OFM Lit: The Pothos
Samitha sat in a chair by the window of her three-bedroom apartment. She opened the window, letting just a bit of the outside air inside her home. She thought it was becoming stuffy … she also wanted a smoke. She carefully reached in her tiny pockets and slid out the red-and-white pack. She reached for the table and grabbed a lighter and lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply and savoring the taste and feel of the murderous pleasure.
Samitha gazed around at her apartment and shocked herself. She hadn’t realized just how many plants she had acquired in the short, six months of living there, but they made her feel a sense of contentment. She remembered it was watering day for most of her plant babies, and so, with a quick flick out of the window, and a spray of the air freshener, she began to pull the plants down from the ceilings and out of the windowsills. She grabbed a glass and filled it with water. She took great care not to overwater them, as she feared too much would drown them. One by one, she grabbed the potted plants and gifted them with nutrition. She imagined that deep inside their cells, they were jumping for joy.
Nearly half an hour after she began the task of nurturing her semi-motionless children, she grabbed the final one from the hook in the ceiling and began to pour water in the soil. As she did so, a leaf ever-so-slightly brushed against her. She placed it back into its initial position as soon as she noticed.
It moved again. This time, it was a quick brush against Samitha’s thigh.
“This can’t be happening. I’m losing my mind, right?” Samitha said to no one.
Samitha decided to pour the last of the water in the plant and replace it on the hook by the window. It was the perfect place, she thought at the time. As she let the full weight of the plant and its pot rest upon the hook in the ceiling, Samitha noticed something peculiar about the plant. She noticed that it seemed to be swirling its leaves. No plant she had ever seen before had moved in such an obvious way, save the venus flytrap.
Samitha reached toward it, and the stems reached back, quickly brushing against the palm of her hand.
“Oh, hello there!” Samitha said, running her hands through the rapidly growing stems of the pothos. Samitha was enjoying the fact that it seemed to be behaving more like an animal than a plant. Before she knew it, though, the plant had begun to enmesh itself in the cells of Samitha’s body. It had started to learn who she was, not just in the sense of her personality, but in the very roots of her being.
The pothos dug itself deep into her muscles. Samitha tried to rip herself away from the thing, but the pain in her muscles forbade her from doing so.
“Stop,” she managed to whisper, hoping that it would be able to recognize her pleas for mercy and show the same compassion she had shown in its early days. Samitha didn’t realize that the more she pleaded for help while under its grasp, the more it learned. The more it became like her.
The flesh on her arm began to quickly decay, as the plant made its way around the rest of her body. It engulfed the whole of her arm, wrapped itself around her torso, and began to silently snake it way down her legs. In mere minutes, Samitha was nothing more than a shell of her former self. A pile of dead skin lay beneath the plant, which continued to grow and form something different than itself.
The stems and leaves of the plant began to wrap around each other, and eventually, they began to form a small foot. Its colors began to morph, seemingly struggling to find the right shade and finally settling on a light mocha color as they continued to grow and pile on one another.
As the minutes passed, a foot turned into a leg; that, in turn, created the beginnings of a torso. Within the hour, the pothos had recreated itself into a walking and barely talking copy of Samitha herself. It matched the blueprint it had stolen from Samitha’s cells from the mole on her face, right down to her glimmering, hazel eyes. With its purpose complete, the pothos set out, eager to explore its new world.
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