Roots and Weeds

Like a weed wrestling through the undergrowth, he was free of the monotony of everyday life in the middle of nowhere but, like a weed, the past has a nasty habit of showing up at the most inconvenient times; revisiting him in glimpses of memories long-forgotten and the faces of people he wished to not remember, but was unable to forget. The betrayal etched onto their expressions was reminiscent of a carving on a tree, one which remained forever in his mind, as though branded by a hot iron. The past had gripped him with both hands and refused to let go, lest he finally be free of his mistakes once and for all. However, he had embraced the guilt long ago for, in his hometown, he was but a dying dandelion; in the city, he was free to flourish, not as a weed, but as a flower.

Dandelions scarcely serve a purpose greater than being a garden nuisance, returning time and time again, only to be uprooted once more. Their existence is based solely on persistence, much to the chagrin of green thumbs and gardeners everywhere.

The withering wasteland from which he was evacuating was but a souvenir of his travels, one that his mind regarded with a sentiment akin to fondness, although his memories were far from it. However, as their sorrowful silhouettes stood by, he recalled how he had once been like them: posture slumping to a slovenly slouch, singed leaves curling inwards, slowly dying under the intense glare of the sun. Did they notice that this town was killing them, or was he the only one brave enough to leave?

No longer was the pesky parasite that careless children crushed underfoot, or the inconvenience that adults ripped from their flowerbeds with a grimace; he was a new species entirely – a new species that was on an expedition to prosper elsewhere.

Without hesitation, he was torn from the soil of his birthplace and replanted between the cracked pavements of a city where pollution evidently thrived, although little else did.

The city air was stifling. Smoky tendrils coiled around him, a cloudy python suffocating its prey, the threat of asphyxiation hanging heavy. A thick layer of fog painted baby-blue ceilings, the sun weakly struggling to pierce the obstinate overcast. Discoloured blades of grass peaked through fragments of once-whole concrete.

There were no weeds, there were no trees; there were no plants at all, he came to realise. Not even nature's strongest could survive in such conditions; even the almighty redwood would be reduced to timber.

This was his destruction.

The façade crumbling, he found himself a fly stuck in honey. Now that the beguiling charade had abruptly ended, he could see the deceit for what it was: a picture-perfect lie masquerading as the truth.

The realisation of his ruination gently nudged him into motion, until he found himself running at full-speed, chased out of the city by its spiteful snakes, forged of smoke and carelessness, and its venus flytraps, willing any unwitting fly to dare to get too close.

With escape was at the forefront of his mind, he was driving with no set destination but a place where he could breathe clean air once more. Until a dingy sign welcomed him to the town where he had grown up – a sharp contrast with the flickering colours that illuminated the city's name – he’d barely registered where he was headed.

Vividly verdant, the endless expanse of field greeted him with a scenic sunrise, the painted horizon enveloping him with an embrace. Vermilion bled into lilac, which faded into apricot; muted colours blending to create a merged masterpiece; a daydream brought to life.

Wooden skyscrapers sheltered him from the sun’s warmth, branches outstretched in an idyllic invitation. Rustic leaves were scattered across the undergrowth, stained the colours of autumn, with the acorns laid atop them carrying the promise of new life. Frostbite gently nipped at his exposed fingertips, which he tucked into his pockets, safely stowed away from the crisp air.

Gazing at the woodland, he saw no weeds, but instead the beauty of nature, from the moss that lined the aged oak tree, to the mushrooms that peeked from the surface of the forest floor, to the pinecones tumbling from the conifers.

Perhaps his own feelings of insignificance had stemmed from gawking at the captivating charm around him, rather than focusing on his own.

He recalled the times where he looked around and saw, not the radiance, but his own inferiority. Envy curled in his chest, the green-eyed beast rearing its weary head once more, yearning to run rampant and flatten everything in its path. Rather than become ensnared in its silver-tongued trap once more, he suppressed his feelings of insignificance and cast jealousy from his mind. With a flare of its nostrils, the creature was gone.

He had gone to the city in hopes of being reborn, recreated, redefined, because all he saw were the list of flaws that he had spent hours in front of the mirror cultivating. All along, he was shrivelling in the shadow of everyone else’s burgeoning beauty, but he deflected the blame to the sun for not shining on him, or the trees for being too tall, or the flowers for being so pretty in the first place, when the fault only fell on one person: him.

In spite of his pettiness, roots ran deeper and stronger than weeds, and his roots were woven into the very earth on which he stood, entangled with everyone who had ever paused and reflected there before him. He saw it now: his name was written in this very soil. No longer was he a weed that cowered in his own self-pity, for he had been born anew as a sapling, origins planted firmly in the ground.

His lips quirked upwards, a smile gracing his expression for the first time in what seemed to be an eternity. What he had failed to recognise then, too wrapped up in his own mind, was painstakingly clear to him now.

This was home, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.