

“Well, I guess its better than panting an accent wall, or building something like I see most people are doing over the lockdown”

“Maybe you should pant an accent wall then, instead of rotting that amazing brain of yours with social media trash.”

Hans took a second to response to the friendly little jab. I need something just to get her off my case or at least give me some firepower he thought with a smile.

“When your right, your right baby” he said leaning back in the kitchen chair.

“Once again, I know” She said tilting her head and giving him the look of, I love you to much to let you indulge in self destruction on any level.

“So any idea on what pandemic project you are going to under take?” She added as she examined the towering snake plant.

“I have a few ideas, but I’m not ready to talk about them quiet yet”

Amelia worked with a smile on while Hans sipped his now cold coffee. I love when he’s present, it feels good, natural, these little islands of just us is why I can’t leave him. She thought to herself as she looked for a place to grab a sample of the snake plant. But when see looked over to where Hans was sitting, he wasn’t there and it didn’t take long for the sounds of scrolling past short formed videos and content poured from the living room.

Taking a deep breath she focused in on a malformed stock that hadn’t grown to the same heights of the others. Using a sharp kitchen knife she cut the top of it off.

Proceeding to examine it under the microscope was more challenging than she thought. She had a basic idea of what to look for, she thought. Just anything that looked weird, like they show in movies. A cell being infected by some sort of virus and it changes to something different. Wait, that was mostly in zombie movies

She opened her phone and had ever intention to going to a website about plant cells and structures. But there was a notification about one of her articles. It was rejected.

“Shit” she said as she got into a similar comfy position.

The email read.

“Dear AmeliaWaterPlants,

The article is well written and we would post it, however due to the influx of news articles surrounding Covid we are looking for a more unique point of view.”

Shes had rejection letters before but this time it felt a little more personal. Lack of knowledge on any subject she’s willing to write about was a deep cutting insult. She quickly opened social media on her phone for just the simple act of distraction. But she told herself it was for research.

Soon night fell and the two had sat in the same spot all day without noticing it. With Hans coming to the kitchen late in the afternoon to make a quick dinner. While Amelia got up to use the restroom and tried to quantify what she had consumed today into something to write about. But she couldn’t even get her own ‘voice’ to come out. Everything she tried to write sound as if it was a community of the worst aspects of herself.

She let out a grunt and dipped her head in her arms, now she was annoyed with herself again. Unable to even focus on a single task when she left the bathroom. She bounced from tab to tab, app to app looking for just an idea to attach some thoughts too.

12 things to do with your kitchen during the pandemic

10 things to do with your cat over the pandemic

4 new sexual positions to try over the pandemic

The top hitting articles on the blog site that rejected her made her even more infuriated. She took a deep breath and sat at the kitchen table. Now noticing the sliced plant and microscope she felt even more depressed do to her lack of time management. She could have done all the things she wanted and needed today.

“I’m going to bed” she said to Hans as he stood over the stove.

“Oh, did you already eat then?”

“I did.” she didn’t, but she wasn’t in the mood to even engage with food. Just mopping back to the bed room where she crashed and closed her eyes.

Hans knew something was wrong and thought about go back to check on her. But something told him that she needed space first. Turning back to cooking Ramon and observing what they’ll need from the store tomorrow, his social media consumption hadn’t set him in the easiest mindset either. With a steady stream of looting footage and hospitals staff looking exhausted. He was very nervous for tomorrow.

He ate his noodles over the sink while scrolled local news and new covid numbers, as small the numbers seemed and as tamed the news seemed. He felt the anxiety and fear of the world effecting the populace.

The next morning Hans was the first to wake up to his alarm. With all the craziness going on he decided to go right when the grocery store open, not just early, but so early it was still night out. Sneaking out of the bedroom for Hans provided to be much more difficult then he thought. Amelia was a light sleeper and didn’t like to wake up alone.

Once out of the bedroom he was able to straight his back and finish getting dressed. Moving quickly thought the hallway, past the kitchen to the living room and out the front door. Where he was meet with the still morning air, he was happy to see there wasn’t a soul awake. Just the last moment of night hanged in the air.

But as he walked towards the grocery store, he could see a small group lined up in front, waiting for it to open. Anxiety hit him like a strong espresso and a cold shower, he dived into his pocket and pulled out a mask as he waited at a distance for the story to open.

Patting his pockets he realized he forgotten his phone at home, a mistake he typically didn’t make often. Yet the consequence of his absence mind was now his memories and trauma had free range in his minds eye. He took a deep breath and tried his best to live in the moment. But the horrible memory of him and his dad come home to an empty and lifeless home. Unaware of where his sister and mother were, his dad running from room to room looking. When he asked his neighbors if they saw anything they slammed the door in his face. A typical move he learned what the Stasi would do. Spread rumors, lies, making your friends turn on you.

His father drank that night, drank so much he pissed himself while he was sitting at the kitchen table.

The opening of the grocery store automatic doors snapped out of the memory before it got too bad, he shook it off like a pile of snow on his head and proceeded into the store.

Amelia woke up to cabinets being closed and paper bags being rattled. The smell of fresh brewed coffee was enough for her to move directly to the kitchen, where she found Hans trying to put away groceries quietly.

“Oh shit, did I wake you up?”

“Yeah but it’s okay, when did you get up?”

“Uhhh, like 3am I think?”

“Jesus, what time did the store open?”

“Uhhh, like 5 I think. I can’t remember, its fucking scary out there though.”

“Oh there was a crowd?”

“Yeah, next time I’ll go just before they close, maybe it’ll be less then.”

“I don’t like that idea, did you get everything?”

“Just about, just no paper towels, milk, or bread. But I got work arounds, shop towels, condensed milk, and tortillas! We can eat how astronaut’s eat. What do you think?” Hans was very pleased with himself and Amelia couldn’t help but smile at him with the vibrancy of a sunflower.

“Successful mission baby” pulling his shirt down for a kiss.

“Oh yeah, the plants.” Hans pulled back and moved out the way so she could see how much they had progressed and progressed they did. The Swiss cheese vine had unfolded its massive leaf and five more were newly sprouting as it climbed around the sink. The holes in the leaf were so large Amelia could easily put her arm through it. While the standard ones she couldn’t put her pinky through it. The money tree had stretch all the way to the ceiling. With the leafs spiderwebbing across, coving the over head light, dipping down to the stove vent. It fell in the most perfect way.

“Holy shit”

“Yeah I know, I mean, you have to like film this and put it up on social media or YouTube at least”

Amelia thought about it and hated the idea of it. The comments, that wants to see it in person, the disputing it.

“Maybe later, maybe after things calm down out there. With the world shut down I don’t think people need to know what’s going on in here. Right?”

Hans looked puzzling at her, “Whatever you say.” he said with a smile and went back to admiring how impressive her plants have become. The vine had also stretched to two other planters, one around the other side of the sink. The other on the corner counter by the living room.

“Jesus, it looks like it’s seeking out plants. What is weird is the fact it hasn’t grown in a ‘wrong’ direction. Each direction it’s going is towards a plant. Isn’t that weird”

“Yeah I guess, do you think they it’s some kind of plant intelligence?”

“Well, maybe, I know fungus has this type of property, but it’s still based in somewhat traditional hunting patterns. Search for food, find food, restructure for optimal efficiency. But this is almost as if the plant are using scents, maybe?” Amelia trailed off as she was consumed with thought and Hans was now consumed with his phone, looking at the rising covid numbers. As the two slowly settled into they’re place.

It was only again the sound of news, social media short form content, and late night show host. She let out breath in annoyance and went to find her headphones. However, was she was able to block out Hans horrible habit of not thinking for himself. She was able to laser focus at her task.

On a paper she wrote out the list of thoughts and theories she had about the phenomenon. ‘It could be a new kingdom all together, a link between plant and fungus? It could have been a seed, spore, or nod left in the pot with the snake plant and with proper care it can… expand growth? I’ll have to get a sample from the vine in order to know what it is for sure.’ She opened her phone and googled ‘relationship between fungus and plant’ and found that mycorrhizae means fungal root. A symbiotic relationship that helped the plant get nutrias and water. Here we fucking go she thought as the excitement of finding just a acknowledgement of what is happening in her kitchen. But it quickly faded as she still saw no examples of plants growing absurdly large due to it. Just healthier.

Going over to the snake plant that started this whole adventure, she poked around the planter, but by now, it had been completely covered. Filled to the edges with stocks that were thick, and even some what sharp. The more she parted the snake plant stocks the more her hands would come back with the tiniest cuts. Almost like paper cuts.

Eventually just looking at the Swiss cheese plant pot, where she could at least still see spots of soil. Digging her hands in the soil around where the vine had entered was challenging given it had almost entangled itself in the Swiss cheese vine. It was impossible to know if what she was feeling was the nod from the Swiss cheese vine or the nod from the strange vine. Also she didn’t want to disrupt the growth in anyway.

After all this could be a billion dollar discovery she was trying to understand. Yet, no luck and the more her fingers were in the dirt, the more her newly cut grew in pain.

“Fuck” she said out lout pulling her hand out and examining it. The light red cuts were now covered in dirt and she went to the sink too wash it out. Annoyed she ran into another dead end with finding the root system of the strange vine. She went back to examining the over sized plants. It’s strange, they have no stretch marks, or damaged from the rapid growth. She thought, she also thought that see need another cup of coffee in order to keep going. Thats when the idea came to her.

Chapter 5

Propagation she thought. With coffee in hand she went to find her pruning shears and while she started by grabbing her small glass tubes she had used in the past for over propagation. Realizing that they were too small for the giants. Having to find a large Tupperware container to even hold the steam up right. Then a smaller on to hold the water below the chosen steam. After she was done with creating the makeshift, massive propagation-holder. She looked around the kitchen at which one of her newly massive children would get pruned.

Hans was getting frustrated at the lack of news coming out, he wanted more information on covid and everything he got was either repurposed, rephrased, or a reactionary video. Take deep breaths as he ran into a wall of information. He opened his phone and started to small little mobile game as he put on an explainer video about how the global shipping industry worked. Rudimentary animations with a young sense of humor, tagging every little fact with an obscure reference to an anime. It was some what annoying to him for humor and information mixed. Especially humor that was so predictable, but he just need some understanding of the bigger picture. Still in pain from being fired he wanted to know more about the shipping industry, to see if, well, there was another angel to attack it from.

He held no resentment to his past employer, but what he did have was a curious mind and wanted to know if there was a work around. If there could be a work around to the problem at hand. Shipments were taking too long to clear customs. That was definitely one side of the problem, the other side was manufacturing, which since the pandemic had slowed to an almost complete stop. This was an interesting problem for Hans to wrap his brain around and an idea came into his head. Self scanning containers and he opened a new word document and started typing. But just as he started, Amelia called for him in the kitchen.

“Hold on baby” he said, typing furiously

Fucking asshole, Amelia thought as she struggled to hold up the massive Swiss cheese leaf that she was going to try and propagate. Hold on was quickly becoming her least favorite phrase in the English language. Fuck it, she thought as she started cut the top nod of the Swiss cheese vine. But it felt like cutting down a small tree, supporting the leaf with her arm above her head. With a great amount of effort she was able to separate the leaf without any major damage. However, a really strong smell came from the fresh cut. Like a concentration pine smell, it made her eyes water a bit.

“thats odd” she said out loud as she stepped back and whipped her eyes clean. Even her hands had attached the strong odor. Yet, it didn’t sting her paper cuts like the dirt did, in fact, as she washed her hands for a second time. The thin paper cuts washed off as well, her hand was completely healed. As odd as it was, she didn’t stop and examine the strange green liquid that came from the fresh cut. Her mind was focused on propagation.

Now all that was left was to put it next to the living room window. Which was the typical spot she like to propagate, ample sunlight and the kitchen window had already a crowd of leafs blocking direct light from coming in.

Wrapping the bottom of the leaf with a wet shop towel she filled the large container with water and went into the living room to secure it in place in front of the window. As if it was a Christmas Tree stand. Once the base was secure she went back into the kitchen and with great struggle and careful to not damage the over sized leaf. She moved into the living room. With all the great effort and struggle a significant other SHOULD have notice and gotten up to help.

But Hans stayed at his desk, typing furiously and bouncing from web page to web page. Unaware of the looming fight and massive leaf that now blocked the window. “Hey” she said glaring at him, Hans turned around with a equally hostile glare.

“What” He said

“I could have used your help”

“Yeah I said hold on, I was in the middle of something”

“Your always in the middle of something and I got a secret for you. IT’LL BE THERE WHEN YOU GET BACK FROM HELPING ME!”

“Some I’m supposed to drop everything to run to your aid?”

“No not all the time, but dude, it’s been like the last six times I asked for help and all I get is a ‘hold on’”

“Yeah, that means WAIT. I’ll be up to help IN A MINUTE” Hans now stood up from his desk

“But it’s never a minute, I just want some fucking assistants every once and the while. I don’t ask for a lot you selfish fuck!”

“Oh fuck you, I’m still looking for another job”

“On social media? When did you become a fucking influencer?!”

“I’m fucking sorry, I like to use it as a distraction! And information! I’m sorry you hate it, but I fucking get some enjoyment out of it!”

“Yeah? Well I use to get enjoyment out of this relationship, but now it feels like fucking work.”

“Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but being with you is work too! Your not a fucking walk in the park either”

Amelia crossed her arms and tilted to one side “Yeah? What about me needs work? Because guess what cock sucker, I’ll fucking work on it. Unlike you!”

