Monstera Deliciosa

Content Warnings: adult language, mention of sex, violence, gore, death, murder, suicide

Carolyn looked around her apartment one morning and could not believe what she saw. It was her houseplants, which she barely noticed most days. They were thriving. These little plants, so helpless, so literally dying just a few weeks ago, were suddenly wild, juicy, exploding out of their pots.

The leaves were bigger and greener than she ever remembered them being, and there were new ones being born everywhere. Unfurling, twisting, reaching for the light. Long pothos vines slithered across her windowsills and pooled on the floor in shallow puddles of green and yellow. Even her alocasia, a plant that was always limp and lame, looked suddenly sturdy; the tips the larger leaves each held a single drop of water, glistening like a tiny diamond.

Thick white roots like living worms crept out from below various vessels and pots. Soil clumped in the windowsill where one plant had cracked its container, like it was thinking about getting up and walking away. Sprawling roots crept along the walls and under the bed.

She had been busy lately, but how had she missed all this? Could this kind of thing even happen overnight? If you had asked her even one day before, Carolyn would have told you she couldn’t grow anything. She bought houseplants mainly because it was the thing to do. Because salespeople, social media influencers, and her friends constantly told her, this one is foolproof, you can’t kill it!

But she could. She killed them all, coaxing them to give up their lives in every sort of way. They went out dry and crunchy or soft and wet. They drooped, dropped leaves, curled brown at the tips. They got yellow spots, they folded and leaned until they fell over, ripping their own roots from the soil.

Sometimes they shriveled up within days of coming home, but more often she tortured them bit by bit, slowly smothering, bleeding, choking them to death.

She sat on her bed in wonder. She had recently moved, was living alone for the first time in a while, so there was no witness to verify what she was seeing. She texted a friend: My plants look amazing. You have to come see! I think they like the new apartment.

Yesssss plant queen! was the reply. You finally sprouted a green thumb!

…

Is the light different in there?

Carolyn thought about it. The light was different in here. Different in that it really did not exist. Logically, her last apartment should have been the one to grow plants— a corner unit with an outdoor space, it had huge windows facing three directions.

Her mind started touring her beautiful last apartment, its chic exposed brick, extra bedroom, and renovated bathroom. And with the apartment tour came memories of her last real relationship. George was supposed to be The One. Not a soul mate, exactly (she wasn’t 15 anymore), but he seemed like he was finally The One who could understand and appreciate her. The One who wanted to reach out and grab the whole world in his hands, but could be content somehow with just this one body, this one woman to hold.

She slammed her phone on top of the microwave, the sound shutting a door on the memories, and started pacing— two measly strides before she had to turn— a tiger in a too-small cage.

George was not The One, he was no one. A loser on the apps, a stranger on the subway. A boring face, if she was being honest, one she would swipe past without a second thought. His teeth were too small and he called spaghetti spag. The only reason she stuck with him was because she was on the rebound from her divorce. She was trying to be open, trying to try. She felt a little sad for the version of herself that was willing to try, but the sadness was swept away by memories of her regrettable marriage.

She couldn’t muster up a single atom of sadness for the death of that experiment. An interminable episode of tedium that she was happy to have buried in the ground.

As a wife she watched with deepest ennui, paralyzed from the eyes down, as pieces of her personality drifted away like dust motes in the sun. Day after day she came home to a beige house, dragged in the trash cans, made microwave food, vacuumed. All while her darling Carl informed her about his fantasy sports, his workouts, his mother’s cataracts. And each time Carl called his cat Creamy even though her name was Mimi, Carolyn had to come up with creative new ways to keep herself from swallowing nails.

So now, two mega-failed relationships down, she was 39 and on the prowl for the final guy. Because it was 2023, the prowling was done mostly on her phone, mostly from her basement studio apartment that had barely enough room for one human being to live but was, at least, her own. The walls were cinder blocks, still obvious even after being painted over thickly with the cheapest paint imaginable. If she was being honest, it was a cell, but one she felt would be temporary.

And there was just the one window in her cell, high up on the wall, offering little sun and a glorious view of shoes walking by at surface level. The window was tiny, barred. There was absolutely no way that light was growing these plants.

She pressed her fingers to the soil in a couple places. Why did she do that? She had no idea but she had seen people do it online. Touch the soil to feel…some measure of plant health? Ok… the soil felt… dirty? Was it dry or wet? She had no idea, but now her fingernails were black. She rubbed her fingers against each other, stroked a leaf. The apartment was really dark, none of this made sense. And she was stuck.

