I stood in the middle of my back yard glaring at the twisty mess of vines that had grown in the back corner against my garage.
"You idiot," I muttered under my breath, partly at myself for being so stupid and partly at my friend Emily.
A couple weeks ago Emily had given me a package of seeds and asked that I bring them up for her. Emily is a sweet friend but herbicides have nothing on her ability to kill a plant dead. She could literally take the most rugged plant, one able to flourish in the most inhospitable environment full of toxic waste, searing heat and monsoon conditions all in one day and kill it in a week. But being the nice friend I am, I agreed to plant the innocent looking things in a rack I have along the wall of the garage and bring them up enough to sacrifice to her.
The day was a hot and humid one. Wearing just some shorts and a rather loose tank top I tapped my trowel on my bare arm in annoyance. The motion would have sent some nice bouncing under my shirt if anyone had noticed, far too warm for a bra today, but it was still early so I'm sure my leering neighbor was missing out. Not that watching me trim the mass of vines this thing sprouted would be much fun to spy on. Well, maybe.
With a sigh I stepped forward to get a closer look at the tangle. The vines had started small, for the first few days barely creeping a few centimeters from where I planted them. That was a week ago. Now the stupid things had spread for a couple meters and were starting to creep up the siding. Many ended in wide flowers which I had to admit smelled rather nice, although almost dizzy making as I got closer. Some of the vines were rather thick with lots of smaller ones branching off them. Others ended in a mass of smaller vines that swayed gently in the still air of the yard.
"Alright," I muttered as I set my trowel down on the dirt in the rack, "Lets see what we have here." I adjusted my ear pods and set my phone on the foam pad I had brought along with my pruning shears and a smaller pot for Emily to destroy.
Pushing the vines aside as I dug in, I was surprised how flexible they were. Despite the slightly sticky fluid along the stalks, it was quite easy to start separating some of the branches to bring out one of the smaller ones. As I worked, I noticed that some felt like they were gripping against my arms as I pushed them aside. Weird but whatever. Standing to pull some down from the siding I left them dangling down the side of the rack so that after a half hour or so I had a surprisingly good-sized pile leaning down to each side of me. That's when I noticed things getting odd.
I was kneeling down trying to gently untwist one that had somehow wrapped around my wrist. The tingly feeling felt rather nice, almost like a soft caress, so I had taken off my gloves to gently unwind it. This one had the long thin vines on the end and I started giggling when they waved through my fingers. I had heard of some plants that would react like that somewhere, although thought it was just some stupid gag-post, but guess not. But these seemed a bit more insistent.
"Well, hey there little fella," I said as the thin stems continued to dance with my fingers. The smell of the flowers slowly filled the back yard with a relaxing scent as I took a deep breath. Glancing back to the rack I was surprised to see one of them pushing forward toward me.
"Wow," I whispered watching the thumb thick vine move over the stirred up dirt, "That is so cool!"