ArchivedLogs:In the Weeds

In the Weeds
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Heather, Spencer	2018-04-18 "But I guess it is just a home for all the plants that have no place in the other beds."
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Garden Plot - Lower East Side
The smell instantly changes here to something greener, herbally sharp and mulchy; paved walkway drifts at angles through raised multi-tiered garden beds, reaching varying elevations of a mere foot above the ground to three feet, each held up by retaining walls of leftover stone from the houses, riddled here and there with spiraling mosaic dragons. While companion flowers of red geranium, fuchsia bee balm, violet petunias, pastel-and-white sweet pea, are sprinkled throughout and alongside each box, it's primarily vegetables; between tall eerie trellis spires of fixed animal bones, clung over with curlicues of lush vine sheets and okra, delicate netting protects lower levels of melon and tomato, kale and tomatoes and a number of other edible foods, with a separate box of sand-loving root vegetables sending up frondy foliage for carrot and onion and garlic. To one side, a compost heap lets of faint shimmers of heat and steam, to the other, a strongly scented bed of myriad herbs, both medicinal and otherwise, flanked on one side by a large healthy swell of coneflower. With a shed nearby housing gardening tools, the whole of it is watered by a network of hidden hosing that gives off faint tickles of mist when in use, ribboned with rainbows, and there are structures in place to suggest the garden can be enclosed in winter months. The weather has still been vacillating wildly between midwinter and an early summer, but that hasn't stopped the garden from flourishing. This early in the season it's mostly the herbs that have been overwintered indoors that are actually /harvestable/, but the flowers edging the beds bring lively color into the mix of greenery. Flicker does, too, right now. Sprawled along the ridge of one stone retaining wall with a holo-terminal projected into the air above him; his clothes are plain as ever (pale linen trousers, a light green polo) but his arm blends in with the scenery. A simple mechanical limb today, it has been painted in a tangle of shoots and leaves, deep pink and white bleeding heart flowers dripping in curving rows throughout the green. That he currently lazily brushes a mechanical finger against one delicate pink blossom of an /actual/ bleeding heart plant that spreads its long stem half over him is probably not a coincidence in his choice of seating. A rapid series of slapping noises precedes Heather's arrival at the garden, her faded and damaged pink flip flops the likely culprit as she seems to dash over to check on the sprouting plants, her worn story journal loosely in her grip. Heather's previously gaunt features appear a bit more filled out than they had been at the beginning of the winter, and her previously sallow skin has regained some pigment, though her hair remains as messy as ever. She presently wears a noise cancelling headset hooked into her recorder along with her tinted goggles and classic clashy and colourful clothes. She glances over towards Flicker, raising a couple of fingers to her temple in a kind of salute that she just as quickly lowers to snap up her recorder. Down on his knees between the flowerbeds, Spencer may have at some point been engaged in some manner of actual gardening, but that task is long forgotten now in favor of following an earthworm's progress across the garden path. His jeans are dirty and getting a little bit too short for him, his black sneakers likewise dirty, their soles starting to peel away at the heel. He wears a lightweight black-and-purple jacket over a leaf green t-shirt bearing the silhouette of a dancing faun-creature bowing and extending one hand to a child above the words 'Amongst the Green and Growing Things' written in flowing cursive. His head snaps up when Heather arrives, and he lifts one filthy hand to wave. A smile flashes quick across Flicker's face. The line of plump pink blossoms sways wildly as he lifts his hand to return her salute. "Have you come to help?" is very quickly followed by the unabashed and unnecessary confession, "We're not helping." His wave of hand is inclusive of Spencer and himself both. "I'm mostly hoping the plants have it figured out on their own." Heather returns Spencer's wave with a large arcing hand motion, and she shakes her head to Flicker. "I will assist you in not helping," plays her slightly distorted recorded voice, "I wanted to look at the plants and be outside. When the weeds are confident I will help with them." She raises her shoulders and arms in a slightly exaggerated shrug and her attention snaps over to Spence, "If you are not helping, what are you doing?" "I'm cheering this earthworm on," Spence counters, though his voice sounds neither defensive nor