Leonurus cardiaca

I can see Leonurus cardiaca from the other side of the garden. He’s a flurry of activity, his lean green body pacing back and forth between the flowerbeds, the soft pink tufts of prickly hair sticking out from his tall narrow frame, bristling around him like desiccated coconut. He’s shaking his head and talking to himself, but as I draw closer I can see that he is actually cradling a small baby in his arms, and is in fact talking to it.

I walk up quietly and stand in the shadows.

“Excuse me Sir”, I begin softly for fear of startling him. It seems however that my act of consideration has been in vain, because by the time the first word has left my lips Leonurus has already jumped two feet in the air. He looks around wildly as the baby starts to cry. Then he sets his gaze on me, and watches me with wide spasming eyes as he fumbles for a handkerchief to mop up his brow, which is now teeming with sweat.

“Why’d you have to go and do something like that?” he asks in a panic. “I just got the baby to sleep, and now, well now she’ll be up all day”.

“I’m sorry”, I say meekly. “I didn’t mean to be a bother”.

“Well maybe you didn’t mean to do this, or you didn’t mean to do that, but all the same, you should think extra hard in future before doing anything at all!”

Leonurus jiggles the baby up and down, and starts to pace back and forth again amid the flowers.

“Have you tried singing to her at all?” I venture bravely, “I know that when I was young my mother…”

“…yes, yes yes” Leonurus cuts in impatiently, “I’ve tried singing to her. I’ve tried rocking her, I’ve tried food and games, and exercise. I don’t know what else to do. I’m just not good at this!” he’s talking very quickly now, his words tripping into one another like dominos, and I can see that he’s getting quite choked up. Suddenly he stops and clutches anxiously at his chest, taking a long shaking breath.

“And this damn pounding and hammering inside of me” he says hitting his chest with his fist. “All day it goes on, echoing in my head like the insistent knocking of a door. On and on it goes, faster and faster, each shuddering beat an ever-present reminder of the moments left until I lose it all!!”

I move closer to him as he sits exhausted on the ground, the baby quiet now too, pressed close to his quivering heart.

“When did this all start?” I ask him hoping to gain some insight into his erratic behaviour and emotions.

“I just don’t know”, he whispers, calm now, deflated. “I can never remember what I’m doing, what I’m supposed to be doing, what I’ve just done. Everything whirls around me like a dense black fog”.

I can see that he’s worn out and in need of some rest, so I wish him well and slowly move away. As I walk through the trees I can hear him behind me in the distance singing a broken lullaby to the small creature nestled in his arms.

Berberis aquifolium

An air of perfume surrounds me as I walk up to where Berberis aquifolium lies reclining on the grass. She looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes, her bright hair – sun ripened lemons and limes – soft and fluffy around her. She’s wearing a stiff dark green bodice jutting out from her body like the peaks of a crown, and her dark indigo eyes are full and ripe and shine with a waxy light.

Although lying in the shade, she looks flushed and red, and as I walk up closer to her I can see that her face is dry and inflamed and there are scaly red patches streaking her features and climbing down her neck and shoulders.

“No wonder you sit in the shade” I say as I kneel down next to her. “Your body must be so hot and sore”. She shrugs at me.

“Oh yes, I suppose that is why I first lay here. It seems so long ago that I chose this spot that I cannot remember the finer details”. She runs her hands gently over her face, feeling the nodules and serrated skin like a child touching the soft feathers of a dead bird. Suddenly she leans forward clutching the right side of her abdomen in pain.

“Are you alright?” I ask. She closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them I can see that the whites of her eyes are now a pale yellow.

“It is nothing” she says with some effort yet she continues to hold her stomach, full and bloated before her.

“Just the tremors of the earth lodged inside of me. Like ice it is packed, tightly and solid, yet sometimes it shakes and tries to break loose. I want it out of me so I can feel the blood rushing in my veins again like a torrent. But nothing comes out of me - I am in drought all year long”.

Coleus forskohlii

Coleus forskohlii is sitting at a large rectangular table at the edge of the garden staring at a tall pink cream cake set before her. She is very short and squat and she would call herself a “well rounded” individual than ever admit that she is actually rather overweight. Despite her thick build her features are quite delicate and her choice of clothes are elegant and understated. She wears fragile green tear-shaped earrings upon her ears and her long violet feathery hair is coiled high on her head like the shell of a crustacean. She has a long thin neck that doesn’t really seem to sit well with the rest of her body, but she carries it with grace and poise. I walk over to her and sit at the seat to her right. She is quite distracted by the food in front of her yet she acknowledges my existence with a small wave of her hand. I am somewhat puzzled, as although she seems quite taken with the cake she does not reach to take a slice, in fact I notice that she doesn’t even seem to have a plate.

“It’s a beautiful cake,” I tell her, “Would you care for a slice?” She turns to look at me her movements slow and lethargic, and as she turns I can see that her face is quite flushed and red.

“Do you think I can’t see it?” she begins with a faint smile. “Take a look at me, does it seem to you that I cannot see food when it is before me?” She chuckles.

