FEATURE: “In A Vegetative State” by Bob McWilliams
As I remember it, a mean, ugly April rain hammered us for three straight days. It was the kind of rain that washed away the nascent hope that winter was behind us and Spring was coming. April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but this storm changed everything.
I once loved Spring. I enjoyed the emergence of new life and the feel of the sun shining in my bay window. Sitting on my deck, sipping a morning coffee, I savored the world’s rebirth and momentarily forgot what Spring meant to suburban living.
All around me, under the cover of nature’s floral largesse, noxious weeds were hiding, growing, and plotting their assault on our beloved lawns and gardens. I would mentally prepare for the imminent lawn wars soon to commence. Despite the loss of my weekends, I was ready for humanity’s rekindling of the ritual cluster bombing of our suburban green carpets with a barrage of lawn products.
On the Saturday after the storm, I officially opened hostilities with the encroaching enemies. My garage door creaked open, and the sun shone on me and my lawn feeder, the ultimate suburban warrior. I waved to my neighbor, who was already working his lawn, and he smiled back and waved before getting serious and refocusing on his mission.
I joined him in battle with the fervor of a Pentecostal revival. Dandelions, thistle, clover, kudzu, wild grape ivy, and all their assorted cousins were awakening to resume this most personal battle. All summer, I would celebrate my landscaping victories by enjoying burgers on the grill, but these celebrations were short-lived and shallow, as new skirmishes continued weekly until the hard freeze of winter finally brought a refreshing truce.
On the morning it all changed, as I methodically traversed the lawn with all the aplomb of a robot mower, I encountered an unidentifiable growth by the side of the house. The unusual rogue weed was already about six inches tall. It was early for such things to be so high. Most weeds were pushing tiny roots out of their seeds, hence my use of lawn poison, politely labeled pre-emergent fertilizer. What could have grown so tall so fast? I shrugged and tossed additional chemicals on it. Later, I would wonder if there was something more I could have tried that day.
Weary after the battle, I joined my neighbor Rick on his deck for a beer. The war had its benefits. Community camaraderie ran high back then. Feeling good about the day, I described the weird growth by the side of my house.
“I don’t recognize what type of weed it is,” I said. “Never seen it before.”
“I found one just like it,” Rick replied, tossing his crumpled can in the recycle bin. “Want another?”
“Sure.”
Rick grabbed two more beers and handed me one. “I went and got my weed whacker, but the damn thing must be a variety of hemp because it shredded but didn’t mow down. It’s just lying there now.”
“Stupid nature always throws new crap at us.” I chugged the rest of my beer. “Sorry, I gotta head out and get me some dinner. This was fun. Thanks for the beer!” As I left, I went over to look at the weed thrashed and horizontal on the ground. I paused. Is that plant moving? I shook my head. Nah, I shouldn’t have two beers on an empty stomach. Dismissing the optical illusion, I went in for dinner and more beer. All evening, my thoughts were haunted by that weed until, tossing and turning, I finally succumbed to sleep.
I awakened that night as red flashing lights played across my window shades. I rose and pushed the shades aside. Firefighters were pumping water into Rick’s house. I pulled on some clothes and stumbled outside. Rick was standing on his lawn.
“Rick, what the hell?” Rick stood staring. “Rick? Are you and your family okay?”
He turned to me, a blank look on his face. “Yeah, everybody’s OK. Weird that the valve on the grill’s propane tank would leak and be ignited by the water heater in the garage. I’m pretty sure I tightened it.” He returned his vacant gaze to the firefighters trying to put out hot spots. I glanced at his wife comforting their two children and decided I could do nothing now except get out of the way.
“Hey man, if you need a place to stay, we can put you up.” Rick stood there silently.
“We’re good. We’re going to my mother’s for tonight.” Rick’s wife Helen said. “Thanks for your offer though.” She turned back to the children.
I walked away. As I headed to my house, my eyes caught sight of Rick’s damn weed. Despite being shredded earlier and its proximity to the fire, it had managed to recover and grow another foot taller! Curious, I went over to my plant and shivered. It, too, had grown and was level with the living room window! I stumbled back to my bedroom.
Morning arrived, and I arose, unaware the world had changed. I went to my window to check on the status of Rick’s house. When I pulled back my shades, an infestation of those plants greeted me. Neighbors were chatting and gesticulating at the growing nuisances. Overnight, they had spread and grown to almost four feet high. Each robust stalk now sported a developing bud. Scratching my head, I went to the kitchen to get coffee. A creepiness permeated the house, the creepy feeling of being watched. My plant danced innocently in the breeze outside my window.
