Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Jeffery’s Rubber Tree

Imagine a rubber tree starting its life in a large greenhouse in Louisiana. It started as merely a bulb in a long row of other rubber trees. It is tended by Helena Whitman, a woman who has worked at the greenhouse for thirteen years. The rubber tree grew enough to be placed in a temporary pot till it’s shipped to another facility in Indiana where it is permanently potted into a ceramic pot that is painted a deep cerulean blue. It is then shipped to an Ace Hardware in Cincinnati, Ohio. The quality top soil used at the facility in Indiana allowed the rubber tree to be slightly neglected. However, the plant started to wither and was put on sale. A young blond man bought it. When the blond man and the rubber tree arrive at his apartment, he places the rubber tree under a window on a decorative pedestal that looks like a short Roman column. The rubber tree flourished under the light and the blond man is very attentive to the rubber tree, watering it regularly and sprinkling a bit of nutrients in the top soil ever month or two. In that state the rubber tree became aware of his setting, it felt healthier. The rubber tree thrived in the thick air. Air that seems to carrying around particles of something decomposing. The rubber tree was annoyed by the copious amount of flies, but at ease when the flies die and fall in the tops soil. Their decomposing bodies nourished the rubber tree all the more.
Imagine the rubber plant observing the blond man taking nude photos of young skinny black men on his sofa. Sometimes the plant was in the range of the camera and felt slightly self-conscious, hoping it is glossy and green enough to look good in the photos. Later the he noticed that these men that the blond man have on his couch are like the flies that decompose in its top soil. He wondered if the blond man is nourished by these men in a way similar to how the rubber tree is nourished, because the rubber tree sees theses men being consumed by the blond man. Soon these men are completely gone and metabolized by the blond man. There are so many that the rubber tree became jealous, the blond man didn’t sprinkle the pack of nutrients into his top soil this month. One of the men that the blond man brought over touched the rubber trees leafs. The rubber tree didn’t like it when one of the men stuck his long brown finger into its soil. The tree felt violated and didn’t warn him of the danger of the blond man.
Imagine the back of a moving truck. The rubber tree sits for a few hours while men in white hazmat suits take things out of the apartment. The rubber tree felt sick to be out of its environment. It wasn’t been watered in a few days and misses the blond man . It hasn’t had the nutrient packet and doesn’t like the darkness of the moving truck. The rubber tree is moved into a box then is put outside in a pit along with other things that smell of the blond man and his apartment. It was very cold and dark, the rubber tree almost froze before a fat woman with thick glasses and a frizzy auburn hair takes the rubber tree. She huffed away as she ran with it, some of the soil fell out on the concrete sidewalks and asphalt parking lots. She placed the rubber tree near a window when she got to her house, all the rubber tree saw and felt was the darkness it was taken out of. She waters it and caresses it leafs. The rubber tree missed the blond man. Every person that looked at the rubber tree stuck their finger in the soil. “It was HIS plant, from HIS apartment” she says. The rubber tree got used to the finger poking and started to enjoy it. The woman sprinkles in the nutrient packet and waters it. She took photos of the rubber tree; it feels better and recovers from its longing for the blond man. It watches the woman consuming a lot of things while she watches the television, where the blond man is catatonic and unaware of the rubber tree. The rubber tree became bored with the woman; it began to stare out into the darkness of the night.