In The Shade Of A Houseplant
Written by Landis Blair
Installation by Mary Sweeney (As Horror Floral)
It was always the same spot. The exact same spot. First it was a money plant. Then a bird of paradise several weeks later. Then an aloe which was quickly followed by a schefflera. It took me a few months to realize it was always on that particular spot of the windowsill. I would wake in the morning to find one of my houseplants shriveled and crumpled as though it had been strangled in the night.
It all started late last year when I moved into an apartment across town. I was excited by the change and had specifically selected this new apartment because of all the southern light it received in the main room. It was an ideal location for my plants and I couldn’t help feeling giddy as I arranged them along the ample window sills.
For the first few weeks everything was wonderful. I could see my plants growing stronger and more vibrant with the extra sunlight. However, sometime near the end of my first month in the apartment, I woke to find one of my money plants dead and shriveled beyond recognition. The speed of its demise was odd but I reasoned that this must have been the result of some unknown stress the plant had experienced from the recent move. I even tried to cheer myself up by thinking it was a sad but fortuitous opportunity since this extra window space would allow me to spread out my remaining plants that were already looking a bit crowded with their recent growth.
Over the coming weeks I became distraught as several more plants succumbed to the same mysterious and abrupt end. I am embarrassed to admit that it was only at this point that I made the connection that all of the plants had died while sitting on that one spot on the windowsill.
I did a thorough examination of the spot and its surroundings but found nothing out of the ordinary. For good measure, I even cleaned the whole windowsill with bleach. I then decided to do an experiment with a healthy coleus which I moved to the troublesome spot. I carefully examined it every day but was unable to discern anything out of the ordinary for a week and a half. However, on the eleventh day, I woke to find it shriveled just like its predecessors while the surrounding plants couldn’t look more healthy while soaking up the morning sun.
Taking the experiment a step further, I resolved to avoid putting any more plants on that spot to see what would happen. Over the course of five months not a single plant in my apartment died. The shock of the disturbing deaths of my plants began to dissipate as I grew accustomed to that vacancy on the windowsill.
A couple weeks ago, I went on my first vacation since my move and a good friend of mine agreed to come and water my plants while I was gone. When I arrived home from the airport late in the evening after a relaxing week, I immediately noticed that there was a small hibiscus in the spot. I felt a rush of panic but then realized there was a small handwritten card tucked into the plant that said, “Welcome home!” My friend had sweetly bought me the hibiscus, having no idea why the spot on my sill was empty.
I picked up the plant to move it to a safer location but then stopped myself and slowly put it back. I thought maybe it was time to forget all the previous nonsense and try again. It was a perfectly good spot for a plant.
For two and half weeks the hibiscus looked healthy as it began reaching out toward the sunshine. Every day I felt a little lighter in spirit as I examined it and found no signs of distress. I began to think that whatever factors had been causing the plants to die must have simply been a bizarre coincidence. However, the next night I woke from a bad dream at two in the morning and my throat was incredibly parched. As I stumbled groggily out of my bedroom in order to get a glass of water I immediately noticed that the main room of my apartment felt slightly colder than my bedroom. I thought I must have left a window slightly ajar. As I scanned the room, though, I could see that each one was tightly fastened.
I was about to dismiss the sensation and move on to the kitchen when something caught my eye. The moon was shining brightly and casting dark shadows of my plants upon the floor, but the shadow that the small hibiscus cast was grossly inaccurate from its form upon the windowsill. As I crept nearer I could see on the floor a large and grotesque shadow of a plant with hairy fronds curling inward like a corkscrew where the shadow of the hibiscus should have been.
I started back in fright and quickly retreated to my bedroom without the glass of water and still shivering from the cold. I locked the door and slept in fitful starts until sunrise. When I woke I was not in the least surprised to find the hibiscus brown and withered upon the sill.
That spot is no longer the only empty spot on my windowsills; I got rid of all my houseplants in an attempt to prevent any temptation for whatever it was that I saw from making a reappearance. I have not slept soundly since and find myself every night sitting on the floor in my living room with my knees tightly tucked under my chin as I stare wide-eyed at the windowsill. I have not again seen that grotesque shadow, but I sit there shivering and staring while I wait for my lease is up at the end of the month.