Hans was silent as he searched his brain for any example he could use. Shit, she really has done her best with me. He thought and his emotions that were a raging sea slowly calmed to a sorrowful glass top ocean. He sat back down in his chair looking defeated

“Alright, I’m sorry, but I do need space, sometimes you know? Especially with everything going on. I’ll try an be better. Thats all I can do, right? Just keep trying?”

“Whatever” Amelia said walking back to the bedroom, grabbing her phone.

Leaving Hans in the living room.

Amelia mindless scrolling social media desperately trying to distract herself from the horrible fight. She felt destroyed, but justified in her words. Yet, the thought of leaving him was ever more present then it’s ever been. She deserved to be listened to, to be understood, to be seen as a person with needs not just a item that could be put off on hold until he’s ready. She was feeling sorry for herself now, after years of being with this man how had she never notice such a dumb habit? Is it because he didn’t have a job right now? Is it because of the pandemic? There were too many variables to full lay the blame at his feet.

Not even looking at the feed she was mindless scrolling. Just looking for anything to bring her out of this moment and she found it. The very blog she was rejected from posted a article….looking for more writers.

“What the fuck” she said out loud now getting pissed. The comments on the post weren’t helping, all of them people eager. A sense of pure urgency over came her as she saw a wave of new competition block out the sun of her consistent well being.

Sitting up in bed she looked around for other types of freelance work she can explore. But a video of a well dressed lady discussing passive income. Which gave her somewhat a feeling that was close enough to hope, but she still felt heavy in her heart. As if her whole world was crashing down around her. Society, her job, her relationship, the only thing that was bursting with life being her plants. Almost as if the plants themselves were sucking the good vibrations right out of the air. That would explain the growth she thought.

As she scrolled and go through social media, she was unable to prevent the feeling of slight annoyance and frustration rear it’s ugly head. Becoming fixated on one irritating short form creator that just stood in front of the news with a robe and a coffee cup. Looking absolutely shocked, she didn’t know why it bothered her so much, maybe it was the fact that if you are shocked over a pandemic then you haven’t looked at history. Yet she couldn’t help but hate watch and looks for comments that at least refuted her distain for this stupid fuck. When she couldn’t find anything she would write out a longe hateful paragraph in the comments and then exit the app out of disgust. Then reopening it and finding something she actually enjoyed. Cute animals, plant care, book recommendations, cooking recipes that were easy and efficient. But then, something would come up that would make her fixate on just being annoyed. As if a wet blanket was dropped over her head for the rest of the day, unable to think of anything past getting dry, getting past hate. She could see the rest of her time slowly become reclaimed by people she’ll never meet.

“Hey” Hans said from the doorway.

“Hey”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“I just want to be heard, I’m sorry for yelling and swearing at you.”

“I deserved it, I will work on that. But also you know I’m still trying to find work right? I have to dedicate some time to it”

“Of course I know that, I’m just asking for an island of a moment.”

“Okay, I just needed you to know my side of it” he said and laid down next to her.

“Can you take this away from me?” She lifted up her phone, peaking out from her shoulder like a moon.

“For how long?”

“I don’t want it for the rest of the pandemic. Just put it in your desk, I have my email and text going to my computer anyway. Just give me a rundown of the news each day”

“I can do that, are you okay?”

“I just don’t like how it makes me feel, I just need a break”

“You got it, I’ll just put it in my desk drawer“

“Thank you”

Hans took the phone, put in his back pocket and wrapped his arms around her, she welcomed it and drifted to sleep.

Chapter 6

Hans kept scrolling while Amelia slept next to him. Happy to be in the land of understanding, instead of the hellish landscape of misunderstanding and resentments. Before I forget, I should put her phone way he thought. Getting up without looking up from his phone and moved to the living room. It was closer to 9 pm and the apartment was dark, cold, and with the large then life plants looming in the kitchen, it took him by surprised to find it even more crowded then before. A section that was once clear now had over grown stocks reaching up towards the ceiling. With in no time this whole area will be consumed by Amelia jungle he though to himself as he quickly passed the kitchen. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of Amelia being some sort of plant goddess. The effect of growing large crops could be called the Amelia Affect. He kept playing with the idea as he slide back in his desk drawer and stuffed the phone in it. Closing it like a ceremonially tomb, sliding his fingers on the edge of the drawer. Lost in thought he tried to list what was going to come next for him. The undefined days were starting to get to him and the endlessly scrolling and bouncing had effected his attention.

Tomorrow I’ll send out my resume to more job openings

I’ll work a little bit on that self scanning shipping container idea

Maybe even look at freelance work

He thought a list of three things to focus on tomorrow. Job applications, shipping container idea, and looking at freelance work. Even just having a simple list to check off made him feel better. Now he just need to set a deadline for himself and he’ll feel okay enough to hopefully fall asleep.

It’s only three things, so lets say I’ll be done by noon. He thought as he set an alarm on his phone, checked the front door, turned off the lights and headed to bed.

Once in bed though, he decided to see just what jobs were hiring and how much freelancers made. Not finding exactly the information he was looking, he decided to look up videos of independent accountants working freelance, to see if any vlogs or blogs would illuminate his curiosity. The few ‘point of life’ videos he found were entertaining enough to for him to relax too, which eventually made him fall asleep.

Only waking up to the sound of Amelia cooking in the kitchen. His phone dead on his chest. Even with the first few seconds of him being awake, he felt lost and confused on his objectives. The only clear need was to take a piss and get a cup of coffee. Amelia was playing aggressive punk rock for the morning, the artist was Circus Circus song First we feast, then we felony.

“Morning baby” he said stumbling out from the hallway.

“Watch out!” Amelia ran over, putting her hand on his head, forcing him to duck down.

“What was that?”

“The money tree leaf. It gotten even bigger, can you believe it?”

“Are you listening to Circus Circus?”

“I felt like music I liked from high school, this was on my Myspace page. But back to the plants, I don’t know if they have a max size. Which is crazy for a few reasons, something is creating more nutrients then ever before and more effective nutrients too. At least I’m guessing so.”

“Well, if you need any help let me know, I’m going job hunting from the comfort of my own living room” Hans said, grabbing a cup of coffee and settling in He still had a little bit of motivation from last night but needed to capitalize on it. But which to choose? Applications or refining his idea.

Opening multiple tabs and looking up job openings for remote positions only. While opening the word document he’d started before the fight with Amelia. Even opening it made him think of the fight, a distraction was needed. At least before he started anything seriously. Luckily his phone lit up after being plugged in. Diving into his social media rotation on his phone, he leaned back in his chair and started scrolling. After an hour or so he felt hungry and slightly annoyed he hadn’t done what he intended too. A feeling as if he was a bad employee to himself and a even worse boss. Unable to control his basic of habits.

Getting up he went to the kitchen where he saw Amelia working with headphones in, a smile was cemented to her face, unwaveringly as she peaked and poked at her larger then light plants. She had her laptop and mircoscope laid out on the kitchen table with a number of notebooks and a old plant book. With illustrations of plant cells that seemed very vintage.

“you hungry?” He asked as he tapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh, yeah. What do you have in mind?”

“Eggs and toast?”

“Inspiring” she said with a deep smile and a kiss on his cheek.

During breakfast Amelia explained all the goals she had planned out. She talked about them the way a proud parent talks about they’re child’s sports record. Excited, realistic, and hopeful. It made Hans feel not well. As if her bright golden mirror of promise was showing his flaws of lack of ambition and control. He almost wanted to say something degrading, but refrained from it. Instead he focused that almost disdained back to himself.

I have to do something today. He thought to himself. Seeing where this negative feeling was heading, he needed to avoid at all cost. But he listened intently to Amelia rattling off her ideas of the plants, now driven to not become his father. A kind man but unable to battle his own self consciousness image, which turned him into a violent tyrant. Smiling back at Amelia through his maze of contraindications and injustices. I have to be better for her was his last thought before saying.

“Well, if you need help, you know where to find me”

“Thank you for listening, I know you don’t care”

“Of course I care! I just have a hard time following you sometimes”

“Go have fun on your computer” Amelia chimed back with her classic smirk. It wasn’t cocky or all knowing, like a lot of smirks. But it was a smirk of approved disapproval actions. She put in her headphones when she got up from the table with both dishes in her hand and Hans was left to his own devices. Amelia was making the best of her time, now it was up to Hans.

He set a timer on his phone for an hour and sat at his computer with just the word document open. The blinking type indicator seemingly taunting him with each cycle. Finally he just started typing a general paragraph of the problem he is trying to solve for and the solution. Once he had done that he went along to write about the ideal manufacturing set up, programming required, and needed technologies. Most of the problems he could solve himself with a prototype. Now he had about two pages of notes and he felt pretty good about himself, he opened blender the free 3d software editor and started to create a render of his idea. He didn’t have much design experience, but enough to create a few blocks, change the color, and add some textures to make it look semi passable model. There was much more to go through, materials, building process, and wiring, just to think of a few. But right now, he felt as if he ran into a wall and wanted to switch over to the job hunt. Lucky apply for jobs was easier that it had been a few years ago. Able to apple for at least 10 jobs before his timer went off on his phone. Sitting back in his chair he recounted all the things he had accomplished, all with just a little bit of self control. Looking over to the kitchen he saw Amelia was still working too, or at least still focused in on her task. He sloped down into his desk chair, opened social media and started into his routine of consuming news and social news.

Amelia was now playing a electronic playlist to her typing about keeping the sex life alive and well during pandemic lock downs. But she had her plant book open, a botany textbook from the 80s. As some information may have been outdated she was mostly observing the cell structor and she felt like not much was really new since plant evolution was slow to say the least.

She now had multiple samples now and the propagation grown outside the container. White thin hair like new roots came out like angel hair pasta. Which was on her list to plant later today. However she did note some interesting behavior of the propagation, such as the fact the leaf still grow while propagation. As if it still had energy to grow while still having the extra energy to grow roots. The entire kitchen had became incased in massive house plants. Even the vines had grown in ways to support the massive leafs of the house plants, as if they were architectural designed and thought out.

Bending and arching around lights and cabinets in polite ways. The more she looked at it the more she thought it looked picturesque. As if the plants knew what cabinets were mostly used, where the lighting was, and it arched around the entrance. I hope it does this with the rest of the apartment she thought as she glanced around then wrote another line. Making her work pleasurable and the feeling of being in a private cafe with a over the top jungle. Like a jungle themed restaurant? Hotel? Theme park? Something unidentified and yet felt more home than home as the memory sat unconnected from others. She couldn’t tell you how she got there, how old she was, or even where she went after. But she remembered large plants painted on a wall, lit by black light, and had fun fast pass electric music playing. She couldn’t help but smile the more she examined that distant child memory. The more she smiled the more she wrote in her best hand, eventually swaying back and forth as if to be drunkenly stoned on the best wine and cannabis. A warm blanket of productivity, nostalgia, and new experiences all knitted together. When she was done typing she looked up and found she had wrote enough for a blog serious, which was good, meant more money if accepted. Shit, maybe even a book offer, that’ll be awesome she thought as she save the file. Got up, stretched and walked over to Hans desk. Where he was looking at his phone.

He doesn’t look happy she thought pausing in front of the door way. He notices her and his concerned face flashes to a face of a dear lover. A goofy grin and blood shot eyes.

“You look stoned” she said returning the smile

“I feel a bit stoned to be honest, I don’t think I got a lot of sleep”

“Really? Why don’t you take a nap then?”

“I just have a few more things to finish up and I might”

“Anything new to know in the news?”

“Uhh nothing really, unemployment numbers are at like a literally all time high which is crazy, but expecting”

Amelia shrugged her shoulders and rushed off the news with a true sense of detachment. “Wait, are you going to sign up for them?” She said with a change of her mood to a hopeful one.

Hans laughed at her

“So you’ll be supportive if I sign up” he said with a cheeky smile

“Well, I’ll care if you’ll do it. I signed off on anyone and everyone getting help when they needed it. But you know I’m only going to focus on my surroundings and go from there.”

“I think some people would call that selfish”

“I think some people need to mind their own business”

Hans got up from his chair and wrapped his arms around her. “ I think so too” he said just before kissing her.

“Have you been watching my propagation?”

“I’ll be honest, not at all”

“Very maternal, sweetie”

“They didn’t come from my Seeed!” Hans said in a make shift Texan accent.

Which always made Amelia laugh, she walk by him to the window and found another strange house plant event. The propagation had created it’s own habitat, the long, white, roots had cycled around and turned brown. Hard, almost as if it was exposed roots in the woods, which wasn’t there this morning. It had even started to spread to the other plants.

“Well, that’s a bit aggressive.” Amelia whispered out

“Wow, should we be concerned about this yet?”

“No it’s fine”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes baby, I don’t have anything in this apartment that could hurt a human”

“Mhmmm, so there’s nothing to worry about?”

“Nothing to worry about sweetie”

Hans stood in silence as Amelia darted around the large root like structure consuming the lower half of the wall. “Your worried aren’t you” she said not looking at him

“No! Baby, having quick growing plants in the middle of a pandemic seems completely..fine”

“I just want to see what’s going on with it. I believe this could be a very important thing”

“Okay, I trust you. I’m going to make us some dinner, what do you feel like having?”

Hans disappeared into the kitchen while she focused in on a strange colorful flower budding from the aggressive root system. “Hello” she said quietly as it appeared to be the flower from her dream, just not as surreal. White peddles held tightly in a spiral.

“How about pasta!” Hans said from the kitchen

Amelia didn’t say anything back, she was mesmerized by the flower, as before her eyes, she could see it start to open. Gently unfolding with the same stable movement, of a sunrise. Revealing the color of bright gold, purples, blues, and reds for the interior of the flower peddles. However, the bulb, the center of the flower. Was as white as bone with the center, looking as if it was an eye. A colorful circle with a black dot in the center.

