Let's Pretend We Don't Exist

            by Merav Walklet

 

            A box of organic vegetables is delivered every other week, on Tuesdays, around six o’clock. Every week, on Thursdays, fresh farm milk is dropped off around five AM, with the cream layer on top, sealed with a cap and chilled. Stanley stores his groceries in an icebox, by a window in the farthest corner of his loft apartment. There aren’t really separate rooms, so he keeps the kitchen blocked off with cardboard cutouts of plant life. He gets these for free at work, at the plant depot, when plants are delivered every Tuesday and Friday.
            Stanley enjoys decorating the loft with plants. In fact, he has more plants than furniture. Truthfully, he has almost no furniture. Rather, he has replacement items, such as boxes and crates, and pillows. But it’s not exactly urban or comfortable. Stanley would rather save his money towards more important collectables, like Star Wars figurines or bike parts. It’s difficult to save up for these things. It’s difficult to afford a loft, even with rent control, in a big city. Stanley knows this, so he chooses a mattress over a bed, and a crate over a chair, and a giant plywood box from the dump over a table. His sink must be fixed, it drips, he must get his sink fixed.
           

            It’s Saturday. The plant depot has two customers and Stanley knows this because he heard the bell jingle twice since his shift began only fifteen minutes earlier. He opened shop. He had a large coffee, and drank it black, and is feeling calm and excited simultaneously. When walking to work on this Saturday, he observed a minor car crash; a dog owner ignoring the obligation of picking up after his pet on the open street corner; gum on a street grate; lifeless, leafless trees swaying to the November breeze. Now he is standing behind the cash register, humming a tune by the National which has been stuck in his ears since Monday. His gray sneakers have some mud on them, but he doesn’t mind. A customer approaches the counter, and Stanley forces his eyes to retract from the fascination of his dirty sneaker. Their eyes meet.
            “Do you carry Sugar Magnolias?” A woman is asking him this question. She is standing in front of Stanley, short with gray eyes, and an unattractive nose. Her cheekbones are too high for Stanley’s liking, her cheeks too shallow. “Like the song?”
            “We sell plants. No music here, unfortunately, otherwise I’d spend my whole paycheck without leaving work.”
            “You like the Grateful Dead?” Her front teeth are slightly crooked. Stanley’s attempts at humor go unnoticed.
            “Yeah, but I can’t help you. I don’t think those flowers really exist. And I know every flower that really exists.”
            “Who are you, Audubon?” she interrogated skeptically.
            “No you’re crazy, I don’t do birds.”
            “I didn’t say that,” she trailed off, and then began biting her thumbnail, something Stanley found repulsive. Her hair was a nest of orange dreadlocks, matted and greasy, tousled against her neck and down her back. There was a thin rope that kept them together, securely entwined all the way along the side of her short torso. Her lips were very thin.
            “I know some good book stores though. And music stores,” Stanley added. Her eyes lit up. She smiled violently, almost causing her dimples to shatter. Her smile was electrifying, horrifying. Stanley looked down, brushed some fuzz off his flannel, and bit his protruding bottom lip.
            “Can you please show me? I think I may have forgotten something…” she begged, leaning forward now, and Stanley felt her presence uncomfortable. She was wearing black leggings under a large plaid shirt, much like his, only green (Stanley’s was gray). She had a string tied around her waist, and boots up to her thighs. Her fingers were brittle, her eyelashes tangled. She leaned forward still.
            “I‘m working. I suppose you could come back later…?” At his words, her smile ignited with more flame, as if fanned with fresh air. She nodded ferociously, then grabbed her leather sachet close and turned around, hurrying out the door. Stanley watched her cross the street, her hair wicked and scattered as the wind tattered through it audaciously. Her small frame fought the gusts of billowing fury as she stumbled through the white doors of the coffee shop Gustof that Stanley had bought his coffee from this morning. Squinting, he saw her sit by the window, extract a book from her sachet, and delve into it fervently. It was now time to water the plants.
            Every day Stanley has several tasks he has to complete at the Plant Depot. He has to water all the plants, several times, and has to adjust heat lamps for some of the weaker, more sensitive plants. He has to do bug inspections. Stanley enjoys the bug inspections, because he does a fair amount of research on bugs, and there are lots of interesting bugs to be found on the plants. Although he’s supposed to “dispose of them” (according to the Plant Depot Manual, article XV), Stanley prefers to put them into a cardboard shoe box in which he has several scraps of the dead leaves he has swept up (another chore) from the ground. He prods them around with a very whittled-down, eraser-less pencil. He tries to get them to do circus tricks, but they do not do circus tricks. Stanley has decided that the reason why he enjoys plants so much is perhaps because plants are like blow-up people. They fit a need for company, they breathe, and they say next to nothing.  But actually blow-up people don’t breathe.  Well, they are filled with air.
