A story that starts with the same line as it ends.
My plants are dying and they’re not a metaphor for anything. They aren’t a statement of my health or situation. All they do is prove I need to take care of things or they will die.
It’s the evening and I wash my hands. I have cold sores on my face again so I try to wash my face too carefully. I’ve never looked up how to get rid of sores, but why would I? Remember, my plants are dying.
I dry my hands on a towel I should have washed weeks ago, careful to only dry my face on the inside of my T-shirt. I think it’s cleaner somehow, even though the banana and bleach stains would disagree.
I study my face in the mirror. My eyes are puffy and wonky, forehead a firework of spots on a beige sky, the angry white flakes of dry skin showing once again that no one should be surprised by my dying plants.
Heading to bed I forget, for the hundredth time, that the lightbulb needed replacing months ago and the switch does nothing. The ceiling is too high for me to reach and I don’t own a sturdy chair, but the truth is I have a lamp that’s been working fine for the last few months. I once used a torch as my only light for half a year so I know how far my apathy can go.
Lying in bed I smell the fusty sheets and old blankets. I went through a phase of washing my sheets and I miss it. My room is cold — there’s no heating outside of a noisy dying radiator, and the hot water bottle I desperately wish was bigger. The Velcro on the case doesn’t quite work anymore, so I scratch my feet on it.
In the darkness I finally let myself take in all the pain from the day. I breathe out slowly, feeling just as heavily aware as I did all day. No one’s going to save me from this.
I sleep.
When I wake, it’s slow. I have alarms every five minutes for an hour. I don’t get up until the last one has finished. I’m painfully aware that my co-workers will already be at work by the time I’m up. Industrious, neatly pressed, shiny faced — the same mental image of them every morning as I sit on the edge of my bed, dry drool on my cheek, sighing like it’ll make a difference.
I grimace if I catch myself in the mirror before noon. Sometimes as a joke, usually because I don’t have the energy to fight the self-loathing yet. I’ve been steadily gaining weight for a year and regardless of what the chirpy part of the Internet tells me, I’m not happy with how I look.
My morning routine always takes eight minutes, regardless of whether I am up early or late. After eight minutes I am dressed with hair pulled back, creased but ready to go. Perpetually creased is how I like to think of myself, on the few occasions I like to think about myself. I hate so much of who I am, but lack the character to change.
Moving to the front door, as ready as I’ll ever be, I make sure my keys are in my right pocket. The walk to work is the same. The tall businessman in the wraparound sunglasses, the goth in the aggressively cool jacket, the greasy looking person who vapes, but, to their credit, never as we pass. There are the two cleaners complaining about their night shift, talking bins and toilets. I like hearing their conversation, and imagine the voices of the ones I never hear speak.
As slowly and quickly as every day, I am at work. Sometimes I sneak in and pretend I’ve been about for ages, sometimes I stroll in rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Whatever I look like, the shame is always there. I am always right about the industrious shiny faces. They are good people mostly, they just have husbands and wives and people who make them breakfast and drive them to work. They have stories about dinners and the work they’re doing to the garden and I don’t mind it. They’re stories from a life I didn’t ever want, even as a kid. I never dreamt of having someone to come home to. I dreamt about knights, dragons and dinosaurs, and complicated scenarios where somehow I am the only hope, but never about having love or a family. It feels like bitter comedy now I dream of someone holding my hand. It feels primal, primitive. I try to force myself not to care and focus on work, and yet here we are. Long single, nearing middle age, in a good job but miserable, and more heartbreakingly lost than I ever thought possible. My childhood self-image deflates in a sad corner, sagging at the seams.
I snap back into paying attention, and I’m staring at the computer screen, blinking back into the present time. I accept, yet again, that no one is going to save me. A bubble of fear creeps up on me, reminding me of all the time I waste, all the lives I’m not leading, all the people I’m letting down. I sip my tea.
The same thought always arrives when I pack my bag to go home, that all these memories I have won’t last. Some conversations are gone as soon as the words fall out my mouth, most faces become unrecognisable again. I feel the aggressive fog of the knots in my stomach rolling in and I look out the window. I know I am thirty minutes away from home but the desire to walk hasn’t reached my legs yet. I grip the sides of the chair and stare at my feet. They got me here, they’ll take me home, and tomorrow they’ll do it again. Not for the first time, I contemplate how these feet have fifty more years of walking to work to do and my head begins to spin.
I try so hard to focus on my day to day because the future terrifies me. I need my keys to always be in my right pocket and my slippers in the same spot and my towels to be dirty so I can focus on them and not the important things. I need to focus on the tiniest aspects of my day, like how I used twenty-three staples and James asking to borrow my pen because if I let myself think about the future I wouldn’t stop crying.
My hands are white from staying gripped for so long. I sway slightly, and then change into my trainers for the journey back. Zipping my jacket and patting my right pocket, I leave the empty office.
I don’t register anything from the walk home until I’m halfway back. Usually I like walking by the standstill traffic but tonight it barely registers. Instead I’m trapped, going over invented scenarios of failure and missed opportunities. I see a life unlived for myself, but great success for friends and enemies alike. There are lemons in my smile when I remember how I imagined my future. Vague but impressive, alone but important. I stare at the pavement, suddenly aware of how hunched over I’ve become.
Ten minutes from home as I pass the Chinese shop. Five minutes from home as I pass the chip shop. I think and I think and I think so much the street behind me should be cloudy with everything falling out my mind, like grey breadcrumbs leading back to me.
The front door. No post. The living room. Trainers go in their designated spot and I have my usual battle of whether to sit down or make dinner. I compromise and lean on the kitchen door, taking my glasses off, letting my eyes gently unfocus. This could be the only day of my life. The door is cold on my back but I stay there anyway, staring into nothing. I blink slowly, remembering tomorrow will be just like this and I sink to the floor. I stare at my knees. My plants are dying and they’re not a metaphor for anything.
Olivia Brazier is a 27-year-old lighthouse enthusiast whose hobbies include reading, writing, theatre, films and baking. They have written a lot of stories, but is incredibly glad this one saw the light of day! Says Olivia: “Winning this is such an honour, and I can’t wait to write more.” They can be found on Twitter here, rambling as fast as possible.
This story was inspired by the writing prompt: “Write a story that starts with the same line as it ends.” For Reedsy’s curated feed of writing prompts and the chance to enter our prompts-inspired Short Story Contest, HEAD HERE.
