Greenhouse

Latika sat in the cool shade of the willow tree and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her liver. The heat pounded down, surrounding Latika’s pool of shade predatorily.

She stood up, swaying as the world spun dizzily for a moment, and limped over to the greenhouse.

It was literally a greenhouse; the glass stained by moss and algae, tendrils of grape vine embracing the small building, like the web of a spider.  One of the tendrils caught Latika’s headscarf, and for a moment a few centimetres of bare head was exposed, before she tugged it free. She rolled the door across and stepped in. It was baking hot, but a good kind of hot, the kind of hot that will reap rewards.

Ever since Latika had been diagnosed and she’d stopped going to school she had turned to the greenhouse as something to do. It made her feel good, growing plants, knowing that without her care they would wither and die.

She grew strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and was even nursing a blood orange tree.

Latika watered the plants and pruned the orange tree, and then sat down in her deck chair. It was all she could manage to do these days. She tilted her head back and stared up at a tinted sky. She felt happy here, far away from the house with the medication and injections and people looking concerned and worried when they thought she wasn’t looking. And far, far away from the hospital, where the people looked worried merely because that was their job and more meds and injections and tests and chemo… but here, there was just the plants and the glass and the sky.

The pain was getting worse.

She gathered the strength to pick a few strawberries, and put them into a Tupperware box. She didn’t like picking the fruit for some reason; it was like throwing all her hard work away, but it was either that or let it rot. Latika Martel hadn’t ever let a fruit over ripen, and she wasn’t going to start today.

The pain suddenly intensified, and Latika reflexively bent over, but she was used to it now. She unwillingly accepted that she would have to leave her Eden.

But she would come back tomorrow.

A few weeks later, Latika’s mother gathered the courage to visit the greenhouse. Her daughter had spent so much time there, she wanted to see the allure for herself.

The greenhouse had become even more overgrown, almost hidden under a coat of organisms.

Latika’s mother opened the greenhouse. She was hit with the stench of rotting fruit.

Author's Note

Is it long enough? Did it make sense? Hell, did you like it?