My joints ached as I made my way down the hall of the commercial-residential high-rise I bought. My plan was to cast out the dead beats, and up the rent. I invested my life saving, and after deducting what I owed, I found myself just the proud owner of mortgage papers.
I knocked on the door of 6A with my cane. “Landlord!” The sound of the afternoon soap opera that emanated from the apartment went silent. I heard the footsteps approaching the door, the peephole went dark.
I banged again, louder this time. “I’m the new landlord, come to pick up the rent.”
The door slowly opened to reveal a woman in her late sixties. She wore a red dress of ankle length, flat shoes and short gray hair. “Forgive me, I thought you might be one of those leafy green men.”
That’s all I needed. A tenant who’s not just slow in her rent, but also a nut job. “Leafy green men?”
“You must have seen them, everyone in the building has. They’re about half your height, dressed in leaves.”
They say to speak calmly to crazy people and play along. “No, I haven’t seen one, but I just bought this place and I need the rent.”
“Oh, I have the money. It’s in the bedroom.”
She walked down the hall and returned holding a wad of bills, probably the stuffing of her mattress. She counted out the money. “Times must be tough for rich landlords.”
“I wish I was. The cost of arthritis medicine these days is taking most of my savings.”
“I thought you had lots of money.” She handed me next month’s rent. “I just don’t want to go out with those green men running around. You must do something. They steal flowers, you know.”
I opened the door to leave. “I’ll see what I can do.” I pocketed the money and left.
On my way to the next dead beat, I noticed a wilted orchid from someone’s corsage....
... middle of paper ...
...the beholder, because it is certainly not in the nose.”
“You can’t smell it, Mr. Oake. She’s not in bloom.”
I needed this flower to get me out of this chair. “Can you propagate it?”
“Yes, but you won’t get paid. It has to flower and go to seed.”
“Can you propagate it another way?”
He studied the grapevine. “I don’t think so. Wait, there’s a second bud. It’s smaller but if I had another grapevine, I could transplant it.”
“Order one and have it here by tomorrow.”
Propagating the corpse flower would not only get me out of this chair, but I could sell each flower for thousands and the tonic would be priceless.
I looked at Sequoia. “Too bad you can’t propagate yourself.”
He picked up the grapevine and put it in its box. “I would if I could. I just don’t know how.”
Sequoia was the only plant I knew who did not know how to reproduce. No wonder he was the last of his kind.
On a Saturday afternoon in December, Barbara was sitting outside in her private sanctuary with her daughter Layla, since she had nothing to get ready for. Her private sanctuary was filled with exotic flowers, and trees with orchids of bright color hang...
“Is there anything else you can do to stop them? I hate the idea of strangers stealing from us.”
“I don’t suppose you could spare me a penny or two out of that?” Chronicler asked. “Just enough for a couple of hot meals?”
flower was waiting for me to call, and, as I wickedly refused to do so, I
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
“Brooklyn, show this young man where he can wait for his friend. I’ve got to unload more boxes.” He passed through a doorway, and his footsteps going down the stairs to the basement, echoed against the walls.
They then threw flower petals at her and ran away, flapping their ear fins and snickering. She sighed in relief, glad that those hyper twins were gone. As she sat there, she tried to comprehend and go through the events that had just happened. She got up and wandered around, soon finding herself outside of the apartment building.
then you could forget it, because they would get furious! They would come after you with wings buzzing and stingers armed. So nobody dared to touch the flowers. Most people didn’t even look at them, except for Blossom. She stared longingly at the flowers every day until one day Sprout bestowed her with the loveliest one she’d ever seen.
appeals to a human’s yearning for sweetness, the tulip is a flower that appeals to a human’s
The very title makes an impact on the mind. You get at once the knowledge that this is not, whatever else it may turn out, either a frivolous or even a gay springtime story. Chrysanthemums are not only flowers of the autumn: they are the autumn itself. . . This man knows what he wants. He sees the scene of his story exactly. He has an authoritative mind. (Ford 257)
He looked through the glass doors but was unable to see if there was anyone around. He knocked hard on the door, still nothing; he banged on the door, not one showed up. Wait! He thought he saw movement, yes definitely he saw movement. There was an older gentleman in security guard uniform making his way to the door, albeit slowly. Jake watched the elderly guard make his way to the door, it was agonizing to watch this, but Jake realized he had no other place to
"Where's the cigarettes?" she asked. We all sat there, looking dumbfounded, and wishing it were only cigarettes because the consequences for that were less severe. She stood at the door for a few minutes, staring at us with a look of complete disappointment on her face, before walking out the door, shutting it behind her.
... Some came to ask for cuttings. They made their own changes. A lavender border edged a drive. A waterfall of prostrate rosemary cascaded from a planter box.
“Well, my job ends here.” said Robin Hood. “You have been a mighty fine partner to work with. Can you find your way from here?”
Have you ever watched a flower grow? From a seed comes a small green stem, and soon roots and leaves signal the plant’s determination to survive. One day a bloom appears and unfolds like a story waiting to be told. As the bloom grows larger, more water and care is needed to keep the plant alive. This tires out its keeper and soon an aid is needed in taking care of the flower. It is then considered that it might be easier to just throw out the bloom, but it is harder to part with it than expected.