The Green Man
The Green Man
A short horror story about accepting who you are.
Sometimes you don’t know you need the dark until you find it, waiting for you to walk into it like the two of you were meant to be. You’re a pea and it’s the pod, just waiting, wanting to hold you. And you need this because no one’s ever held you before. You’ve always taken care of yourself. You’ve always been alone. You’ve always kept your mind at a distance, because you know it’s dangerous in the light. Instinctually, you know, if you let your true self out, you’ll get snatched up by the wolves. So you hide in the light, you wear disguises. You can’t let the wolves get you. You need the dark and its embrace.
I didn’t want to go to Aunt Jane’s for her birthday, she hated me. They all did, every aunt and uncle and cousin. But mother insisted. Mother always insisted I do the things that hurt the most. For your own good. Facing your fears will make you better. You do the things you do because deep down, you’re afraid.
Bullshit.
Mom told me what wishlist plant to get Auntie and where to get it. Told me I didn’t have to stay long and to remember that she meant well. That I was no angel. She meant to help when she told me I was too weird. That I was too much of a loner. Too much of a troublemaker. That no one could love me the way I am. I needed to improve. She’s a smart woman, mom said. Give her some credit. We all just want you to live a better life than you live now. Then she threatened to cut off my allowance if I didn’t go. Father just grunted at me, glowering as he nodded. He rarely spoke to me anymore. Not since the last time he’d bailed me out of jail for a drunk and disorderly. I remember him sitting in the car, both hands gripping the steering wheel, his neck muscles tensed.
“I have given you every opportunity in life. And you keep doing this.”
Said he’d never bail me out again. I was animal in need of a cage.
Maybe.
The nursery mom sent me to was actually pretty charming. An old wooden building with a wraparound porch and a huge wisteria spilling over the awning. There wasn’t anyone inside so I poked around, looking for the plant mom sent me to buy. Noticed the camera over the till… Pity. I had a picture and a scientific name, I hoped the green thing wasn’t expensive, but I didn’t see it inside so I went out the open French doors at the back. The space opened up under another awning, this one mesh to let some light in, with plants hanging and climbing or standing in neat rows. There were ferns to my left and cacti to my right. In front of me, gravel paths radiated out like spokes in a wheel. Water dripped and seeped from hoses and the air was humid. I couldn’t see anyone around so I decided to wander and hope I’d stumble across what I was looking for, or someone who could point me to it. I checked the picture again, just to be sure. They mostly all looked the same to me.
I picked the path ahead of me. Trying to focus on the plant I needed instead of the reason I needed it and how much I didn’t want to see my aunt or hear about how unlovable I was. The plant, focus on the plant. The path I had taken was lined with fruit trees in pots, most taller than me. They rustled in the gentle breeze. I was out from under the awning now and the bright sun made me squint. None of these were the plant I was looking for. I thought about turning back and picking another path but then I noticed that the path I was on branched ahead, so I kept going and picked the shadier direction.
I walked for another minute and didn’t see anything that resembled the plant I needed when the path split again. To the right it led back to the center of the nursery and what looked like tables of cacti and succulents. Also not what I needed. To the left an arbor wrapped thick with a flowing vine arched overhead, the path beyond it reaching back into some kind of dark, tropical area. There were so many vines I couldn’t see very far, but the plants looked closer to what I had on my picture so I followed it. As I passed under the arbor the scent of vanilla and cinnamon wafted to me and I thought I heard something scurry among the plants. I supposed it was lizards, or rats.
All around vines tumbled to the gravel path and crept alongside it. Strange plants on tables reached toward the light above and I realized that there was no mesh awning above me, just towering trees. Odd, I hadn’t remembered seeing this grove when I was driving up to the nursery. I glanced back behind me, a curtain of vines blocked my view of the arbor I had walked through. I paused, but then turned forward again, in the distance the tables disappeared and the gravel path gradually subsided into dirt. Only darkness and green lie ahead. Something was still scurrying around. How would I find the plant I needed now? I wasn’t even in the nursery any more. But then, if I didn’t find the plant, I couldn’t go to Auntie Jane’s, I couldn’t hear about how terrible I was, how every thought in my head was evil and unintelligent. I was a blight. No one could love me. I looked back again at the curtain of vines. No one could love me back there. But forward, into the dark, there were possibilities. There were untold possibilities. Those, pulled me forward.