When fully bloomed, the flower was a strange, but beautiful flower that smelled sweet like some sort of candy.

“Sweet heart?” Hans said again popping his head from the kitchen.

But Amelia stayed silent as she examined the flower, until he tapped her on the shoulder. Making her jump out of her haze.

Chapter 7

The jungle consumed the rest of the kitchen in two days. Turning the old apartment kitchen into something that would be grace a magazine cover. Some counter space stuck out like toadstools from massive trees. The oven, fridge, and other appliances looked as if they were newly discovered ruins from a modern house hold.

Amelia now found herself waking up with a sense of undiscovered excitement, as if she was discovering a untouched land of untold possibilities.

She would have a pot of coffee to herself while she emailed her clients and look after her plants. As it became more time consuming due to the sheer plant material that had expanded. Yet, she felt a pull to focus on discovering the mystery of her monstrous plants than writing about her pandemic shut down activities.

Which were mostly false. Her and Hans had the beginning marks of drifting apart, she hadn’t felt the need to tend to his needs or even entertain his wants. She was focused on making money and solving a mystery. Hans was busy with the news anyway, a very unattractive habit that was growing even more unattractive each day. His face buried in his phone just aimlessly scrolling, watching, consuming. He could have been looking for a job, not no one spends all day looking for a job on the internet. The last two days had been untethered and unquestioned Internet time for Hans. Which bothered her, but she understood. That was his thing and it wasn’t day drinking or using hard drugs all day every day. He just enjoyed collecting and massing information. Yet, she was afraid of the fact that her smile seemed to disappear when Hans woke up and came stumbling down the hallway. Which she heard his heavy footsteps fumble down the hallway.

“Morning baby” he said with a warm smile as he reached for a cup and ducked a large leaf.

“Good morning baby, how did you sleep?”

“I need to go to bed earlier”

you need to be get off your phone in bed she thought. But she said “You want to come to bed with me?”

Hans turned on the burner before and placed a kettle on it.

Yawning and resting on the stove he said “I may try that tonight. This is getting ridiculous”

“How late did you stay up?”

“4am”

“It’s 10am, you only got 5 hours of sleep?”

“Fuck… at least I finished my project, so I’m just going to chill for today. Maybe nap, but I’m definitely going to spend sometime reading a book. My eyes are so tired of screens”

this brought a smile back to Amelia’s face as she typed away and said

“I’ll read with you, we can have a lazy afternoon. Prefect way to end the day”

“That does sound nice, aren’t you going to ask about the project?

“Oh yeah, sorry the news that you were going to stay away from screens blew my mind, so I forgot to ask” she said turning around in the chair.

Hans smiled, walked over, grabbed the French press, all the while looking into her eyes, and said “It’s a cargo shipping container scanner, I actually think I have some good traction on it.”

“Oh yeah? Thats awesome, what’s the traction?”

“One of my friends works at a shipping company, not mine, or my old one I guess. But I know I’m not going to send it to my old company. But he wants to see it, he thinks it could really help his company out”

“That is some good traction! So what you’ll sell the idea to them?”

“I don’t know yet, I think I’ll figure that out today, weather to sell or lease out, no idea.”

“Well, sweetie, I’m hoping for the best, seriously, fuck your company, you deserve better”

Hans rested his head on Amelia shoulders and hugged her tightly. In his chest, he felt warmth and comfort. “I love you so much” he said into her ear.

“I love YOU so much” she said kissing his cheek.

“How’s your working going?” He asked as he pulled away and poured himself a cup of fresh coffee.

“Its good, it’s good, going back and forth with a publisher, the plant mystery is still hidden from me though. I get how the structure is formed, how the plants grow so large, but not the reason or cause of it.”

“So why are they so large, more cells or larger cells?”

“It’s hard to explain, they are different cells from what I could tell. Like look at this” Amelia said opening her plant book to the image of plant material under a microscope. Hans looked at the picture and saw green bricks lined up in a neat order.

“Now, look at the microscope, a slide of the large plant material is still in there” She said pushing him over to the microscope.

What Hans saw in the microscope confused him. Instead of neatly green bricks, it was a colorful chaos that didn’t look anything like a normal plant cell. He took his eyes from the microscope and pulled the plant book closer. Looking in and out, back at the book, then back into the microscope.

“That is really fucking weird, I wish I knew more about this stuff, but this doesn’t look like a plant cell”

“It looks like an animal cell” Amelia said with a image of an animal cell open on her computer.

Hans felt his goosebumps rise up from his lower back to his shoulders. But he didn’t know why, there was something to this strange growth in her plants, something that seems out of place. Hans thought

“So what do you think?” Amelia asked looking up at him

“Shit baby, I have no idea”

“Well you went to college didn’t you?” Amelia said with a tone that if you didn’t know her, would sound mean, but if you had more than 36 clocked hours with her, than you’ll know its a joke and her way of having fun with you.

“For accounting, not plant cell science”

“You didn’t have to take a basic science course or something? Come on man, I didn’t go to college! How do you expect me to figure this mess out without a degree!”

“I thought you did go to college?”

“This isn’t about me”

Hans laughed at how quick she was and Amelia smiled at him, she had at least 4 hours of awareness against him. She could play with him all morning.

“I’m sorry, if the cells start producing Microsoft spread sheets that are unbalanced I could help you out. But until then..” Hans said shrugging his shoulders.

“To be honest if I looked in that microscope tomorrow to see a spreadsheet I’ll feel relief for something kind of normal happening”

They bounced a few more jokes of each other before a slight silence fell on the kitchen table. Hans glaring at the microscope and he fell into a memory.

Coming home with his dad in East Germany to find his home not quiet like it was when they left. All there pictures had been rearranged, tiny details slightly altered, just enough to make his already fragile father more uneasy. It was that same feeling he felt as a child that he felt now. Looking at something that just didn’t make sense. He looked at it one more time in the microscope that thought this looks like technology.

It reminded him of a circuit board, at first it appeared as random and unordered as a pill of leafs. But he could see a order to it, but it was so faint that he couldn’t tell if he was actually seeing it or just apply his own sense of order to it. But he knew one thing for sure, this wasn’t random. Just like his childhood apartment, the Stasi may have fucked around they’re apartment at random, but every picture turned around was one of his mother and sister. This wasn’t random. This isn’t random. Someone is fucking around with purpose.

Hans quickly stood up and looked concerned. “Are you alright?” Amelia said reaching her hand over to him.

“Uhh yeah, I just need to, uhh, I’m going to take a shower. Sorry I just got lost in a memory.”

“Okay, are you sure your okay?”

“I’m fine, just going to take a shower and get ready to relax for the rest of the day.”

Hans screamed into a towel as soon as he got into the bathroom. Quickly turning on the shower and sink. He kept being thrown into his childhood memories.

Watching his father throwing things around the apartment, cursing at the wind, scared, alone, and just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen.

Then he was in his bathroom, in America, him clenching the towel hard and tears filled his eyes. But he got his breathing under control, looked at himself in the mirror, and took a shower. In the shower, he knew he need to talk about his childhood, but feared of the fall out. He tried talking to therapist and friends about it, but always found himself holding so much back, just giving small bits of information.

His family was targeted heavily by the Stasi’s, the secret police of East Germany. They kidnapped his mother and sister for “questioning” that last for 5 months. It cause his father to drink. But what it did for his young mind, was the worst of it.

Unable to truly open up for fear of unknown motives.

I need to tell Amelia he thought as he turned off the shower. But first lets check my notifications. Within a few seconds of Hans scrolling through his notifications and social media, he felt fine. Fully cemented in the current times. Stepping out of the shower he now sported a smile as he check news stories.

However, Amelia grin disappeared as she watched him walk right past her with his phone in his face and plopped himself right on the couch.

Chapter 8

Within a week, Amelia had secured a enough money from writing to keep them afloat for the next few months. With a book deal, a healthy number of page views, and a ghost writing project, she was happy to now turn her focus back to her ever growing jungle. Now the living room was slowly turning into a jungle as awesome as the kitchen. Her favorite plants, the Monstra, Crotons, Elephant ear, birds of paradise. All took to the extreme growth as her other plants did. She was happy to see that one elephant ear after the growth covered the entire wall by Hans desk.

Her birds of paradise large leafs stretched across the ceiling and the flowers were as large as her head. Each morning she couldn’t help but enjoy how thick, strong, and health all her favorite plants leafs had become. However, she found it more difficult to get to the soil of her plants, with how dense the brush had gotten around them. Eventually just deciding to water at one spot on each root system. Still testing her hypothesis that they are sharing nutrients with each other.

So now, she waters in one spot of a root system, there were two spots that had an open soil spot for her to pour water in. In the kitchen it was right by the sink, the living room was right by Hans desks. they were normal house plants, but now they were apart of a breathtaking jungle wall of massive leafs, colorful flowers that were the size of her head. It was as if it wanted her to take care of them in the easiest way possible.

The hallway was still normal, lined with plants and now she wished her hallway plants, bathroom plants, and bedroom plants all had the same system. Yet, she still loved take care of her non-infected plants. She now wait for Hans to roll out of bed before watering the plants in the bedroom. She knew what he was doing late at night and it didn’t disturb her, it was the inability to live in the moment. Unable to really see past that when he wasn’t in front of her, she frowned when thinking of Hans and sometimes, even forced a smile when he was there. She couldn’t fathom leaving him, but she felt happier in times alone than around him. When did this start? She though, could it have always been there? And the forced lockdowns made me confront it? Is just distraction keeping us together? If he lost his phone and I lost my plants. Would we even stay together? Feeling intense emotions over picture her leaving, Hans would be devastated and that hurt her as if a knife had been plunged into her heart.

“Fuck” she said grabbing her chest. She was wearing her morning sweater and for a moment, loved the texture of it, but it swept away to the pain of a horrible future.

One piece of writing she wildly refused to write was what she called “Cosmo clickbait shit” which were headlines like “How to keep a man happy, how to keep you happy, how to get away with a happy affair” “How to be the best you”. But now the question was more complex in her mind, she glared of into the distance by her coffee cup and computer as she felt that question grew. Dismissing every time she thought about articles of how to keep your man happy was as superficial and surface level as California reality shows.

She thought What if he isn’t happy either? Why is he always on his phone? I thought it was due to a shot to his confidence after being fired, but could it be something more? Is it me? Or is it the situation. He use to go to the gym and runs 3 times a week. He hasn’t done any of that. What can I do now? Or does he have to save himself? She contemplated the horrible paradox of happiness until Hans woke up at which before a good morning came out, she asked “Do I make you happy?”

Hans who was now standing in front of the fridge looking at her through tired eyes. “What?” He said shacking his head.

“Do I make you happy?” She repeated

“Is your plants the size of computer desk? That’s a silly question sweetie, you make me very happy. Where did this question come from?”

“Just thinking about stuff”

“Like what?” He said sitting down at the kitchen table

“Just a thought” Amelia lied-ish, there was much more to the question but she didn’t know how to translate it without it turning into a fight.

“You make me very happy, do I make you happy?”

“You do” Amelia said truthfully, with him in front of her, she really did love him.

“Good, have you already had breakfast?” He said getting up

“I had some dry cereal”

“Are we out of milk?”

‘Yeah, and about everything else”

“Shit”

“I’ll go with you this time!”

“Do you really want too?”

“No not really”

Hans laugh and said “its okay, I’ll go tonight, last time in the morning was crazy.”

“Why not mid day? I don’t like the idea of you walking around at night”

Hans looked over at her with a ‘seriously’ look grimiest on his face, as if she forgot Hans was tall, well built and with his facial hair coming in, looked even more menacing if he wanted to be.

“What?” Amelia said after he kept looking at her

“I think I’ll be fine baby, but thanks for worrying” He said with a cheeky smile

Amelia tried to force a smile, but her eyes read back to Hans as worried.

“It’ll be okay! Don’t worry so much baby, just a quick walk to the store”

“But at night”

“But at night, I’ll be careful”

“I really would rather you do it in the day”

“I just don’t want to be around crowds, it’s causing some anxiety with me”

“I think you’ll be fine though, everyone is 6 feet apart right, masks and everything?”

“Look, I’ve been seeing what’s going on out there, people are crazy, I don’t want to be around a lot of them.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I just think it may just be okay to go in the day”

“I don’t give a shit about what you think, I know the risks and I plan on taking it”

“Fuck, okay. Sorry for fucking worrying about you dick”

“I’m sorry, I am, I just seen a lot of what’s going on out there. I just know it’s better to go at night”

“Ok” Amelia said turning back to her work.

Hans let out a deep breath and went to his computer.

The apartment was separated until late in the afternoon, they left the fight in the kitchen still the air. Amelia couldn’t focus on her microscope and Hans mindlessly scrolled and bounced from page to page, phone to computer, computer to phone. With each little social media article, every comment, every news story, infuriated him.

Taking deep breaths as if he was getting yelled at by his father. Now the silence lasted until Hans was putting on his shoes and getting ready to leave, Amelia watched him from the kitchen.

“Do you have a list?” He asked coldly

“Right here” she said getting up and handing it to him.

Hans noticed how scared and worried she was and his anger dissipated “It’s okay” he said wrapping his arms around her. “I’ll be right back”

Amelia didn’t hug him back immediately, just felt him engulf her, still upset from the diet fight, but then she thought of him not coming back and she wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly.

“I’m just worried, I’m sorry if that bothers you, but I don’t want to anything to happen”

“Nothing will happen besides me getting groceries and coming right back to my love” he said with a tone that was edging on playful. Trying to lighten the mood Amelia thought with a slight smile on.

