Philippine Speculative Fiction by Andrew Drilon Page B

of the dead earthworm and buried them in the garden. Nevertheless, Oscar would continue to shed, as if on schedule, twice a month, and at times his wife would pause
in her retail therapy to harbor thoughts of this strange schedule as being eerily similar to when her lost husband would hand over his paychecks. It was at these times that she was at the very
verge of realizing, somehow, that her husband and the plant were connected in some way, but it was too fanciful a thought to dwell over and she would quickly forget, immersed too devotedly to the
tending of things she thought actually mattered, like a new paint job so that the house could stand out from the hovels her neighbors called houses, or to transform the garden into a veranda where
she could host friends.
    Oscar, meanwhile, found himself dozing further and further on into the sentient indifference of plants. The movement of humans seemed quicker to him now, their voices a shrill and steady thrum
delivered to him in waves. Hours were minutes to him, and everything else a haze; the only things slow or still enough were objects that had remained as such for longer than he had been a plant:
the house, the furniture, the garden; the prickling of new grass, the grim intensity of the acacia in the neighbor’s yard. The only things that mattered now, were the welcome heat of the sun,
the acknowledgement of rain, and the consistency of air. Once or twice though, he would come to, and almost regain that same platform of consciousness, of being, of human-ness, but it would be gone
in an instant, swift as a passing thought. He grew more oblivious to the growing tensions at home, which in the rare times that he sensed, he chose to overlook. He would only catch on, almost
readily, whenever his daughter touched him, stroked a leaf, or moved around the soil with her fingers. She could not visit him as often as she pleased, as the tending, care, and harvesting of the
miraculous money tree would be left to Oscar’s wife and the maid, exclusively. Whenever she tried, she would be pushed away, led outside into the garden to occupy herself with other plants.
On rare visits, in the dead of night, she would manage to speak to him, a word or two, and Oscar despaired at the gift of sentience, for he was not able to hear, only feel in low, significant
vibrations in the air, what his daughter was trying to say.
    TWICE A MONTH, Oscar’s wife and the maid would take the plant into the kitchen, and seal all the doors and windows, and begin harvesting. Oscar would be roused from his
reverie, fully conscious, accustomed to the gathering of money; it was the only time they were ever gentle with him. On these days his wife and the maid would talk about the bills, renovations, and
new things to replace the old things—a new television, a new fridge, perhaps even a new air-conditioning unit. Oscar would recall conversations like this from a time that seemed to him so
very long ago, from which he was always excluded because of his weakness with calculations and aversion to the luxury of new things. They were all just words to him now, a dull thrumming in the air
as they went about their business and it would only be a matter of time before they set him back by his peaceful windowsill and he would drop out of their callow world once more. It was something
that he could live with; after all, did they not only bother him twice a month? Did they not always return him to his place by the window, with the sun and the rain? Would he not always forget
every time he was not in it, eventually, as plants care so little about remembering? It was an arrangement that benefited everyone except the little girl, however, and in the flurry of new
excitements she was no longer the priority of the house and the people within. Her mother would leave it up to the maid to care for her, and the maid, giddy with her new freedom, abandoned her
duties to cavort with the water boys and
istambays
of the