Literally stuck. While pacing she must have kicked up a vine, which now lay across the top of her socked foot and curled around her ankle. She tried to kick it off but it didn’t budge. She took a little hop to her bed and sat on the edge to gently unwind her foot but found it was tangled to hell and the vine was stuck to her sock like velcro. How in the world—

Her phone pinged. She hoped it was Noah, her most recent swipee. They had been on one date where she was worried she drank too much, and now she was trying not to worry about whether he would text her again. But her phone wasn’t within reach, now that she was tangled up in vines. It was a whole four feet away on top of the microwave, and she could see it light up each time it beeped.

She reached down to her ankle and grabbed the vine like she meant business. She was surprised when, from under the bed, something grabbed her back. Another vine, this one thicker, like a snake. And it had her wrist, tightly. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, bent over at the waist, with one wrist and one ankle held firmly— by plants?— while her phone was dinging helplessly four feet away.

She had killed enough plants in her time that she was not about to get sensitive about ripping these vines. She put her back into it, expecting a popping tearing sound, but she found she couldn’t move an inch. She rocked instead onto all fours and peered under the bed. A tangle of plant matter met her gaze, leaves piled up, vines criss-crossing in the darkness. She reached in and pat the mass, dumbstruck at the pile of vegetation that had been growing under her while she slept, and she immediately regretted it when she felt the vines constrict around her other wrist. She shook her hand, trying to fling it off and disturbing the leaves. Then, from the pile, someone was staring back.

She gasped and jerked backwards, coming to kneel with shackled hands on her knees. The face was disgusting, one eye staring at her through a misty film. A man, lying on his stomach, cheek to the floor. One half of his face was pale, almost greenish, and the other half was the livid purple of a fresh bruise, where the blood had settled. The rest of his body was hidden under leaves, vines, roots, but it looked pretty flat under there.

Jonathan.

She couldn’t believe how stupid she was for giving herself a jump scare. And of course the plants were thriving. They were composting Jonathan! Which could also explain why she hadn’t smelled him for a while, actually forgot he was there.

Gross Jonathan who had eaten four olives at 7am and left the pits lined up on her kitchen counter. Who had pulled a muscle while they were having sex and shrieked like a barnyard animal. Gross Jonathan was the name her friends assigned him in her phone, so she would remember and not answer next time.

Well now he was even grosser. She was really sorry she hadn’t figured out a better way to get rid of his body, but she wasn’t sorry at all for poisoning his brownies. That he ate the brownies she made for him after only four dates was absolutely icky. He should never have done that.

At the moment, however, she was still tied to the floor by her own plants. She began to have an inkling that this was serious, that she might not save herself. She might die here, alone and single, in a basement apartment, with her phone four feet away. Her panic was quickly drowned out by feeling sorry for herself. What a pathetic life she had, what a miserable way to die, helpless and next to a corpse.

They would probably find Jonathan next to her dead body, both of them covered by a blanket of plants, and think he was her boyfriend. The thought was both comforting and enraging. Tears dropped to the floor.

She heard a distinct rustling as the plants began to tighten and, to her horror, started to tug her towards the bed, her knees dragging a full inch across the cheap Ikea rug. Forget about what used to be Jonathan. There was a monster under her bed and it was very alive.

Her arms were fully extended now, and she was holding her head out of Jonathan’s view, using her chin as a lever against the bed. She did not like his eye. She thought about screaming for help— surely a neighbor or someone walking by outside her window would hear her and stop this.

But if they came in to rescue her, they would find Amir stuffed in the shower, wouldn’t they? Still wearing those horrible, really small running shorts. They would probably guess he wasn’t her boyfriend because of all the stabs. Then it would be a whole thing.

She planted her palms on the floor and locked her elbows, stopping the slide. Her phone pinged again and Noah popped into her head, but it was not an image of him saving her. Instead she thought of his socks. The socks were white, and too big, and the rounded heel was hanging out the back of his dress shoe like a deflated testicle. She physically cringed, revolted by this little memory that made her face curl up like she tasted something bad. Why would she let a guy like that have any impact on her day? Why did she want this little creep with the too-big socks to text her ever?

And that’s when she realized she didn’t. She was so tired of pretending their bad outfits were good and laughing at their horrible jokes. Tired of waiting for calls that didn’t come. Tired of shaving, waxing, plucking for some idiot who flossed in bed. She would have to shove him onto the train tracks when she couldn’t take the ick anymore. The thought exhausted her.

By now, Carolyn’s wrists and ankles were wrapped so tightly in plant matter it had started to hurt. Her fingers tingled, then throbbed, and finally numbed as the circulation began to ebb, then ceased. Her tears stopped rolling, dried by the tiniest sliver of relief, a feeling of soft release like taking off her bra at the end of the day.

In what she knew were the last seconds of her life, she felt whole. She wished she had more dirt under her fingernails.

She took a breath and ducked under the bed like diving under a wave in the ocean. She made defiant eye contact with Jonathan’s filmy gaze, daring him to try to gross her out as the plants dragged them both to hell.