“I love you” She said

“I love you too, I’ll be right back” As Hans left the apartment, ducking large leafs as he opened the front door.

She watched as the door shut and the massive leafs of the monstra fall in front of it. Like a hand in front of a face. The silence of isolation slowly closed in as his footsteps down the concrete stairs echoed away.

Chapter 9

Amelia didn’t take her eyes of the front door. Just sat in her kitchen chair with her arms crossed. She tried to distract herself with work, writing about the strange growth, she even tried to look at her phone, but forgot were Hans said he’ll put it. She browsed the internet looking at different plants she would like to have. A pass time she would do mindlessly when she needed a break from focusing. But no matter what activity she would try, her eyes would drift to the front door. Patiently waiting for it to open an Hans to struggle with the bag of groceries.

But all she was faced with was an unopened door, mocking her hope. Almost insulting her. She got up and went to the bedroom to read or try to read, as soon as she sat down, she felt a pull to gaze at the door. She put on music to block out the silence, the Strange Trails by Lord Huron brought just enough life to the apartment. Lights shined off the large house plants leafs casting soft shadows on the Amelia Vines that had spread across the apartment. A sense of home and welcoming came over her and for the first time since Hans left, she stood still in the sound of music. How long has it been? How long was it the last time? She thought. The whole album went through a more than an hour, now she truly started to worry. She opened her computer and pulled up the app “Find me” her and Hans had enabled tracking when they went to a large festival with a group of friends shortly after they started dating. But nothing came up, an update must have disconnected us or something she thought. “Fuck” she said out loud. Rubbing her hands on her head, feeling the stress, worry, and uncertainly took control of her soul as ice cold water.

The door opened up and Hans fell through holding a bag of groceries. He had brushes and cuts on his face.

“Baby!?” Amelia screamed as she ran to his aid.

He was breathing hard, panting, with a shocked face. “What happened?” She said

“I was mugged on the way back. They took a bag, my wallet, and my phone.” He said

“Are you hurt? Who was it?!”

“I didn’t get a good look at them, I was held up at knife point, someone behind me knocked me on the ground while they looked through my pockets. Took the bag I dropped. And ran away. I should have listened to you, I’m sorry”

“God, I want to make a joke right now”

“Go for it, probably be the last time you can”

“If only you’ll listen to me, you’ll still have your second girlfriend”

Hans looked at her with a stunned look.

“That’s the angel you are going for”

“Want me to keep going?”

“Have any that’ll make me not feel like a fool?”

“Not yet”

“Help me up”

“Should we call the cops?”

“I don’t think it’ll help from what I’ve seen, the cops are stretched to thin to care about a mugging”

“Well, we have to do something”

“I’m going to take a shower, thats what I want to do.”

“Your not going to file a report? Or even let them know what happen?”

“I really just want to be in the shower, I’ll file an online report in the morning.” Hans said as he walked to the bathroom.

Amelia watched him with concern and thought Why was he reacting like this? Is he in shock. The bathroom door close and the shower was started. She sat alone again, happy to be out of the uncertain silence and in the known. Even if her love was damaged, but alive. Jesus how close was he from being seriously hurt? The thought of a knife pointed at him, the fear he must have felt, the pain, the fear. She looked at the brown bag he had managed to wrestle back to the apartment, it had the basics. Eggs (which a lot of them were cracked), Coffee (thank god), bread, sausage, pasta, and tomato paste. But yet, the bags were almost dripping with fear, anxiety, and pain. It was almost thick enough to paint her hand, as if each item was covered in blood. She looked at her palms as if there was a layer on them. Images of savages holding a blade to Hans throat filled her mind, his eyes spread open in fear.

In the shower Hans sat down and closed his eyes, letting the warm water cover him. Memories flooded into his mind the same as the warm water drops. Each drop triggered a mix of memories, from his childhood of feeling helpless, alone, and scared. And the recent attack on his life. The gang surrounding him, taunting him, the knife in there hands, and then the beating. He felt ever boot heel, every punch, even the words cut into his mind like hot blades. Yet the memories that rang the loudest were the ones of his father beating him, yelling at him if he was a spy. If he told on his mother, if he knew where she was. He felt his hands grab his head, he felt the hard wall slammed against his back. And for those brief moments he felt as if he was back in Germany. Only when he opened his eyes to see there shower when he came back to America, to the apartment, to the current time he was excising in. He couldn’t bear to have these emotions and memories swirling around in him like a vortex of pain. He didn’t know how long he has been in the shower, enough for steam to fog the mirror and his fingers to wrinkle. But he didn’t want to face the world yet, but the lack of distraction in the bathroom drove him crazy as the memories became too intense to bare.

Chapter 10

Amelia got naked in the living room. Dropping her pants down to her ankles and taking off her shirt. Feeling the still air tingle the most sensitive parts of her body. She laid on the couch like a model, she didn’t know what to do to fix this moment, but a mind blowing orgasm for him wouldn’t hurt? How long has it been since we had sex? weeks? Fuck has it been a month? Since the lockdown she thought to herself. She felt her heart race as the sounds of the shower came to a close. What if he doesn’t want too? Shut up Amelia, he’s a man who was just threaten with his life, your a hot willing woman. What’s the problem here? She thought to herself as her eyes examined her body.

Hans came out of the bathroom still dripping. He darted to his computer and didn’t even notice Amelia spread out on the couch.

“Uhh, what are you doing?” She asked as she sat up from her seductive position.

“I’m ordering a new phone, i have to have it.” he said not even looking up.

This struck such a painful cord in her heart. She got up and spun him around in his office chair. She grabbed his head and looked dead in his eyes.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU” she said as if trying to save him from a burning building who didn’t want to be saved, who enjoyed the heat of the flames. His eyes screamed back a sense of tiredness that Amelia didn’t even recognize as human.

He looked into her complex green eyes and he knew, he couldn’t hide anymore.

“I’m, I’m i’…” he started to say but each tiny word brought his emotions from the deepest part of his body to the edge of his mouth. He didn’t even notice her naked body, his vision narrowed to a pin whole as his eyes started to water. It was going to come out, everything that he held back in fear of being seen as sad small child. He held it back for fear of the pain infecting this golden relationship of his, that it would some how be more apart of his world than it would be if he just swallowed it. But it was too big now, if he did it would choke him, it would suffocate him, it would kill him and he knows it. It had to come out.

“I never told you about my childhood because my father beat me.” He said as if he just told her it was raining outside. Saying out loud he could see the world change around him, Amelia pulled back, letting go of his face and gently raising his hands to her heart.

“This heart is for you, nothing will corrupt it, talk to me.”

Hans took a moment and felt the space become safe enough to off load his horrible experiences.

“What do you know about East Germany?” he asked looking down

“Besides the Berlin Wall not much”

“The secret police was called the Stasi’s, 1 in 63 people were informants for them. Near the end they preformed gaslighting type tactics on political opponents. But the definition of an ‘opponent’ varied. They called this tactic Zersetzung. Which literal means decomposition. My father was a target. They ended up taking my mother and sister away. They left a note saying that she left him for another man and he knew it was a lie. But he didn’t know how to solve it. His neighbors, friends, and work colleagues wouldn’t do anything to help him. It was just me and him in that tiny apartment. He started drinking to cope with the madness he was facing. Then he thought I was part of the whole thing, he would push me into walls screaming in my face where my mother and sister were. I was only 4 or 5. I had no idea what was going on. But I knew something behind the scenes was messing with him.” Tears were falling from his eyes, he closed them and tried to pour out everything in his heart. Placing his hands over his face he started to sob uncontrollably.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry” he said “ i just never said this shit out loud and it’s hard.”

Amelia wrapped her arms around him and held him, he embraced her like the mountain embraces the wind, feeling every inch of her soft skin against his beat body and soul.

His breathing became calm and he said “he ended up killing himself shortly after the wall fell, he brought me to when they stormed the Stasi office, I remember seeing men fall to their death, fires raging in the streets and men shouting. My dad was so fanatic in finding out what happened to my mom and sister. But they were destroying documents and I don’t know if he ever found out what happened. I remember standing in a alley way waiting to see my dad emerge from the chaos. But he never did.”

“Thats when you came to live with your Aunt?” Amelia asked.

His heart felt 100 times lighter, as if a massive weight was taken off. “That is when I came to America, I had half citizenship due to my mom. She was the first adult since my mothers disappearance that showed me respect, kindness and patients.”

Amelia looked out into space has Hans talked, she imagined everything he said and felt as if she was in those horrible rooms with him. Tears started to form in her eyes, for she wanted to be there just so she could do what she’s doing now. Hold him when he was scared, be there when no one else was. If she had a time machine or the ability of a god she would use it all to heal him, to heal that little boy that didn’t deserve any of that pain. To But she was here now and she raised his tear filled face up and kissed him deeply. She felt his hands start from her lower legs and move up to her fit butt.

And thats when they lost control over each other, feverishly kissing all over they’re naked bodies, she wrapped her legs around him while still in the office chair. Before he picked her up and laid her on the couch.

Part 2 - Into The Jungle

Chapter 1

Amelia and Hans woke up to a bright green hues from the sun rays shining against the large leafs. Naked and feeling confident as if they were being praised by the now jungle that surrounded them. Amelia looked around and noticed that the jungle had now completely taken over the living room. “Most have been growing while we were doing our activities”

“I hope they didn’t mind the show” Hans said kissing her shoulder as she sat up.

“Maybe that’s what made them grow” She said as she wrapped her hands around his face and kissed him too.

“Coffee?”

“Oh god yes, what time is it?”

“I don’t know, don’t have a phone”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry about that. You going to order a new one?”

“It’s okay and I will later today.”

“You don’t seem to be in a hurry like I think you would be”

“Well, I’m not really in a hurry to go a phone store, especially with how crazy I saw it last night. Even before the mugging, just people manic, in a hurry, pushy. I’m just going to order it online and wait for it”

“How long do you think it’ll take to get here?”

“I don’t know? A week” He said getting up and headed to the kitchen.

Amelia smiled as she watched his fit body in the background of the house plant jungle. The afterglow still stuck to him like a halo and his face sported a smile that she hadn’t seen since the pandemic, maybe even before that.

She laid her head into the couch and smiled to herself, she turned over to see the massive banana leaf now basically the size of her, hovering above. Hans re-emerged from the kitchen with two cups in his hands, smiling like a dork. He laid next to her kissed and handed her the coffee with . Even in this early hour before coffee they were in a mood that was unprecedented, even when times were good. The first few sips were done in silence.

“Need some water too” Amelia said getting up abruptly.

Hans enjoyed his coffee and the view of her “Get me a glass too!” He said as she disappeared into the kitchen. He couldn’t help but smile and feel a since of peace and calm. It could be an over sense of thankfulness. Of being alive, having sex, or even being bask in morning light. Golden light from the leafs covering the window sprinkled his body like glitter as Amelia re-emerged from kitchen with her drinking water. Letting out a loud ahhh as she handed the a glass half full. “Thank you” he said taking it and tilting it back. Looking like a desert dweller after finding a wheel, he looked at her with refreshed eyes and smiled.

“So what are you going to do today” She said

“Mhmmmm, what about some movies?”

“Oh, yeah? What movies do you feel like putting on?”

“Feel good movies, I need feel good movies” He said rubbing his wounds

“You know, I don’t know what your feel good movies are”

“You don’t?”” Hans took a minute to think back

“I guess you don’t” He continued “I don’t know if I’ve been sick in this apartment yet that would require a comfort watch’s”

“Weird, what are they?”

“Well my first one is Joe Vs The Volcano”

“Never seen it”

“Great movie, Police Academy, Big Trouble In Little China, and Indiana Jones Last Crusidae”

“Wow, a lot of 80’s movies”

“Thats when I came to America, my mom was still working two jobs and I had a lot of time alone and few VHS to watch.”

“What was that like? Your first thoughts of America?”

“I was only like 4. I was mostly happy to be around my Aunty, America was just the backdrop to being in her care again. My first impression was how much stuff there was. I loved the lights, I remember that.”

“And your mom was the American right?”

“Yes, she was a journalist. I don’t know how she met my dad, but he was an engineer can’t remember the name.”

“What happen..”

“There it is!” Hans interrupted her as he clicked over to Big Trouble in Little China.

“You know, there were only like 9 VHS in my Aunty house. One of her boyfriends friends left it. Have you seen this?”

“I haven’t” Amelia said cuddling up to him

“Your in for a treat”

You mean the truth Hans said the line with the movie and as the movie played on, the Amelia Vine stretched out further and further into her plants.

See, that was nothing, that’s how it always begins, very small. The movie echoed through out the apartment with each word pushing the vine further and further into the hallway. Between each word, each micro space of silence, it grew. The leafs grew, the stocks grew, the vines grew, and the darkness grew as the walls became completely hidden away. As the couple stayed in on the couch for most of the day, only getting up to make food when they felt hungry, made love when they felt the mood arise. Doing everything, naked as Adam and Eve, with the confidence of wear ten thousand dollar clothes. Eventually they ventured to the bedroom, only after Hans started to complain about his back and Amelia wanted to try a new position.

They didn’t notice that the vine had outlined the floor of hallway, as they were too distracted tickling and teasing each other. Play laughter came out of Amelia as she defend herself by placing her hands in front of her sensitive areas. Busting into the bedroom like a tornado of affection, tumbling into bed and having the energy to engage in sex again, for the 4 time today. The sun settled into a night as they were on the edge of sleep. “Ugh, I actually have to do things tomorrow” she said rolling into his chest.

“Like what?”

“Editing and I might as well as keep working on the Amelia Vine”

“You started calling it after yourself too?”