            Stanley also has to check inventory, make orders occasionally, and answer the phone. But the phone almost never rings, unless it’s Ralph’s mother who often calls to ask if Stanley (thinking he is Ralph) has seen her cat. Her cat is 19 years old, obese, and has purple paws. The cat is dead, Stanley thinks, but he listens to the missing cat report almost every day and regrettably tells Ms. Ralph that he cannot help her in her search, but if the purple-pawed creature shows up at the Plant Depot he will notify her immediately.
            The girl with the orange dreadlocks appeared at the doorway around five thirty. She smushed her face up against the glass windows, fogging them up with her heavy, hot breath. Stanley saw her from the counter; he had just washed those windows. He could practically see every germ crawl out of her gaping cave of a mouth, jumping and radiating with virus and plague alike. Each little germ smacking against that window that Stanley had just diligently wiped down with Windex while humming a tune. Each little germ forcibly attempting to penetrate the force field of glass, dart through the air, and inject into Stanley, and infect him with one hundred different diseases that she must be carrying, harvesting, and breeding in the mangled matt of thread sitting on her head.
            She smudged the fog cloud with a purple glove. Enthusiastically, she waved and jumped to catch Stanley’s attention. It was dim and blue out now, and her breath came out in murky clouds of heat against the sharp, cold air. She had pulled on a trench coat over her flannel shirt, and he could see her lips were turning blue. Stanley did not want to catch a cold. He was sure she already had. He awkwardly fumbled with the twenty-five cent “pack o’ seeds” that sat on the counter. He forced out a cough - a sheepish, lying cough - and avoided eye-contact for as long as he could (not very long), until the awkward bounce in the corner of his eye demanded his attention by pounding on the door. He looked up, pretending to be surprised, and hesitated before shuffling over to the door. She was grinning maliciously as he unlocked the door (it was closing time, why was he still here? He hadn’t been waiting for her, no).
            “Boy, you sure must like plants!” she exclaimed, exasperated. A fresh cloud of heat pumped out from behind her crooked teeth.
            “Oh yeah, well, we’re busy Saturdays.”
            “Did you sell any bonsai?”
            “Nah, we only sold some oleanders today.”
            “I’d hate to see business when it isn’t busy,” she crinkled her face up and forced out a wink in her right eye, but Stanley didn’t quite understand.
            “Well most stores are closing now. We’re closing now. Probably not the best time to show you what I was talking about, I’m not so sure what I was talking about.” Stanley peeled a piece of skin off his finger.
            “Oh nonsense, there’re a million days to show me a million things, but right now there’s only one place to go!” She reached for Stanley’s flannel sleeve, but he pulled away. Her eyes were flickering.
            “Who the heck are you?”
            “Why, I’m Maple, Persephone, Lucie the Lion. Call me whatever you want, most call me Maple, but I’ve been called everything twice. Let’s have dinner, or rather, breakfast?”
            “It’s night time.”
            “All the better! Follow me.” This time she caught hold of his sleeve and yanked him out the door. Stanley forgot to resist, and once they had walked a block she let go and he followed next to her. She took one hundred steps for every one of his paces. Her tiny feet seemed to scamper across the gray pavement, her hair jangled and bounced with her every movement. Stanley towered above her, slow and melodic, his wide shoulders hunched, his thin legs crawling forwards, like a praying mantis. Her arms propelled her forward as his sat limp by his sides. The top of her messy head only came to his chest; and the bottom of his slender, pale hands came to her waist. They looked like two massive, walking bugs.
            After several blocks of silence, Maple stopped abruptly. Stanley stumbled, forced a cough, and stood waiting. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, or why he was doing it.
            “Let’s eat here,” Maple said, tugging him again. She led him through a pair of unidentified doors, on the other end of which sat many little iron tables and chairs. It was nearly silent, except for a quiet hum of chimes. Maple chose a table by the window. Stanley sat facing her, she blew her nose, and he nearly vomited. Her nose was brilliantly red when she removed her tissue, and she sniffed in aggressively, wrinkling her face into a knot of folds and creases.