sheepish, "and the earthworm is good for the soil, so I /am/ helping the plants. Indirectly." He moves a twig out of the worm's path. "But I think the plants mostly do take care of themselves, for now. In a couple more weeks, though..." He trails off, the anticipation in his eyes fainter than the grin on his face. "The weeds have it pretty figured out, too, but the herbs can hold their own, you like plants?" This last question was probably meant for Heather, although Spencer's attention is already wandering to an insect perched on a rosemary leaf. "I'm cheering Spence on," Flicker volunteers, "so I'm helping more indirectly." He swats his terminal away. Sits up, gently tapping at one of the blossoms near him. "How do you know when a weed is confident? Do you mean more confident than usual? Most of them seem pretty sure of themselves." Heather nods towards Spence a few times rapidly and concedes, "That does sound helpful. If I were an earthworm I think I would benefit from encouragement. Even when I am not an earthworm I benefit from encouragement." She gently tosses her journal down onto the grass and kneels down to get a closer look at the flowers. "Most weeds are self-assured. But some are impudent. I like the plants that are planted out here. But I do not dislike weeds either. They are trying their best, too. The overconfident ones will kill the other plants though." "Well, I think you're doing an awesome job helping us indirectly help the plants." Spencer's smile does reach his eyes, now. He crouches down beside one of the herb beds. "The overconfident ones also get killed by me." He demonstrates, uprooting several spindly, just-sprouted weeds. Then he stops. Stretches out an index finger and holds it along the ground until a bright red ladybug climbs onto it, slow and unsteady. "I like these, too," he says, kind of wistfully. Then, with a kind of /insistent/ cheer, "They eat the bugs that eat our plants." "In the weed kingdom, Spence is widely feared." Flicker crosses a leg beneath himself. "I'm not actually sure where the line is. What makes something a weed? Half the things people call weeds Jax tells me are edible. Or medicinal. Or --" He frowns. "Brewable. If you're into flower-wine, I guess." Heather flashes a smile when given praise for her indirect help, nods sharply in approval as Spence plucks out the young weeds. She flips up her goggles in an attempt to see the ladybug more clearly. "I like them too. They are well dressed insects. Red is a striking colour. I like little living things." After a few rapid blinks, she just puts her goggles down again rather than let her eyes adjust to the sun. "Maybe we should have a little weed garden. So at least they have somewhere to live. I do not know where the line is, especially if you can eat them." "I guess pretty much anything can be a weed if it's growing where you don't want it?" Spencer has not taken his eyes off the ladybug. He rotates his hand as the insect travels sluggishly around his finger. "Like peppermint is an herb, but if it got into a flowerbed, then it's a weed, right?" He frowns, thoughtful. "So what /would/ a weed garden look like? Are they still weeds if you /want/ to grow them?" "Depending on what you planted, I guess it'd look kind of like a plant Thunderdome. Safe money is on the mints to be the victor." Flicker hasn't exactly gotten /up/. Nevertheless he has disappeared-reappeared at Spencer's side, still mostly reclining. Lazily propping himself up on an arm to watch the spotted bug. "I'm sure we have space to make a weed garden if you want." His smile is quick. "Seems kind of appropriate for this place anyway. The /nature/ of weeds is a bit above my paygrade, though." A bit of a chirpy sound escapes from Heather's lips, and she scrunches up her face in thought for a full two seconds, mostly still throughout this think time while she fixates on Spencer's hand. "It is a paradox," she decides as she hops back up to her feet, "Weeds in a weed garden are wanted and not weeds. And non-weeds in a weed garden are unwanted and weeds. But I guess it is just a home for all the plants that have no place in the other beds. They do not have to be weeds. Seems nice." Spencer's grin widens. "Symbolic paradox garden! I'm gonna do it." A slight shift back onto the balls of the feet suggests that he's about to vanish off and get started right away. But the ladybug chooses this moment to do something dramatic. Upon reaching the very tip of the boy's finger, the bug pauses and raises itself up high on its legs. Its black-spotted wing casings open up, the diaphanous wings underneath spread wide and are still for a moment, faintly iridescent in the sunlight. "Oh!" Spence stares wide-eyed as the ladybug takes off in somewhat bumbling flight, spiraling off to patrol the herb beds. "Yeah," he agrees at last, blinking rapidly. His gaze follows the bright red insect until it disappears amongst the weeds. "It's gonna be great."