“You started it.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. I need to order a new phone, check emails, and, well, that’s about it.”

“How about you actually do some relaxing then”

“You don’t think what I’ve been doing for the last few months has been relaxing?”

“Not at all! I think its the same as chain smoking. You may feel relax, but your body is in a state of anxiety. Just low tier anxiety with some droplets of dopamine mixed in to keep you there.”

“Maybe it is, but it is a way of getting information.”

“So is sitting in front of the computer, I’m telling you, there’s something about the phone that makes it just too easy to be a pile of shit and that’s not good for mental statues!”

“So you think it’s about screen size?”

Amelia didn’t say anything and just starred at him blankly. As if the words triggered some ancient memory that now consumed her. “What is it?” Hans said after a few seconds of studying her.

“I think I have a break through in the Amelia Vine” she said getting up abruptly and headed to the kitchen, still naked and Hans couldn’t help but watch her fit butt disappear into the darkness. He waited a few seconds and saw the kitchen light turn on, he waited a few more seconds then he got up. Wrapped himself in a blanket and grabbed one for her. It was night and the apartment had a chill that made nudest living difficult. Coming into the kitchen he found Amelia eyes in the microscope, Hans wrapped her in the blanket. “What are you looking at baby?”

“Shhhh” she said lifting a finger to him. The only light came from the stove top, with the add heavy jungle around them it add a scenes of nostalgia almost. From a time neither of them could place, but they both enjoyed the low light, dark greens, and color flowers that had bloomed from the vine. Hans opened the fridge casting a sharp blue light and he pulled out a the water pitch. Amelia tweaked the knobs of the scope and focused in on a sections of her slide. Only pulling back to write something in her notebook, looking again and then pushing the chair back and turning to Hans. “I have a theory” She said

“Sitting on the edge of seat” Hans quickly added

“I think there is a conversation mechanism going on, but instead of turning water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and gluecose into something more potent, something that increase the number of plant cells beginning produced. Like, almost like controlled cancer” She said looking back into her microscope and then back at her notes. Hans watched her brain work over time and he enjoyed what he was seeing. The passion, the problem solving, the connecting of dots over mass valleys and peaks of knowledge. Fuck, there is nothing hotter than a naked woman working on her passion he thought as he felt sensation come back into his member. He heard her words and thought of them strange and no idea how she came to that conclusion controlled cancer was such a strange phrase to say. He realized he was clocked out of her doings at the kitchen table, like his phone provided a blinder from the important events of his lovers life. She mumbled to herself as she thought, got up, got water, and sat back down. While Hans kept the blanket from falling off of her. He felt his eyes fall heavy as the hopes of dragging her off her project became a fruitless act as she wouldn’t be able to focus on sex until she reachers her breaking point. He kissed her forehead told her he was going off to sleep and not to stay awake all night. Hans fell into bed exhausted from the last 48 hours and slept.

While Amelia stayed laser focus on trying to wrap her mind around the newly emerged concept. She knew she was on to something, but for fear of missing it, or missing a peace of the puzzle forming under the microscope. She started trying to document the pieces she could make out, while she cursed herself for not paying attention in applied sciences in high school. This would be much easier if I knew what I was looking at she thought to herself as she made tiny notes next to her little illustrations of the complex cell structure. Normal plant cells by themselves were as easy as anything to understand, clear cell walls, dots inside said walls that indicated the functions of the cell. But this kaleidoscope of bright green mix matched shapes was madding. But taking one piece at a time and studying it, she found a pattern. Just in time for her eyes to become too heavy to clearly see, she rubbed her eyes, look at the time on the stove: 3 AM, she didn’t know how long she had been working for, but it was long enough. She got up and realized she was still naked, she felt good being naked. Confident, she stretched watching her fit body bend in ways she hadn’t appreciated before, she thought about how she thought before. She knew she didn’t love love her body, she was happy with it when she hadn’t eat for a few days. But now, she felt like a statue goddess in a beautiful Greek garden. As if each waving leaf was a nodding praise, she took a deep breath and enjoyed this current moment. Looking down the hall to her sleeping man and then around to her plants and emerging mystery on the kitchen table.

She had never felt more alive as she walked down the hall to the warm bed.

The next morning Hans was the first to wake with a massive craving for coffee opening the bedroom door to find that the jungle was the first to greet him. A massive golden Pothus leaf had almost consumed the door.

“Wow” he said out loud as he peaked what was behind the leaf. He quickly went and woke up Amelia.

“Baby, baby, baby” he said shaking her awake. She peaked her head up looking annoyingly at him

“What” she said

“Come follow me” he said helping her up and pushing her to the door where she walked right into the massive leaf. Slowly opening her eyes as she felt the cool, smooth leaf against her. But it was when she pulled down the fold of the leaf to find her hall way had bloomed into a colorful jungle of her house plants. The leaves arched over the ceiling and bright flower had blocked the window. Creating rainbow light that were shimmering against the deep green jungle. The hallway was so intoxicating to see with the morning sun it woke her up more than any caffeinated beverage.

“Jesus Christ, can you believe these?” She said moving the leaf beside and stepping into the jungle tunnel.

“I know, it’s never grown this much before”

“I mean baby, this is just mind blowing. People would absolutely kill to have this, absolutely kill.”

“You could give up writing for money and just write for passion”

“Oh the world isn’t read for that”

“Or this, I mean not to be that internet conspiracy guy but it could easily change everything and big money doesn’t like that”

“Yeah don’t be that conspiracy guy, don’t kill my vibe”

“I’ll remind you before you go public”

“Like a good head of security, when I’m a CEO of a multi billion dollar plant company, or maybe I’ll go full chaos and just give it away for free”

“Whooo the fleeing communist in me loves that idea” Hans said sarcastically

Amelia could stop laugh at that quick barb he threw out. “Remind me not to give away for free” she said dipping behind a large fern stocks into the kitchen. Hans followed her taking his time to be amazed at the jungled hallway.

“What time did you go to bed anyway?” he asked as he dipped down below the fern too.

“Oh, like 3? I think?” she was pouring water into the kettle. The kitchen was brighter then the hallway making Hans squint.

“Man, that was like my bed time, did you make any break through” he asked walking over to the kitchen table

“No, not really, I’m just chasing down a theory still, but I feel like it makes sense don’t you?”

“And how do you know how to do this?”

“I don’t” she said laughing “I just have that textbook and your microscope, everything else I’m just figuring out on the seat of my pants. or well, lack of pants” she said looking down at her naked body.

“Incredible, baby, so smart, so sex” he said slapping her butt playfully and kissing her on the top of her head. He walked to the living room, turned on the tv and put on a comfort movie. Usual Suspects.

“Keyser Soze” he said out loud to himself with a comforting smile.

Chapter 2

Eventually Hans and Amelia put on comfy clothes, Amelia still sat at the kitchen table for most of the day and Hans without a real drive to consume news started reading books. He would work on his computer for around 2 hours a day. But it was mostly to send out job applications, check emails to see if he had any takers on his prototype. Yet, he didn’t stay long on his computer, he found more enjoyment of discovering books he had purchased long ago and had pledge to read them when he found time. Reading was like a form of meditation for him now. With his comfort movies playing in the background he found peace for himself.

Each day Amelia seemed to be getting closer and closer to understand the strange vine. She had now two notebooks full of notes. Oddly since the hallway consuming it barely ventured into the bed room, which made her even more confused on the behavior of the vine. She even started giving some of her free pages to the leafs to hold. With the Money Tree leaves still out stretched over the kitchen table, the almost worked as pull cords for her. She could pull one down, gently clip a page to it, let it go and it would be out of sight in the jungled ceiling. Only she knew which long green fingers held which notes, not that she wasn’t worried about someone peaking in on her studies, it was just a nice little feature of having a personal jungle for an apartment.

Some of the larger, harder leafs could even hold some pots and pans. It was almost as if the jungle wanted to help with kitchen work. However, each time she check on their food supplies and coffee she got stressed. Not wanting to talk about go out of the apartment and face whatever world had emerged. She took a deep, stress filled breath each time she pulled something out of the fridge, cabinets, or pantry. Then she would check on Hans who for most of the day sat in a meditative state while he reads. He would do some form of work on his personal project with pen and paper. But nothing like he use to when he had his phone. As if his phone was a second brain, with it’s own goals and consciousness. Without it he was just a mortal man capable of being bored once again.

She loved her work with the Amelia Vine, each day that passed she felt like she was getting closer and closer too the mystery of the massively growing plants. She had now noticed slight differences in every other cell, the illustrations she made became more and more detailed. With each new slide of fresh vine material she would note how the complex structure would build with an almost human heart beat like rhythm. But slowly faded the longer it was away from the main structure. However the house plant cells seem to be the same complex structure as the vine, but just more solidified. She assumed the vine was a type of stem cell and must have transformed the ‘infected’ plant into a Goliath version of it’s self.

On a paper that was hanging from one of the leaves she had written other things in the natural world. The first one she wrote down was radiation, even though she knows it wasn’t a naturally occurring process, but still it did in large some of the plants and animals in contact with it. She almost smiled at that one because it was Hans who had suggested it. Without a second thought, he quoted it from another one of his favorite movies. Godzilla 2000. “It’s a whole plot point in that movie! Godzilla’s was even made by radiation. Critics hated it and I get it, but my 13 year old self loved it” he said after she question how he knew that and after he looked it up online to make sure. However, he found it was wrong and most of the time it causes damage to living creatures. He had a rough night after that lost.

But still, she put it on her list as a possibility which were still small. Besides that she had nutritions, water, sun, and air quality. She also had positive words (emotional growth) but that was also a joke, from an experiment she saw once of people saying kind words to one plant and negative words to another to see if they grew different. Now a lot of fractures could be at play with how the two looked. But she remembered it. Yet the more she looked for similarities in the real world, the more she found it, but in man made advances.

Hans enjoyed a break from the internet, yet he did require having two levels of distractions. He needed a background sound, either a movie or album while he reads. But he still enjoyed it more than he thought, feeling his brain recalibrate to focus for long periods of time was like coming home from a long time away. Reading a Dean Koontz book his friend gave him awhile back while having old movies he knew by heart play in the background was like a mental rehab for him. Yet he could still feel the intrusive thoughts getting strong and strong from his childhood, with the stress of having to go again looming over him. As if a dark storm was about to destroy they little oasis of peace and comfort. With each silent undistracted moment hit him like a splash of cold water, snapping him out of the blissful little eden Amelia had cultivated for each other. The morning of pre gridded coffee will go down in their relationship history books of ‘roughing it’.

Amelia had woken up to a unfamiliar feeling, no energy shock made her jump out of bed because she knew. The good coffee was gone and what remained was pre ground coffee. A tragedy that hasn’t befallen on her since she started dating Hans, the thought of it alone brought her back to working in a shitty office where she had to draw it with cream and sugar. Luckily they still had a little bit of milk left and quite a bit of sugar. She brewed the coffee and as awful as it was she enjoyed the hit of nostalgia she had before she wondered back to the bedroom and woke up Hans. With blissfully opened his eyes making sounds of stretching and morning as Amelia sat heavy on the bed, bouncing him awake.

“Good morning” She said taking a sip of her coffee

“Good morning, I thought we were out of coffee?” He said

“Out of whole bean coffee”

“That’s pre ground? Where did you even find that?”

“We got it when we went camping for the first time, we didn’t open it remember we found that couple who brought a pour over set with them.”

“Oh yeah, Kelsey and Amanda, they were nice”

“They were and that was over 3 years ago” She said handing him the cup.

He peaked into it like a man checking over the edge of a very tall cliff.

“You put cream and sugar in it?”

“Did you want it black?!”

“Always!”

“Okay” Amelia said getting up, headed to the kitchen poured Hans a black cup of coffee and brought it back to him. With a smug half asleep smile he reached out his hands and started into a monologue about how only strong people drink strong coffee and sweet coffee is a desert and nothing more. Until he put the hot black drink to his lips and sipped.

The expression that came across his face was a jumbled one. Started with surprises, disgust quickly after, then to trying to hide it by closing his eyes tightly and forcing a ‘mhmmm’.

Amelia just sat back with a smirk on her face as he cycled through various emotions.

“Wanna try mine?” She asked, Hans didn’t say anything just reached out his hands and traded her cups. Took a sip and couldn’t help but to sport a little smile.

“There it is” she said

Hans didn’t say anything

“You want me to put sugar and milk in yours too?”

Again he didn’t say anything and held the same look on his face as he took another sip.

“Shhhhh, it’s okay, put aside your male pride and higher taste buds. It’ll be okay” she said taking her cup from him and started down to the kitchen.

“Don’t tell anyone!” He screamed towards the jungled tunnel that was a door way.

“I won’t! Maybe when the pandemic is over I will!” She screamed down the hallway

Hans waited to respond until she got back into the room.

“No you won’t”

“What? You don’t want pandemic stories to tell your friends when this is over?”

“I think we have that covered already, our apartment became a jungle, I got fired, mugged, and humiliated by sweet drink coffee!” He said

“Yeah, the most unbelievable part about all of that is you drank water down, Starbucks type, coffee”

“Shut up!”

“You want me to get you a keurge next?”

“Baby, you can’t make jokes about pandemic stuff!”

“I’ll pick you up some sweetener when we go to the store”

“Wait, when we?” Hans joking tone hit the edge of seriousness

“Well, yeah, you aren’t going alone and I’m sure you wouldn’t let me go alone after what happened”

“Baby, it’s just better if I just go”

“Eat ass, you are not going out alone for a whole year after last time!”

Hans bit his lip, he wanted to argue with her but knew it was truly a senseless cause.

