We got the plant at the plant show and we brought the plant home and we put it on the windowsill and we watched it—not constantly but a lot more than we watched our other plants.
Its lanceolate leaves grew fast. It got these paper-thin blooms that grew and unfurled and became translucent and turned out to be faces. Lips, nostrils, cheeks, eyeholes: all the usual face parts. The faces, after they unfurled, made little motions all day. Moues, I guess you could say. Women’s faces, men’s faces, it was hard to tell which. Some of the faces were stunningly beautiful, perfect blown glass representations, while others had thick brows and looked strong.
Of course, what were we supposed to do, eventually, when no one was looking, we tentatively reached out to touch the faces and they fell off their stems into our hands, and then what were we supposed to do, what could we do besides put them over our own faces? They sank into our skin like butter—warmed by the sun on the sill—and became our new faces.
When we met each other now we pressed our new lips together and looked through our new eyes. We were glad, most of the time, that we’d bought that plant at that plant show, but we worried all the time that the faces would stop unfurling. We would place one right on top of the last one. Face after face. Warm and sinking. Giving us the illusion of growth, or, if not that, then at least change.
In the winter, the plant went dormant. We weren’t sure whether the faces from the plant we had put over our faces had dissolved entirely or become our actual faces. After a while, did it matter?
When the faceplant finally, irrevocably died, we carried it out to the yard. We dug a small hole in a far corner, jabbing our shovels in the near-frozen ground, and placed the dead plant inside the hole. We stood around it a while, sad. We wished for perenniality in the face of annuality. We looked at each other, and we looked up at the sky, and we wondered if we’d be able to find another plant just like this plant, maybe at the next plant show, which we planned to attend, the way we did every year.
We’d see it there in the corner of the yard, a leafless stub. The cat peed on the stalk. And then, in spring, the faceplant revived and started throwing off new buds that became new faces, but these faces were different. Hard to say how. We tried them on but they felt cold and clammy, more grabby than dissolving. The problem with what you want is that sometimes you get it, and that’s what happened with that plant. We barely even recognize ourselves anymore.