            “SO, do you do anything besides cultivate plant life for the garden-deprived inhabitants of San Francisco?” Her bottom lip was chapped.
            “Well,” Stanley looked around the room, becoming distracted. Everything was old wood and iron, which reminded him of the iron he had in his apartment (the primary furniture material, that is, for the lacking furniture population). However, the wood in his apartment was mostly white-washed and antique. These wood pieces looked like they had been discovered in an abandoned alleyway. They teetered with old age, and rusty hinges attached the sad limbs of each piece together. They sagged with water damage and termite infestation. “Um, I bike.”
            “What do you ride?”
            “A turquoise Schwinn with orange handlebars. A white front frame.”
            “No!” Maple exclaimed, smacking her hands onto the rotting table. It wheezed under the weight and her eyes danced with excitement. “Me too! About the Schwinn I mean.  But yours sounds beautiful. I guess you know how to furnish a bike with taste. I’m trying to save up for a new maroon frame…”
            “How are you going to do that?”
            “I manage.” She exposed her crooked teeth in a wide smile. After a moment of sitting in the silent, dim room, Stanley became anxious.
            “Where are the waitresses?”
            “I am the waitress. However, we’re closed. Please come again,” her eyes arched and she burst out laughing wickedly. Stanley was frightened. “Oh cool your jets Mr. Rogers, the night is young! So my jig is up. This is my place. I live in the back. I rent.” Her smile broke as Stanley tried to muster up his courage.
            “Then why are we here?” he managed to spit out.
            “Good question. I’ve changed my mind. You know Stanley, I love to hike, we should go on a hike. Tomorrow, let’s go on a hike. I’ll meet you in front of the Plant Depot at 5 am. Bring your bike.” They sat staring at each other for a few more awkward minutes. Stanley was afraid to move, but more afraid to stay. Her eyes were drooping and her lips quivered. There was something charming about her grotesque bluntness. He felt compelled and repulsed simultaneously, and almost had to fight back urges to blurt out words and thoughts he was so used to filing away into his brain. She was a robot, he became convinced.
            The next morning, Stanley found himself awake in the dark. The four AM moonlight shot against the arched windows of the loft, and his plants gleamed under the dim light bulb that hovered in the middle of the foyer. His palms were sweaty.
            He walked his bike along the dark, mellow street corners. The wind dried his lips and the dewy air clung to his exposed hands and neck. She stood crooked, leaning against the front door of the Plant Depot. Her magenta socks were exposed below her cuffed brown pants. Her hair gleamed and crackled from across the street.
            “Are you ready to rumble!?” she exclaimed, jumping and jingling with various dangling chains and metal ornaments. Stanley managed to force a smile, and nodded calmly. She pulled her bike forward from behind her, and mounted on it carefully, pedaling slowly at first to get the fixed gears moving. She looked back quickly, then shouted, “Come on slow poke! We’ve got forever to go!”
            They biked all along the silent streets, and watched the sun rise and the people rise. He followed close behind her, sometimes next to her, and they pedaled onward through the twists and vines of the city until they made it to the Golden Gate. Silently and swiftly, she led the way, and he watched her legs pump, and he watched her exposed back grow red with heat, and he watched a tattoo of Godzilla waver above her panty-line. He looked out over the edge of the bridge, watched the water dance and lap, watched the sky’s eyes squint and the lands’ lungs swell. Soon the bridge was crossed, and they were once again side by side.
            After three hours of venturing through the entwined city streets of Sausalito and dodging under overpasses and various detours, they finally approached Lucas Valley Road. She slowed down right under the overpass, and pulled out a Klean Kanteen from which she gulped and rinsed. He watched her throat bulge and beads of sweat cling to her oily hairline. Her lips were soft and pouted, open and glossy, gateways to each heaving breath. Her eye lids looked purple.
            “How ya holding up, big guy?” she finally asked, while wiping her forehead. Stanley shaded his eyes from the sun, and looked out down the road.
            “I’m good. That was intense. It feels like we’ve been biking forever, but we haven’t gone that far. I like it, I don’t know why.”
            “That’s part of the beauty of biking in my opinion. You’re forced to slow down and enjoy the journey. Of course it’s not been that pretty so far, but it’s about to be.”
            “You’re finally making sense.”
            “Says who?”
            “You can’t stand it!” Stanley smiled honestly.
            “Stanley, my friend, you haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” And she mounted her bike, and he had to scramble to catch up to her pumping calves.