He just took a deep breath and said “Okay, we can go in the morning” he said but thought, I’ll get up before you and get them. No need for both of us to risk it. Then an unsetting silence fell onto the room as the two sipped they’re horribly sweet coffee. Hans didn’t want to fight and Amelia was well armed in her arguments. He opened his book and tried to focus on reading while she went to her kitchen table. Eventually he went out to the living kissing her on the head and asking how her progress had been going.

She gave a vague answer. “It’s going”

Hans sat at his computer with his book right next to his computer he started on a steady diet of news, putting on a movie he loved, and reading a few pages. Everything and anything he could do to disrupt the intrusive thoughts that had started to plague him. His dad waking him up in a drunken rage screaming at the walls. Pounding on our neighbors door demanding to speak to however took her and my sister. Hans learned later in life that the Stasi the East German secret police used gaslighting type torture on citizens that appeared harmful to the government. It drove his father mad. The last 4 years he spent with his father were hell.

And those memories seemed to allows play the loudest at moment even with the combined power of reading, sweet drink coffee, movies, and social media all cycling through him. Then it was night time.

“So tomorrow morning we go and get stuff together right?!” Amelia said as they got into bed.

“Yes, tomorrow morning, early”

Chapter 3

Hans woke early, which was difficult given he didn’t have a phone and they didn’t own an alarm clock. He instead he drank plenty of water knowing he’ll have to get up to use the restroom in the middle of night. He knew it was late, maybe not even midnight. Which filled Hans with a bit of anxiety of the thought of getting too little sleep. But he got up regardless and headed to the bathroom where he peaked at the stove to see what time it was. 1 AM the stove glowed in the dark jungle of the kitchen. While he sat to do his business he felt how long his hair had gotten for the first time, tickling his shoulders and back. The bathroom was still very much a bathroom, with only the a large snake plant that had grown to the ceiling. He thought long and hard on how he was going to go about getting groceries at this late hour. There were 24 hour stores a a couple of blocks further away than there normal one. But it was a walk under neither a freeway bridge and he really didn’t want to do that after his last adventure out. He took a deep breathe and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair almost always tucked behind his ears which caused it to puff out a little on the sides. With the 5 o’clock shadow now turned into a short beard. This was the shaggiest he’s even been. He didn’t mind it. Brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face he felt awake enough to plan his route on his computer. Then he would write the directions down, which gave him pause and a smile at the fact of using written directions like he was a child again. But when he walked into the kitchen he found the strangest thing.

Two large brown paper grocery bags sitting like the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol from Indiana Jones. Hans had to do a double look and he stood frozen looking at them like a deer in the middle of a winter road as the car was coming closer. It was the strangest thing, as if they were just put there. He looked down the hall and went through a serious of thoughts.

Did fucking Amelia already sneak out and got them? Then why did she leave the bags out? Is this a message about how she can do things too? What the fuck is going on here? Examining the bags he found every thing on they’re list accounted for. Even stuff they had gone without since the supply chain had been disrupted. Fruits and fresh veggies, disposable paper towels, most importantly their coffee too. Hans let out a sigh of relief when he saw the smaller brown bag of beans. But yet, he felt a sight towards Amelia. How could she be so reckless to go out alone at night no less, when I was just mugged. What would have happened to her if she ran into the same group I did? The more he rolled that thought around his brain the more in enraged him. He was done putting everything away, the cold items were still cold so she had to have just gotten back. It was so strange he didn’t see the bags hen he checked the time. He scratched his head as he considered his sanity for a half a second. But the joy of having some sweet treats, his coffee, and eggs brought back to the current reality of having a full kitchen. He went to lay down on the couch for a few hours before starting to grand plan of showing thanks to her. Putting on Jurassic Park he couldn’t help but smile at the fact his tv looked like it was suspended in the very jungle from Isla Nublar.

When he saw the soft morning light shine through the large leafs he got up, started coffee and breakfast for the two of them. Amelia woke up shortly after he started the process of preparation. He tired to keep it a quiet secret he was working in the kitchen. But he wanted her to come out so he intentional banged some pots against each other when he was pulling them out. With the Lost World now playing in the background he heard her stumble into the kitchen. Which was now bright with light and she was blinded for a few seconds as she came out from under the large leaf that separated the kitchen from the hallway.

“What the fuck? Did you already go?” She asked in an annoyed away. But he knew it was a mixture of announce and tiredness.

“Yup, I totally went out and got the groceries” Hans said sarcastically.

“Oh” she said sitting down at the table.

Hans didn’t say anything just quietly cooked eggs, fried bacon, and flipped pancakes.

Amelia was still in a state of coming out of sleep until Hans placed a cup of coffee in front of her, where she sipped it and melted in the chair.

“Oh fuck” she said

“I know, I did the same thing. Even though it was only one morning with out it. It’s so good to have it back”

“I never want pre ground coffee again, I’m serious, I’ll rather stave than not have this in the morning”

Hans chuckled a little.

“What time did you wake up?”

“1 AM”

“Jesus, why?”

“Well, I planned to go out and get the goods before you woke up. But I guess you beat me to the punch”

“Wait, what?”

“You got groceries last night, you had to have, the bags were sitting on the counter when I woke up”

Amelia didn’t say and just looked at him dumb founded.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t go out last night”

Now Hans looked back at her with the same dumb founded look.

“Where the fuck did they come from then?” She asked

“Do you have a history of sleep walking?” He asked

“No, do you?”

“No. Not that I can remember at least”

“Yeah I guess that’s the thing with sleep walking. You wouldn’t know especially if you made it back to bed.” She said

“Also, if that was true that brings us to another problem. One of use walked 20 blocks, did shopping, all with under like 6 hours? And just forgot to put the stuff away”

“Fuck. So what else could it be? A stranger just happen to know what exactly we needed?”

Again silence. Hans got up and checked the front door, which was covered by several layers of larger leafs and vines. But it was locked, and even more difficult to get through without knowing how to part the jungle. For a sleep walker or a stranger it would be near impossible to think do it without being tangled or tripped by the vines. When Hans returned to the kitchen he saw Amelia reading her text book and going over her notes.

“So, what are we going to do about it?” He said

“About the groceries? No idea, but my dad use to say. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”

“I don’t know what that saying means”

“Neither do I, but it implies that we don’t question good favors.”

“So your just going to ignore the fact two bags of free groceries just showed up?”

“No I’m not, I’m just waiting to see if more of it’s revealed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I’m just going to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For the next clue”

“You think there’s going to be a next clue?”

“I don’t know, I just assume there will be, either one of use will wake up with change and a recipe in our pocket or something else that would explain our weird predicament”

“And your just going to stay calm and keep looking at slides?”

“I’m just going to stay calm and keep busy while I wait for the next clue.”

Hans didn’t say anything and just looked her in a state of general surprise. He shook his head and went to his computer. He looked up mysterious appear groceries but it was a short effort. For everything he found was works of fiction or estranged good Samaritans. Which played into his working theory that there was a Good Samaritan out and spreading good in times of extreme disappear. Which gave him so hope that there was something normal happening and not something that was… well difficult to explain. Amelia spent the entire day examining her slides and notes as if the answers where in the plants. It bothered Hans how unbothered she was at the groceries and hated being shut out to what she was really thinking. How she turned so stoic was almost too cold for Hans to wrap his mind around. He was about to spiral into a panic attack, until he got an email on an offer for his project.

Chapter 4

“Oh, shit” Hans said out loud as he sat at his desk which now looked like a strange structure in the midst of a dense jungle. With his tensor lamp and computer screen illuminating the dark living room he could help but feel excited for what was possible a life altering amount of money. Taking a moment he looked around at just how amazing the apartment had transformed and how there life were just about to change. At this moment he realized, Amelia had to have gotten the groceries or paid a good friend to get them for us. That’s why she isn’t making a big deal of it. We have too much going for use right now to risk loosing it in a silly small time street crime. Look at what she cultivated and what is about to come to harvest for me. Things will be fine. And with that realization, he got up from his computer and went and hugged Amelia and kissed her deeply.

“Wow, what was that for?” She said surprisingly.

“Just happy”

“Me too” she said with a big smile, snuggling into his arms even more.

“We are going to get out of this crazy time just fine” he said resting his chin on her head.

“We always were, the current always flows, even during wild fires” she said

“Who said that?”

“Me, just now.”

“That’s good, no wonder you get paid for words”

Amelia didn’t say anything and just listened to his heart beat, closed her eyes, and felt at peace.

What if the jungle had a heart beat she thought.

Then she opened them abruptly and turned to her notes, Hans didn’t say anything just let the moment end and he went back to his computer. He say the spark of something rare in her and he didn’t want to disrupt it. Amelia dived into her notes, went and got a fresh sample of Amelia Vine and looked at in under the scope. She now noticed the very pulsating through the cells she noticed when she first looked at it, was getting faster. Or at least it appeared to be. She set a timer her laptop.

60 beats per minute.

That was definitely more than the first notation of the event. She hadn’t noticed the pulsating due to observing old slides trying to solve a microscope puzzle. Yet, if she got fresh samples daily it might have damaged the progress of growth. Why was it getting faster? She thought as she peaked up from the microscope. She then got up and went down the hallway into the bedroom, which just by the time the morning sun had started to rise. The jungle had stretched it’s way into the room. Her normal sized house plants about to fall victim to the absurd growth the rest of the apartment had be subjected too. She now looked at them with a sense of longing, she loved her large plants, but they were now admired for the sheer size and impressiveness of them. The tiny delicate house plants she admired so were about to be just apart of her apartment. Just like the walls from her old life, the always there white walls that required human input and effort to make them alive. With her art, lamps, and most importantly plants she turned this sad one bedroom apartment into a oasis of well care plants, taste full art, an soft lighting.

But now, the plants were taking care of things themselves, with no requirement from the humans it house. Just water, light, and ignore and it’ll grow. She sat on the bedroom floor examining the last section that didn’t have the Amelia Vine dipping it’s nodes in. Remnants of another time she thought to herself. She looked back at the large leaf jungle wrapping itself around lamps and bookcases, so modest and gentle. Care not to disrupt anything, but empathetic enough to know where to go. She couldn’t help but smile at it, the large leafs, the jungled hallway, the green kitchen and the oases living room, where just the couch, tv, and Hans desk were untouched by the jungle. She felt exitment at the emerging possibilities, she felt ashamed of not having many produce producing plants and the few she did have were to of season. She had a whole list of plants to get to see if they’ll bare large fruit, and of course she thought about trying it on the cannabis plant as well. But that will have to be a super secret project. When she went back out to the kitchen she found Hans prepare lunch.

“What are you making?” She asked

“I’m doing pancakes, eggs, and bacon.”

“Oh wow, that’s more then our typical breakfast.”

“Well, its kind of an experiment”

“Oh? Now you are doing experiments too? There’s a lot of experiment going on in this apartment for two people who aren’t in the STEM field.”

“I’m in Mathematics!”

“Were in mathematics, maybe when you stop being a lazy immigrate you can clam the STEM field again”

“When that happens you best believe you are getting back into the kitchen. Where your kind belongs!”

“Don’t forget to flip the eggs, I’ll be counting my money” Amelia said slapping his butt with a little chuckle.

“You won that one” Hans said with a smile, he had a few more lines but he didn’t want to push his luck into turning this little play fight into an actual fight. Which has happened a few times when they play fight. Typically started by Hans going too far.

He finished breakfast and plated both they’re food on large plates. He served her like a waiter and asked if she need a refill as a joke. She told him to stop being dumb and to sit down.

She moved over most of her work from the kitchen table and the two sat and enjoyed breakfast as the morning sun started to rise. Placing the strangeness of the groceries showing up randomly in the middle of the night. However, it was more of a rock in Hans shoe than Amelias, even while they enjoyed the peace of mind of not having to go out into a shut down, aggressive world, and the food. Hans couldn’t shack the feeling of something horrible coming for them.

Chapter 5

The jungle over took the bedroom with very little notice. Hans was working out a large deal that was growing like the jungle. Each email back and forth the offer got more complex and became more lucrative for him. He now bounced out of bed each morning with a sense of purpose and drive he hadn’t felt since he started at the shipping company. Amelia typically wasn’t far behind him, she had the same drive as he did. Except to solve her mystery which she was getting close too.

With each new slide of fresh vine material she found that the pulsating become more rapid, it grew about 5 beats per day. Now at 87, the increase frightened her a little, it reminded her of a ticking clock. She wondered if eventual the pulsating would get so rapid it would appear as just a normal structure? Yet, she found the process of how the vine breaks down standard plants into creating giants. She found it infected the roots first and then the rest of the plant, it actually made a very thin layer of cells to change the plant so rapidly. It takes only a day for a normal house plant to be infect and another day for it to grow into a giant. From there it keeps growing till it reaches the ceiling then seems to stop.

But the Amelia Vine seemed to grow endlessly, it surrounded pots, sprouted flowers, and had it’s own leafs. In some areas of the apartment it had grown as dense it blocked out the walls.

Hans had asked what they are going to do when they move out. She simple said, well, just have to do some indoor landscaping with a smile then explained how people spend hundreds of dollars on cuttings. Which even for giant over grown house plants they were living in a possible millions of dollars.

Yet, with the last pieces of boring dull white walls went away and just jungle remained. Each of them had they’re favorite moments in the jungle apartment. Amelia loved walking down the hallway at sunrise and Hans loved the apartment at dusk, where the light was low and the main soft light lamps provided an almost fantasy like scene. With the large leafs covering the lamps and they appeared almost seamlessly in the walls and among the vines on the floor. Amelia had to tie back some of the bigger leafs that blocked the doorways but even then they folded and held in the beautiful ways.