I turned on the television, hoping for information. As usual, the media was no help. One reporter was blathering about some political party sowing the seeds of neighborhood chaos. I switched stations. No better. They reported that the weeds were a foreign bioweapon. All agreed that we should avoid the plants if possible. I turned it off. I began to feel less and less like going outside.
I called my hardware store. Scott Lawn Care surely had a product to deal with this invasive weed. Jack at my True Value Hardware store apologized for his inability to help. He mentioned how a run on his store had depleted his garden section of all lawn care products. Before ending the call, he thanked me for not screaming at him. In those first few weeks, America was angry and used everything available to preserve their lawns.
Unfazed by the chemical onslaught, the cylindrical shoots developed large bulbous buds at the top of their stalks. The plants now resembled small streetlights, and they had spread everywhere I could see. If anything, the highly toxic lawn chemicals, as well as the eco-friendly powders we used, only made them stronger.
My fear soon merged with the neighborhood’s collective terror as the shoots ratcheted ten feet taller over the next several days. The bulb at the top swelled to enormous proportions, making each plant resemble a Jack Skellington Christmas nightmare. I watched neighbors arguing with each other over what needed to be done to rid our precious lawns of this grotesque blight. Home-owner association members frantically dialed their local elected commissioners to demand the county do something. Governments were nonplussed. They tried keeping people calm as they ‘worked on it’.
Inevitably, I knew someone would do something crazy. I was not surprised when it turned out to be one of my neighbors, Brad Saunders. One afternoon, he decided he had had enough. Brad was a nice enough guy, though considered by most to be a local nut job. Armed with a chainsaw and mumbling something about weeds not messing with his property values, Brad marched out of his house and hacked at one until he triumphantly felled it. Witnesses cheered as he defiantly held the chain saw above his head. A few people swore they heard the plant screaming, but their claims were drowned out by a collective cheer.
A commotion outside my house got me moving early the next morning. I went to investigate before I even got my coffee and breakfast. The ruckus seemed to be centered near Brad’s house. I approached the crowd quickly, only to stand and gape at the scene before me. A very dead Brad swung from a rope tied to the large oak tree on his front lawn. His chainsaw hung from his neck like an obscene pendant. At the bottom of the tree, he had crudely painted a sign that read ‘LEAVE THEM ALONE. I WAS WRONG.’ What did that mean? I shuffled home in shock.
I huddled in my living room to avoid the giant orb bobbing outside my bedroom window. How big will these things get? And what do they want? I returned to the television. It helped to have a human voice in the house, except for the horrific stories being reported. Anxiously, I listened to the accounts of various incidents across the country.
An elderly woman in Boca Raton, Florida tried to cook the plant’s bulbous head like a cauliflower. Her niece found her cooked in the bathtub, the hot water still running. A young stoner in a Terra Haute, Indiana apartment complex took one of the many plants surrounding the building and tried smoking it. Police reported finding his body asphyxiated in a chlorine-filled janitor’s closet. A farmer outside Topeka, Kansas, who tried to plow under all the plants surrounding his farmhouse simply vanished, his tractor inexplicably found in a nearby lake.
I had to mute my cellphone to halt the constant chirping of national alerts. I suspected then and know now, that we were both naïve and overmatched. We should have tried everything at our disposal. Tactical nukes. Napalm. Drone strikes. Biological interventions. There may have been many casualties on our side, who knows? That ship has sailed. Caution prevented deaths in the short run but left us open for the ultimate capitulation. While scientists worked diligently to understand the specific domain of the phylogenetic scale these beasties came from, the orbs Bloomed!
The Bloom occurred innocently and with no warning. It was another typical spring day, male songbirds tweeting for a chance to mate, the sun feeling good on my face after a long winter, and atypical dangerous plants swaying in the nippy breeze. Despite the national panic, I was calmer now and kind of fascinated by my single, harmless-looking but diabolical weed intruding on my living space. I even came close to giving my Monster Weed from Hell a name. Jolly Green Giant? Groot?
I sat on my deck, relishing the warmth of the sun and the aromatic smell of my coffee. I ignored my green buddy swaying by the deck. Before I could finish a second cup, a loud crunching, slurping sound erupted from the plant. I almost dropped my coffee. The noise reminded me of the popping of bubble wrap used by those ubiquitous shipping companies if you were to pop them underwater.
Crunch/Slop, a single layer surrounding the bulb peeled back and dropped to the ground with a splat. Crunch/Slop, the next underlying layer peeled off. As the last remaining layer fell, a globular, mucous-covered orb emerged. Dumbfounded, I stood gaping at it when, with one final slough of goo, an enormous set of eyelids separated, blinked themselves clear of slime and I found myself eyes to eye with, what?