            Everything surrounding them got infinite, every instant expanded with fresh yellow air. Stanley became fixated on the rhythm of each pump, the sound of each drop of sweat that thudded on the pavement, the sway of each tree lining the road. His eyes zoned in on her every movement, her tiny frame conquering each hill and swerve. She battled.
            “Lets play a game,” she suggested, as the road flattened out. They pedaled calmly next to each other and the light freckled each of their faces.
            “What kind of game?”
            “Tell me about your favorite place in the world.”
            “That’s not a game,” Stanley swayed, then quickly caught his balance.
            “OK, I’ll go first…It’s this really weird place in Providence…I swear, it’s got human bones decorating the walls..”

            “Wait,” Stanley interrupted.  “Why are we playing this game?  And also, that store sounds creepy and weird.”

            “No, that store is wonderful - nothing makes sense.”  she answered gently.

            “Why do you like that?”

            “Everything is a lot more fun and beautiful when you can’t explain it,” she replied, as if it were perfectly obvious, as if it were fact.

            The day rumbled on and the hours of biking stretched out as the road expanded. Stanley lost track of direction, of time, of purpose. He forgot about his plants, he forgot about his chores. Every ritual of every day, every pattern and every tradition broke and fell beneath the wheels of his bike, and he just watched her hunched-over body work with full force and complete meaning. It had gotten dark, and they fallowed dim lit reflectors and Maple’s tiny headlight. Stanley didn’t ask where they were, he didn’t care. He trailed behind her, he memorized her, and he trusted her.
            “I guess we’ll have to hike tomorrow buddy boy. It’s late. Lets sleep somewhere.”
            “In the dark? Outside?” Stanley stuttered and spat and stopped along the street where they were walking their bikes. The small town they had teleported into hovered and loomed around them, shapeless and nameless, Stanley felt blind.
            “No, there’s an Inn down the street. Don’t be preposterous Stanley Man! We’ve got to rest up for the long trek ahead!” And once again soothed by her lunacy, he followed her down the road.
            The room they rented was small and smelled like warm wood and linen. Everything glowed by lamplight, and the room was decorated with various deep floral prints – on the walls, the carpet, the pillowcases. Stanley lay down on one of the beds, sprawled out, drenched in moist, dried sweat. His legs throbbed. His temples wavered. His eyes quivered and his hands pounded in sync with his heart beat against the soft comforter. In the orange light, she sat on the dresser, crouched and tired.
            “I’m going to shower. Would you like to, Sir Stanley?” She jumped off her perch on the dresser and made her way towards the bathroom, shedding her garments as she glided in her crooked fashion. Stanley’s eyes were dull and heavy, but they tickled with interest at the sight of her bare back.
           

            In the middle of the night, Stanley felt his bed creak and heave with added weight. Oblivious, dazed, and drunk with sleep, he looked over his shoulder to see Maple folding herself between the blankets beside him. Through a crack in the curtains the dim moonlight filtered into the room and highlighted her tiny body, which dug deeper into the covers, silently rising and falling with every little breath. Her toes tucked against him, they both remained stiff and distant the rest of the night. In the morning, he woke to see her outside the window stretching against a tree.
           

            After biking for two more hours deep into the hovering forest, they finally came to a redwood grove where they tied up their bikes and set off. The trail they took was scattered with pine needles and broken leaves, tiny pebbles and baby pinecones. Maple walked along like an elven princess, delicate yet clumsy, very crooked indeed. Her legs stomped like a horses trot, and landed against the brown soil with gentle respect. Stanley was hypnotized by her odd twitches, her bouncing hair.
            “Stanley, have you ever been in love?” she asked abruptly, as they climbed up through the dewy brush. Stanley was taken aback; he had been so distracted by her fancy little walk.
            “I’ve loved many things Maple. You know I love plants. And my bike.”
            “Have you ever loved something so so much you didn’t think you could bear barring it away, in a house, in a pot? Stuck behind a glass case? Locked with a rope?” She slipped suddenly, losing her footing. Before Stanley could reach to help, she was up again. He had to think about what she had asked. It was difficult for him to decide. He wanted to see her face
            “I’m no sure what you mean Maple. Why do you call yourself Maple?”
            “What’s in a name, Stanley? Having asked that a million times throughout history, I’m not so sure you would have that answer. But that’s all I could possibly say to you my dear, I could call you ‘Hate’ and still love you to death.”
           