Next week they woke up to another bag of groceries, again Hans assumed it was a Good Samaritan or Amelia just doing it right when he went to bed. . It was everything they wanted and needed. Again Hans discovered it first, put the stuff away. Then start breakfast for the two and Amelia would come out a little later when she hears the sounds of banging pots and pans.

“Did we have a special delivery last night?” She asked as she slopped into the kitchen chair. While she thought it was just Hans doing it early in the morning

“We did. A Good Samaritan must be trying to go viral or something. I’m sure they have gotten some great clips of doing our apartment.”

“You think someone is doing it for the views?” She asked as Hans poured her a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

“I do, it’s the most logical right? I saw people banging pots and pans for nurses, famous musicians playing free shows for the neighborhoods they live in. People seem to be trying to one up each other in this time of need”

“Right, man, I forget there’s a pandemic sometimes, I’m so wrapped up in all of this” she said gesturing to her surroundings.

“That’s okay, that’s probably the best you can do until things go back to normal” Hans platted and service pancakes eggs, hash browns this time, and bacon.

“Right, back to normal” she said a little disappointed

Hans looked at her, he thought he would share the news of his little side project being picked up. But what to wait until he got a firm offer. He instead rubbed her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t worry, I don’t the world will go back to completely normal, especially for us. After all, you are going to be behind a ground break discovery when things open up” he said with a smile.

“I just love what we have now, this jungle of house plants, groceries being delivered, you being here, really here with me. I’m just not ready for things to go back to normal.”

“I think it’ll be another few months of lock downs, at least until a vaccine is on the horizon. But your right, not going to worry about the future, just enjoy the moment”

They cheered the coffee cups in the air and enjoyed the meal. Hans went to his computer where he found the email that had sat patiently for him since late last night. There was something to opening and checking his social media when he was ready too, instead of having it bleed into every moment and he thought fuck, maybe Amelia is right about the screen size or is it the easy of access to it that makes it so applying. Opening the email he found what he had hopped for. An offer. A big offer, he smiled and sipped his coffee. It shouldn’t be this easy he thought to himself. Before he did another thing, however, he opened a new tab and ordered a new phone. He had really fought against it, but with taking this project to the next level he would have to be in constant contact with a team.

While in the kitchen Amelia noticed the pulsating through the cells getting faster and her concern grower, but not quickly enough to cause her panic. Just enough to make her think of it in moments of silence. As she would examine the cell walls, as complex and mismatched as they were, she found another small line that ran through the spaces between the cells and it appeared to even run through some of them as well. Just like the a smaller version of the Amelia Vine, each cell it ran through was lager than the others. She wrote down the new discovery in her notebook, breakaway from her sight on the microscopic world and looking at her notebook. She observed that the pulsating did in fact travel through the vine in-between the cellar walls. Her eyes were getting tired from unblinkingly staring at the micro world and then bouncing to the notebook. But she didn’t care, she felt like she was near the break through, the function that causes such a massive increase in plant growth. Of course she would need an actual professional to look at her work. But she wanted to know more for herself, she didn’t care about the rewards or recognition. She enjoyed being lost in a complex mystery outside of her normal day job, she loved learning new things in the text book and finding it still, even with her extreme case, applied to the general structure of the plant. It had cell walls, nucleus, and mitochondria, with many more floating things that she hadn’t identified yet, she was still able to understand the basics of what she was seeing. Just instead of a puzzle on a flat surface ready to be placed in the right order, it was a puzzle that was puzzled over and over again and then suspended in a 3D space. The process is still the same, examine each piece and see if it fits in the current hole you are trying to fill. If it does great, if it doesn’t move on.

And with the notice of the structure running in-between the cell walls, she felt like she filled in the edges of the puzzle. The easiest and more important part of solving a puzzle. Get the boundaries and the rules, then try to fill in the middle. With each pulsating through the micro vine she noticed she started to see the even more micro actions of the surround cells. They would pulse too, it movement reminded her of a heart beat. The cells would expand at the moment the pulse passed through the area, then contract as it left. A movement so quick and so small that it could be argue if it wasn’t just an illusion on her eyes. But she focused in on it and it did in fact look more like a heart beat. Each cell was like a tiny heart and the pulsing was like the blood. It just moved spaciously and slow.

It wasn’t like an electrical pulse like I thought, its more like a heart beat. Instead of the pulsating moving through the cells, each cell is pumping the pulse. But why is it getting faster? Is it due to the increase in plant matter it must use as energy? Fuck, I wish I could get see it work. She thought to herself.

Trying to figure out how to see the affection process she got up and walked around the apartment. An activity she did a lot when she reached a blockage of thought. Putting on baggy comfy clothes she would wander in and out of rooms, examine certain plants, talk to Hans about the news and other off topic things. Sometimes she would do this for hours, once she went two days bouncing from room to room, plant to plant, topic to topic.

“What are you doing baby?” She said sitting on the couch behind Hans desk

“I’m just ordering a new phone” he said turning to face her.

“Oh, how long did you last without one?”

“Mhmmm about a month. I think.”

“I’m so proud of you”

“Well, just so you know, I fought against ordering one, but I have some pretty good news on the horizon that’s going to require me to be easily reachable.”

“That’s good? Right?”

“Very good, I’ll tell you about it when it’s an actual tangible thing. How’s your thing going?”

“Taking a break from it right now. Feel like I’m so close just need to observe the process. The breaking down or changing of normal plant cells into…” she trailed off

“Amelia Vine Cells?” Hans filled in the blank and Amelia tilted her head with the ridiculous sounding name.

“Lets call them Vine Cells” She responded back. “Then I think I’ll be able to understand how it’s doing this to my plants.”

“But do you know why? Or want to know why?”

“Hmmm, not really, I mean there’s so many why’s out there and I just assume it’s doing it because that’s what it’s done for as long as it existed.”

“Man, I wish I could let that stuff go, I would obsess over the why”

“I think that’s the accountant side of you”

“No I think that’s the logical side of me, I think you the fucking weird one” Hans said with a smile

“Who knows at this point!” She exclaimed throwing her arms up in the air. “Who knows whats normal behavior anymore.”

“I know you’re right on that one, look” Hans showed Amelia a short video of people now protesting lock downs, nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers. “Like a few days ago people were literally doing the most to show these people appreciation and now that everyones hair is getting long they want out”

“And you’re excited for to go back into this world!?”

“Well, not excited, but you know, it’ll be nice to eat at restaurants agains”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.” She said looking displeasing at the computer screen. “What else is happening out there?”

“People are getting pissy about lockdowns, supply chain still stretched pretty thin, shipping is backup at the ports”

“Wow, only took how long to for people to protest?”

“Like a month”

“I don’t know weather to be proud or worried about that”

Hans and Amelia debated on whether a health society would follow the rules or to question them. It wasn’t heated, but it was intellectual intensive. Each one made good points, counter with common sense. Amelia had to force herself to turn her focus back to her work, she kissed Hans on the forehead and then the lips and went back to her make shift lab.

Chapter 6

Hans phone would take a little over two weeks to a month to get to the apartment. When he woke to the shipping email he had a collision of feelings, annoyed at how long it’ll take, but thankful for the addition time without it. He felt his brain starting to process things normally, no longer the need for endless distraction. Just being fine with reading, being with Amelia and emailing back and forth with a production facility for his product.

He came into a schedule that worked for him. In the morning we would wake just a few minutes before Amelia, he would gracefully walk through the jungle hallway which even after some time with it, still put him in a sense of wonder. Even if it had just became part of the scenery, it still had an effect on them every time. He would prepare breakfast in silence, enjoying the time to search his own mind from the night before. Once Amelia was up and in the kitchen he would place what he had prepared in front of her, pour her coffee and talk about what they were going to do that day. With both of them having projects to work on it was almost as if the days were preset for them. They’ll find time to be with each other and watch movies. But for a 6 to 8 hour period they spent apart. Hans in the living room and Amelia in the kitchen. Coming together for meals and moments of frustration when they ran into a dead end. Which will prop the one to go bother the other until they’re brain clicked to solving said dead end problem. Hans enjoyed this routine they fell into, almost as natural as tree rings and crashing waves. He thought that this routine was always there for them, like an undiscovered rail road consumed by a forest. Now he couldn’t imagine diverting from such a peaceful life and he couldn’t help but sport a smile on his face, the same smile Amelia wore every day as well. Yet, she was just happy to have Hans in the moment with her. There was no more of the dreaded “Hang on” or the “one second” there was never a time now that she felt like she was intruding on his time, nor he was intruding on hers. A perfect symbolic relationship between the two. The thought of her leaving had faded like into the deepest parts of her mind and now, she couldn’t imagine them apart. Everything about they’re set up fit like a perfectly formed glove.

“What do you feel like having on in the background?” Hans said standing in the living room as Amelia finished her breakfast.

“I don’t know baby, you’ve picked great flicks, have you reached the end of your list?”

Hans didn’t want to admit it, but he had over the past weeks they had one of his favorite movies every single day. Leaving Hans feeling peaceful and calm, he didn’t say anything back. Amelia leaned back in her chair and looked at Hans standing in the middle of the jungle scrolling endless down movie lists.

“Is it my turn to pick some?” Amelia asked with a smile

“Shit, baby, I guess so.”

“Wait, do you know what my favorite movies are?” She said getting up from the table and walked into the living room. Hans still scrolling not wanting to give up control to her.

“DO you know what my favorite movies are?”

“Sadly, I do not”

“Well, well, well, if only I had the foresight to shot that question back at you when you were getting at me for not knowing.”

“That moments passed, should have shot your shot when you knew it was your turn!”

“Nope! I’m just going to rack over the coals just a little” She said walking behind him and slapping his butt.

“Go for it, I deserve it!”

Amelia wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. “Nah, I would like my boyfriend untoasted today”

“Thank god” he said wrapping his arms around hers.

“Romance and the Stone, that’s the one I’ll like to have on in the background.”

“Never seen it”

“Really? With your love of 80’s movies I’m surprised you hadn’t seen it. It’s a classic”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know, its a classic to me, just like Hook and Space Jam. But people seem to hate those movies”

“People don’t think Hook is a classic?”

“Nope, people the class above us don’t like it. Think its a kids movie”

“It is a kids movie, a great kids. But still kids movies are not popular when they are pandering to kids too much”

“That’s what kids movies are supposed to be right?”

“Well, to a point, but it still needs to work on every level. There’s something about the universal some kids movies. Lion King, Toy Story, You know, timeless tails.”

“Peter Pan isn’t a timeless movie?”

“Oh no it’s a timeless story, absolutely. But it’s a story that has been retold over and over geared towards different generations, we got Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Spellberg retelling. Remember Pan?”

“Pan? No, I don’t remember that”

“No one our ages does, but kids who were dragged to the theater or watched it on streaming knows it and probably love it”

“Is it bad?”

“Yes, it’s bad, there’s modern songs and not like in a cool way. Like the Knights Tail, Hugh Jackman is Hook I think?. It’s just weird. I won’t lie though, the visuals are pretty dope. Or maybe it’s Finding Neverland or the other Peter Pan movie that came out in 2005”

“How many fucking Peter Pan movies are there?”

“I don’t know” Amelia looked up and smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Just basking in the glorious unknown of this conversation.”

That’s when Hans realized, he didn’t have a phone to look it up right away. She didn’t have her phone and neither of them were really motivated in knowing such a pointless answer of how many different retelling of Peter Pan there was.

“Wanna see which one is the best?”

“Wanna get high first?” she said looking up at him.

“Fuck yes”

Amelia went to the glass cabinet in the kitchen that was normally used to hold liquor. Which they had only three bottles of, a thing of vodka which one of Hans coworkers gave him as a missed joke thinking he was Russian, Champaign from some New Years ago, and a half drank bottle of wine. Which Amelia and Amanda drank over a year ago. The hang over still haunted her. But next to all the dusted bottles was a Masan jar of cannabis, a green grinder, metal pipe, glass pipe, and a small bong. She pulled out the glass pipe, Masan jar and the grinder and brought them to the living room. Hans was looking up something on his computer.

“Looks like we have 5 movies to watch to see which one is the best.”

“Oh yeah? Lets see… it has to be the original, Hook, Peter Pan 2003?, Finding Neverland, and Pan. What else am I missing?”

“Neverland, never grow up never grow old. But I can’t find too much about it, came out in 2003.”

“Never heard of it. Does it look good?” She said loading while grinding the weed.

“It looks like a bummer, here’s the paragraph under the movie. A burnt out suburban theme park Lost Boys are stoner punks, Wendy is black, Caption hook is a gay leather man, and Tiger Lily is a transvestite that’s what the paragraph says”

“Jesus, that sounds fucking crazy.”

“Yeah but can’t find even a trailer about it.”

“Well, lets not worry about it then. Doesn't sound like a kids movie”

“Looks like there’s also Wendy coming out next year which does look pretty good.”

“Shit, I guess it has been enough time to do another one.”

“Then there’s one coming out in 2023.”

“Well that’s just a lack of creativity then”

Hans laughed as he heard Amelia dig for a lighter in a drawer.

“Fuck, I don’t where I put that light at” Amelia said closing the coffee table drawer. Hans opened his desk drawer. He dug around, felt Amelias cold, probably dead phone and then he found a lighter. Turned and tossed it to her as he got up and turned off his computer.

“Which one do you want to start with first?” Hans said coming over to the couch as Amelia strike the lighter over the bowl of the pipe.