I gawked. What options do you have when a weed in your yard stares at you? I could hear a commotion in the neighborhood as each household came to discover a similar metamorphosis. After each Bloom, the plant’s eye (is that truly what they were?) began rotating on its stalk like a vegetal security camera. I watched as neighbors crowded the street, many gesturing at the plants. I turned back to my plant and our eyes locked. Goosebumps tingled as I felt violated by this unblinking ophthalmic intrusion. I felt exposed. Observed. Assessed. I quickly averted my eyes.
After the Bloom, we were no further along in determining what these things were. I am quite sure they are not from Earth since they have such an advanced self-defense mechanism. No Earth-bound plant utilizes mind control. Crazy old Saunders learned the hard way. Me? I’m a fast learner. Once, I came too close to mine with a hedge trimmer and distinctly felt threatened. What else could make me bring the trimmer so close to my neck? Message received; I have learned to tolerate them.
Over time, the Eyes never paused in their observation of us. I remember pulling back my shower curtain one morning to discover the eye peering in my bathroom window. I screamed which made the thing blink but not go away. I am not ashamed of my body, but creepy is creepy. Ignoring the distraction, I continued getting ready for work. Soon, we all ceased to notice the intrusion as the plants, outside of snooping, never bothered us those first few months after the Bloom.
Much later, a year or two maybe, I remember walking to work, and I smiled and waved at the plants routinely surveying my route. We adjusted as best we could. They were everywhere, a global network of visual, vegetal surveillance. Fear and caution faded over time as many people began to praise the Monster Weeds from Hell because humanity ceased to terrorize itself under their constant and ever-vigilant watch.
I regularly watched news reports of a world-changing for the better. Under the ultimate surveillance system, crime ceased to exist. We learned the Monster Weeds from Hell saw equally as well at night as during the day. A walk at midnight was as safe as a walk at noon. Quite a few churches began praising them as God’s Reeds, the vengeful hand of a righteous Lord.
One morning, the sound of glass shattering woke me before my alarm. I raced into my spare bedroom and came face to face with my plant as it ransacked my bedroom. The giant orb was snaking its way around the room. Smashing did not injure it as it knocked my closet door off the wall. The big eye kept blinking like the shutter of an old manual camera. I tried to shoo it out but was overwhelmed again by the plant’s threatening mental projection. I backed off and left the room as the plant continued its rummaging. I soon discovered my home invasion was not an isolated incident. It was happening everywhere.
My amped-up anxiety merged with the rest of humanity. This newfound providence had a steep hidden price. The Monster Weeds now monitored us continuously. Privacy ceased to exist. The Weeds simply did not permit it. Each place now had an Eye that would visually inspect whatever it wanted inside, just like the Martian invaders in War of the Worlds. I joined everyone else by removing my blinds, leaving my windows open in nice weather, and removing any obstacles to observation to minimize the damage that accompanied an inspection. If they wanted to see inside, they simply smashed their way inside so it was better to just let them in.
Our exposure to the plants also exposed us to each other. There were no longer secrets. I knew every Tuesday, my neighbor’s wife Susan cooked Italian. I could watch her chopping tomatoes through her open window as I sat on my deck. Later, I would savor the delicious smells of garlic and basil. Thankfully, in our neighborhood, most showers and bedrooms were on the second floor, thus providing some privacy for passersby below, though not from the plants. It was reported that these alien weeds had a telescoping ability to even assault high rises.
A percentage of the population resented their loss of privacy. However, I chose to take a wait-and-see approach to the whole situation. I mean, these things were ruthless. Others were more daring. Some rugged individualists tried to hide what they were doing. Now, there are no individualists. No rebels. Ditto for privacy militants. You cannot find one anymore. Also, no media outlets are investigating because the plants have gotten to them, too.
Overall, I think I have adjusted to this new world order. I still enjoy sitting on my porch and sipping coffee before going off to work. Some things never change. I wave to my neighbor as the smell of her breakfast reaches me on the sidewalk. She acknowledges my greeting. The sun is warm, the humidity is high, and, like the August mornings of old, my garden is producing. My roses fill the yard with their delightful fragrance. I appreciate the irony of still going to war with the enemies of my lawn and garden while being observed by my Jolly Green Giant.
Life goes on. Seasons change. I still commute to work on weekdays, wave perfunctorily at passersby and our towering overseers, and come home at the end of the day. I have had a couple of dates, but romantic moods are challenging when a huge Eye watches you and your date snuggle. My existence, while bland, is still acceptable. I was almost hopeful, but we just had a mean, ugly April rain. Overcome with a sense of dread, I looked out into my yard and spotted a large rotund pod growing like a deformed cabbage adjacent to my verdant overseer.