            They climbed vertically. They shuffled between patches of oak horizontally. They slipped, slopped, tripped, and tangled. Her hands became caked with mud, so she ran them through her hair, and she rubbed them against her cheeks. Her eyelashes grew heavy with dew and they drooped like long wilted flower petals. She trampled on, she scrambled on, and Stanley struggled to keep up. Her pace was quick, her want was stronger, and Stanley couldn’t figure out a single word she said, but he didn’t want anything more than to hear her voice. Each of her little crooked limbs danced before him, and he felt strangely overcome by the desire to yell out a million silly stories he didn’t actually know.
            The day which had started out sunny grew almost instantly heavy with gray clouds. They had both worked up a sweat, and were warm and panting, but the looming black clouds were clearly gathering right above the tops of the towering trees. Big gusts of wind threatened to sweep them up and tangle them into the limbs and branches of the trees as they neared the top. The patches and brambles began to thin out, the sky began to emerge. Thick, smoky rolls of clouds twirled about the tip of the mountain they stood on, looking down into gray-green oblivion. An abyss of plant life and vinery hung below them like a net. Stanley felt overwhelmed with love and curiosity, he wanted to examine each specimen, and collect, and gather, and cherish. Maple stood at the edge, her hair limply swaying in the wind. Her orange nest seemed suddenly gray and pale, and her brown hands hung loose with dried dirt at her sides. Stanley stood beside her.
            “What are you thinking about Maple?” he asked, after some time.
            “There’s a hole in the bucket…dear Charlie…dear Charlie…there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Charlie…a hole…” Her voice trailed off with a thin, sad note. Her eyes were igniting, sparks flared out of her irises. But the fire was both dangerous and frantic while being limp and lifeless. Like a raging forest fire that is tired of a too-long journey. “Stanley, I’ve never known how to fly.” she squeaked, smiling again, her wicked smile. Stanley hated that smile, and loved what it meant.
            “I’m not quite sure I could teach you,” he replied, somewhat regrettably.
            “Oh nonsense, sure you could. You’re plant man, extraordinaire. Teach me, Obi-one.” Stanley was frightened by her erect posture, her pin-straight fingers, outstretched towards the ground, flexed. She was smiling with her eyes and she turned to him, gently. Her small head, overgrown with chaos, leaned against his wide chest and she folded her arms under his. His arms hung limp, unsure of what to do. He felt the dry crusty mud peeling off her face onto his shirt, and he squirmed a little inside.
            “Stanley,” she cried, “oh how I’d love to stay here with you forever …” she was pleading, and her body shivered.  Stanley wasn’t ever sure where he was or why, or how he’d gotten there.  He had been pasted into a dreamy story, and her eyes mimicked echoes, burning with ice.  “Sing me a song,” her voice was waning, curdling into the wind.

            Stanley couldn’t think of any songs.  He couldn’t understand her.  He was overwhelmed and disoriented, as if regurgitated from the belly of a tornado.  Her body floated and soared and swayed against him,  like the Redwood leaves and Oak branches. She was a silhouette, an imaginary magnolia. Her lips quivered with excitement, and he felt her body wretch with satisfaction.  Her frame was like a fleeting resurrection, a bug caught in a web – a web binding her within the clutches of confinement; within a rope of mental strife.  Her legs turned to quicksand, and her hair melted into wax.  He watched her disappear into oblivion, and sink to her knees, and he couldn’t explain himself. 

           

            “Sweet blossom, come on under the willow, we can have high times if you’ll abide.  We can discover the wonders of nature, rolling in rushes down by the riverside.  Sunshine, daydream, walking in the tall trees, going where the wind goes, Blooming like a red rose, breathing more freely.  Ride our singin, I’ll walk you in the morning sunshine, sunshine, daydream, sunshine, daydream, walking in the sunshine….” His voice was dry and flat.  The trees stopped screaming, the clouds stopped rumbling.  “Why can’t this last forever?”  he trailed off, his words broke, he lost comprehension.

            “Because,” she reassured him, “everything is much more beautiful when it doesn’t last forever and when you have to imagine for it to be real.”  Stanley didn’t like this explanation.  He didn’t like her caving force.  But perhaps he had only imagined her words in the wind, because then slipped through his head and dripped out his ears like water.
            He wasn’t quite sure she had ever really existed. A robot, a bug, or possibly an alien; a make believe Sugar Flower that was very beautiful and real within a song.  He had ventured into his mind, and tangoed with a Maple Tree; his arms clutching at her chipped bark.  She buzzed and crawled and creepily crept within the cracks of the earth to harvest a hopeful feast.