“The original for sure” she said coughing out a puff of smoke. It smelt as pungent as a skunk and was almost disgusting good smelling. Hans clicked over to the original animated version and clicked play. Amelia leaned back into the couch and passed the pipe over to Hans. He never smoked anything until he started dating Amelia. He enjoyed cannabis on occasion now, the one time he smoked before her he hated it. Didn’t get high and couldn’t talk to the people he was with because they couldn’t focus on a single thing. But with Amelia, he felt his emotions more and felt safe. Able to truly enjoy the experience.

He took a hit from the pipe and blew it out as the Disney logo flashed on the screen.

They finished the original, Hook, Peter Pan 2003, Finding Neverland and were now struggling with Pan.

“Fucking smells like teen spirit? How much did that cost to get into the movie?” Hans said coughing out smoke.

“The opening was cool, a dog fight with a fly pirate ship was pretty dope.”

“And coming into Neverland was really pretty. But Jesus Christ, I hope parents show they’re kids the original and Hook. Everything else just misses the mark.”

“Finding Neverland was good, but no kids movie.”

“Would you stay in Neverland?” Amelia asked Hans looked up at him as she nested into his arm.

Hans looked up and thought about it.

“I don’t know, would you be there?”

“I never want to be there, a land where you don’t grow? Sounds truly horrible”

“But you never grow to death”

“Death isn’t the end that people think.”

“Uh ho, are we about to get into something deep?”

“What do you think happens when we pass away?”

“I remember talking to my aunt about this, I asked her what she thought and she said I hope I get to see my mother and everyone I had lost along the way again even if it’s just for a moment. A moment is all I need and I thought about that for as long as I lived with her, it echoed loudly in my moments of isolation. That’s all I would like to experience, I imagine entering into a room. A good, clean, and comforting room, and everyone I had ever loved with my full heart is there. Patiently waiting for me.”

Amelia felt a strong emotion ripple up from her heart and watered her eyes. She tucked her head into his stomach and said “I hope for that too.”

“What do you think happens?”

“I think if you live a good life you get to pick a new life, in any dimension”

“Any dimension?”

“Yeah, you know, smart people think there’s infinite dimensions, there’s a dimension where Covid 19 didn’t happen this year, dimension where we didn’t meet. My theory is there even dimensions that fit fictional stories. So you can live like a hobbit life in Middle Earth, or a smuggler in the Star Wars universe, but my personal favorite idea, is living out in the Pokémon universe.”

“Oh man, Pokémon world would be sick as fuck to live in, get to leave home when your 10 with your own little pet that can do cool moves, beat other kids little pets up, take there money”

“Well, I was more thinking of just being a gym leader, or even a photographer. Pokémon Snap had a major effect on me as a kid”

“Why didn’t you become a photographer then?”

“Because there’s no Lapras around to photograph”

“Fair enough” Hans said laughing out loud but also enjoy the mental image of her being a Pokémon photographer.

“But after hearing your version of the afterlife, I like that more than just living out some distant fantasy. I hope your right over me”

“What was that?”

“I said but after hearing your-“

“No no no, did you say I’m right?”

“I did, is that so difficult to hear?”

“It’s just nice to hear.” Hans said as he kissed her deeply

“A broken clock is right twice a day”

Hans took another pull from the pipe and blow out the smoke. “You know” he said “I’m worried about what Pan is leaving behind for the kids of this generation.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in Hook Robin Williams is Peter Pan grown up and is a bad grown up, unable to connect or even understand his children. Only to rediscover his youthful side again with the Lost Boys. Then Tink has to remind him he has kids and he can’t stay in Neverland. He has to leave and only back in the real world he finds the balance of being an parent and still has fun with his kids. While in Pan it starts on the opposite end of Peter Pans life. Him going to Neverland to find his mom. He ends up taking his friends from the Orphanage to Neverland which was sweet but I don’t think they realize that they’ll never grow up. It’s a little like Pan introduces them to a substances thats going to stun there’s growth. Which isn’t a good message. In fact. It’s dangerous.”

“I think you are done with this” Amelia said gently moving the pipe from his hand

“I know I know, over analyzing kids movies. But you gotta admit, Hook is just supremely better then any iteration. Besides the original, thats a classic for pure nostalgia sake.”

“The kids will be alright but you are right about the messaging. Hook is just better all around. Fuck the tomato’s who think this movie sucked.” Amelia said taking a hit from the pipe.

Chapter 7

The next morning Amelia was the one to get up first and start coffee. The Jungle had turned into a pleasant background that they had grown use too. They stayed away from commonly walked paths with leafs politely bending out of the way. Creating an almost trail like effect that wouldn’t be out of place on a mountain side park.

Placing bread in the toaster was a bit of challenge, making sure no low hanging leafs got singed from the hot quails. They avoid the stove all together which was the most used space in the kitchen. A few clean areas on the counter remained but most of the kitchen was consumed by the jungle and Amelia couldn’t help but home a ear to ear smile when she woke. While she waited for Hans to wake up she went over her notes from the past few days of her trying to figure out how the Amelia Vine changes plants to giants. It was slow, blinding, and sometimes even disheartening to try to figure something out she had no experience in. But it was the single thing that was keeping her sane during covid lockdowns. Like a complex puzzle or a knitting a whole closet.

She poured the hot water in the French press over the freshly ground beans and sat down at the table. She heard movement coming from the hallway and expected to see Hans stumble out. It was the sound of clumsy steps trying to balance after a long night rest. But it stopped and Hans didn’t come out.

She stopped what she was doing and looked towards the direction of the hallway with concern in her eyes.

“Baby?” She said out loud expect to here him say something from the bathroom. But only silence rang back.

She got up and head down the hallway, check the bathroom which was dark and empty and then the bedroom. Where the lump of Hans sleeping body. She turned back to the hallway with the sense of uneasy concern filling her stomach, mixing with her first few sips of coffee. Enough to make her feel a cramp and almost nauseous.

Walking back down the hallway she brushed some leafs away to see the window in full, expecting it had to be the wind. But no window was open. She played back what just happened in her mind, she definitely heard movement in the leafs, the gently sound of soft plants rubbing against each other, and more importantly she heard footsteps. She definitely heard footsteps, clumsy, sleep filled footsteps.

“Good morning” a voice came from behind her making her jump as she looked out the window.

“Whoa, didn’t mean to scare you” Hans said rubbing his face.

“Good morning, did you get up earlier?”

“Nope, just waking up now, is there coffee?” he said as he walked past her to the kitchen. She followed him thinking about what had just happened.

“Yeah, Just made it”

“How did you sleep?”

“Okay, woke up a bit too early” Amelia said hesitant of the strangeness of what had just happened. “I swear I just heard you get up a minute ago?”

“Me?”

“Well, there’s no one else in the apartment right?”

“the last I checked It was just us”

Amelia took a few seconds to think about it. It must have been a strong gust of wind that came from a loose seal in the window. That had to be the reason for the sound against the leafs. But the footsteps, that was harder to explain. She thought as they moved into the kitchen where Hans now stood shirtless wearing his sweat pants on he kept by the bedside.

“Have you been working out when I’m not looking?” She asked as he poured himself some coffee and took a bit of toast. His body seemed more fit than normal. He looked down at his body as if it was new to him as it was to her.

“Oh yeah, I do about 100 push ups a day and 100 sit ups. Just 10 a set, kinda helps me when my emotions are a bit too strong. I had to do something to deal with my emotions rather than distract myself.”

“Well, I gotta say, I enjoy this habit more than over informing yourself. When have you been doing this?” she said with a smirk on her face. Admiring his body shine against the sunlight.

“When your working in the kitchen mostly and in-between emails.” He said taking

“You don’t want to work out in front of me?”

“Well, no, not really”

“I wouldn’t mind watching”

“I’ll let you know when I’m about to do push ups then”

“What? I gotta have some for of entertainment rather than old movies and enjoying our plants” she said gesturing to the jungle

“Our plants? I don’t think I can claim them”

“Your my boyfriend, your the closest thing to a daddy to these green babies as anything”

“More like a step daddy I’m guessing, I just live her and pork there mom”

“Don’t say pork in that way. use the proper word….. Your fucking their mom”

They both laughed as Hans went into the living room with his cup of coffee.

Hans spent time going over emails and checking with some news while Amelia worked in the kitchen, both with smiles on their face. Hans was focused on negotiated with price and oversight when he heard Amelia come into the living room. The gently grace of leafs moving with the wind and foot steps of her moving to the couch.

“Oh I’m not ready to work out yet.” He said out loud quietly.

But only silences replied, still, mistaking someone to be there. Silence. He waited a few seconds to turn around and found no one was sitting on the couch.

“Baby?” He said out loud with a sense of confusion.

Again silence. Rolling his office chair to peak into the kitchen he didn’t see Amelia sitting at the kitchen table. Getting up he walked to the kitchen taking a peak in every corner, then peering down the hallway. He saw the gentle swaying of the large leafs as if someone had just went past them. Almost like tempting waving hands signaling him to follow down the hall. He felt a strange feeling of unease in his stomach. He walked carefully and cautiously down the silently waving hall.

“Baby?” He rang out again and again silence.

The bedroom was dark, as if night had suddenly fallen on their bedroom, he quickly looked back towards the kitchen to see that it was in fact, the middle of the day and light was shining bright through the window. Even if it was covered by leafs, it still gave a sense of heavenly calm. But when he turned back to the looming bedroom the pit in his stomach grew. He kept moving hearing every single foot stop he took on the hard wood floor until he got to the door way. He peeked in the dark bedroom and found nothing but darkness. A darkness that he had only witnessed in windowless rooms and moonless nights. “Baby?” He said with a bit more force than before, as if he was calling back a dog that wondered too far away.

Again, silence.

He moved his hand in-between the leafs of the wall to find the light switched a flicked it on. Filtered light scattered across the room instantly and in the corner stood a tall man with a large smile on his face.

“JESUS CHRIST” Hans screamed as he jump back from the door way, but when he immediately went back in with a new since of anger at stranger in the apartment. He found nothing.

Just the jungle filled room

“Why did you scream?” Amelia said coming from behind him.

He jumped and noticed the bathroom door was now ajar and she obviously came from the bathroom. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

“Oh I had head phones one, she said popping out them. From under her sweat shirt. Sorry, what did you see”

“Uh, I, I.. just didn’t know where you were. Thought you may have gotten lost in the jungle” he said quickly turning it into a joke. Just as a knee jerk reaction.

She rubbed his face and examined him, he did look scared, but he was trying to hide it.

“Maybe the lock down is getting to you or is it due to lack of the phone?”

“To be honest, it could be both at this level of boredom”

“Have you order one yet?”

“Yeah, just for the deal and to get back to work. But I’ll use it responsible, I won’t dive into it like before.”

“I’m not worried about specially if you keep you the exercises in the mean time” she said as she ran her hand down his 6 pack under his sleep shirt. Then she pushed him into the bedroom.

The next morning Hans woke up first and headed out to the living room. Skipping his need for coffee immediately after waking. He still had some emails on his mind he needed to take care of first. It was a draft email to a new assistant that was held in a draft and it had dragged from his afternoon to his morning. But it wasn’t important enough to disrupt the delicate time with Amelia. In fact, there wasn’t much in the world that could disrupt that, he could even find time for it in the middle of a house fire. The email was sent and he was now preparing coffee as the sun was arising, he held a smile on his face for taking care of a mental itch he felt. With a new sense of relief he waited for the water to boil and as he waited, he read a book. Finding the place where Amelia normally sits and looks at her microscope samples the perfect spot. He heard the whistle of kettle, placed his book mark and as he looked up and saw the waving of leafs directly infant of him. As if something was just there. He looked concerning for a second before preforming the automative act of pouring the hot water in the freshly ground beans. Yet, as he tried his hardest to ignore the strangeness of what has happened to him over the past few weeks. It wasn’t a major concern for him yet, yes he noticed, but no there wasn’t an proof of it being tied to anything short of his imagination. Yet, in the moments between moments, his mind was screaming that something was afoot.

Amelia got up and noticed Hans had made himself at home in her workspace. It slightly annoyed her but she got over it quickly as soon as he handed her a freshly poured cup of coffee and he got up.

“How’s this little project goin?” He asked

“Well, I think I have it pretty well mapped out. If you see here you can see how I’ve labeled what I’ve been able to observed, from there I found it works almost as a pulse, like a heart beat pushing nutrients through the plants. Also it changes the structure from normal house plant size to the giants. Almost like a new process of metamorphosis into a new plant cell structure.”

“So what’s left to figure out?”

“Well, whats causing the pulsing is the last mystery, besides the why, and where this strange vine came from. But that’s for more educated people I’m guessing. But you know what’s strange?”

Hans blinked at her dumbfounded and said “you mean like our apartment turning into a jungle?”

“Oh, yeah, but the fact the pulse has gotten faster day by day”

“Maybe it’s just working harder to move the stuff from plant to plant”

‘Nutrients, that could be true but I still don’t know yet. I think I have enough to almost write a book about it”

“Damn, you think you can compress all this down to a book?”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t know that was going to be my end goal, but after all the notes, things I’ve learned, and theories”

“Have you started typing it?”

“Well, its all written up here” she indicated to her head. “I just need to move it down to my fingers” she finish say mimicking typing with her fingers.

Hans smiled as he said “Hopefully something doesn’t get lost in translation.”

“Baby, this information highway has been with me since my first essay in the 5th grade. It’s well traveled and well worn. I just need to time to, you know, travel it”

“Whatever you say, I actually have some news too”

“Oh yeah?”

“You know that little project I’ve been working on? Well, I get to work on making it a reality here in about a month.”

“Wait, what?”

“I have a seed investor and well, I’m starting a company”

“Holy shit!”

“I know! I’m excited about it too”