ALOE
Some evenings she would insist on watering the plants on the terrace. The maid could have done it. She, the maid, watered all the houseplants and the ones on the two balconies. But some days, M would tell her to not go upstairs and she herself would go after the sun had stopped being angry.
Some of their plants were still hanging around on the terrace opposite their own, on the neighbours’ half. Granted, it was wild and unkempt, just whitewashed when they got their house painted and then left to its own devices, but that had to do for the time. But when M’s terrace was being renovated, they’d had to move all the plants to the neighbours’ portion and some of the heavier ones had been left there.
So the days when M went up to water the plants, she would undo the latch to both the terraces and water the estranged plants along with the ones that had made their way to the right side of home. They had a standard 10-metre hose for the plants, which ran easily across their terrace and indeed, went smoothly across to the other part too, ending just before it could reach the last group of planters way off at the right hand corner there.
The aloes sat there, huddled, pink from the sun and always looking a little lonely in their decisive togetherness.
M would first water the champa, and imagine she were walking through a small jungle with very tall flowers, freaky but kind. She would first give them a nice shower, then fill up the earthen pot as much as it could hold and then clean out some of the fallen leaves and other organic debris. Then she would rub the leaves of the plant, careful not to harm them. At last, she would smell them, always waiting for the scent to enter her body and go right down to her belly, always feeling pleasantly surprised as it did. This ritual was of sorts a compromise between the plants and herself while she mustered the courage and strength to lift the frankly too heavy and too big planters back to her own land.
Afterward, she would turn her attention to the rest of the spot, forever a little disappointed at the emptiness of the spot, bald and naked all at the same time. She longed to see some green. But it wasn’t hers to change, so she would adjust the water hose and give it a final pull, to yield as much length as could be before facing her final responsibility on that piece of ground — the aloe veras.
She would then hold the hose between her legs to balance it, and pinch the mouth of the pipe to make a spray-like outlet to water the abandoned aloes in the corner. At these times, she let her mind wander to the exact same train of thought every time — 1. this must be what it’s like to pee with a penis; 2. then her mind would wander to that episode of friends where Phoebe says something about being ready for her penis; 3. and then she would wonder if someone, maybe that boy (who lives two houses away and has a big, sweet dog and sometimes smiles invitingly and other times just treats her like an avoidable older person) is able to see her little water circus with the rubber appendage between her legs.
It never occurred to her to move the aloes closer to the other plants, the tall, freaky, flowery ones. Maybe because the aloes felt like she did. Together and not, just beyond reach from everything that mattered but always there, trying, trying, determined little things all red from the effort and taking a long time before giving up.
May, 2019