“Oh I can see it, and believe me I have eaten many a similar tastebud teasing item in the past. Yet it never seems to agree with me no matter how much I admire and want it. It just sits there inside of me, as though I have opened up a door to my stomach and slipped it inside perfectly intact, the icing still sculptured and stiff. In fact I often wonder if anything is going on within me at all. Surely food is energy is it not? Yet I never feel energetic no matter how much I eat. And I never seem to change weight no matter how much I eat”. She sighs and leans back in her chair. Suddenly she laughs.

“I often imagine that there is a whole host of little people living inside of me, all stationed at their different posts around my body. They each have their own unique duties to attend to and they sit there with their cups of tea and their biscuits yet they never seem to know what’s going on in the other departments around them. The office manager sits within my heart with his flashy gadgets and cushy ergonomic chair, yet he doesn’t have the slightest idea about what Phil down in my bowel is up to, or what Angela from circulation’s job is. You know how they always say that communication is the key to a successful business? Well that’s exactly the problem I’m dealing with, there’s a lack of communication within me. They need to have more office meetings or something, because I don’t know if I can go on like this for much longer”. She lapses again into silence and then suddenly sits up and reaches for a knife.

“Damn this I can’t resist any longer. Might as well eat it, won’t make me feel much worse than I do already”

She takes down the cake and goes to cut herself a slice, but her movements are clumsy and rushed and as she brings down the knife she slices deeply into her hand.

“Ow!” she yelps and I jump up quickly to find a bandage and some water. I’m not gone long but when I return she is sitting eating the cake as though nothing has happened at all.

“Your cut!” I say grabbing her hand anxiously. I turn it around hurriedly and finally I find the wound, but it closed and no blood runs out from it.

“What happened?” I ask. She shrugs.

“It’s always the same. Whenever I cut myself the blood seems to clot almost at once. Mustn’t like the idea of being out in the cold I guess” she laughs. I squeeze her hand, and look as her thick gooey blood oozes out for a moment, then stops.

“Angela from circulation has gone home early” she says, “obviously completely incompetent”. She looks up at me her eyes shining and goes back to eating her cake.

Crataegus monogyna – Hawthorn

Crataegus monogyna is an old eccentric English millionaire with a tight money-bag belly and a history of plenty. He wears a soft green corduroy three-piece suit and his fingers are covered with round red ruby rings. His skin is spiky, prickly and unshaven and his hair is a dense white matt spread like frosting over his frail pale crown. He looks feeble and fragile like a cut out paper man and every time the breeze blows in his direction he furrows his brow and grips onto his cane as though to anchor himself lest he start to blow away. I tiptoe up to him trying hard not to unsettle the air.

“Good day to you Sir” I say offering my hand in greeting. He looks up startled and suddenly presses his hand to his heart.

“Wh…wh…why did you have to go and do that you silly girl!?” he says his words slipping hurriedly through anxious lips. His chest is heaving, his body sucking in oxygen, his breathing uneasy and ragged. He grabs at his heart again in pain and looks around in stifled panic. After a moment he seems to calm and settles back against his chair.

“Couldn’t you see I was dozing? My…my…I…I just don’t seem to be built like I used to” he says his body slumping, worn out after his fright.

I sit down beside him, “I’m sorry”, I say. "How did you ever get like this?” I ask with concern. He looks up at me his glassy eyes fixing upon mine.

“Oh years and years of concurrence I’m afraid my dear. ‘Yes Sir, Yes Sir. As you wish Sir. What you say Sir’. Nobody to hold me back from the things that I wanted. Nobody to tell me ‘no’. So for years I had it all. Sumptuous feasts of all things fatty. Sweets like you never imagined, sculptured and sugared. Sitting around until my waistcoat buttons popped. Drinking red wine the colour of my cheeks as a new suit was made to accommodate new bulges”. He stares out into the distance a distressed look crossing his features.

“If only I had known”, he says softly as though to himself. He then speaks again to me, “Now my heart is injured, faulty. Where once it held passion and love, now it holds a semblence of an ever-fading life. I remember when I was young it would be so full of fervour and fight, swelling until I was sure it would burst with the endless delights caught within it. Now every day it seems more and more unstable. Thumping in intervals throughout the night, keeping me awake with the fear it shall stop. Never did I think I would hear my life slipping away from me. I gasp and gasp for air yet there’s not oxygen enough to sustain me. And I'm blocked up inside, congested and cold. I need to crack away the ice from within and let the sun shine through me. But it's winter all year, and the dark clouds have gathered ”.

He struggles to his feet and bids me farewell. As he shuffles slowly away I can see the effort in his face, the pain. Oh that he may be restored somehow, I think to myself. That he may again live to be inspired and feel the pulsing of the past once more.

Cinnamomum Zeylanicum

Cinnamomum zeylanicum is very tall and graceful with clay brown skin and pale yellow star shaped eyes. She is of Indian descent and wears her wild dark green hair soft around her deeply tanned shoulders. She walks slowly towards me like a deer stepping through clover and every now and then she stops and holds her abdomen in pain a look of raw discomfort on her face. She is shivering as she gets closer, and sweat runs down from her forehead.

“What is wrong dear Cinnamomum?” I ask anxiously coming up to her. She goes to speak but is suddenly plagued with nausea and throws up on the ground beside me, dark fresh blood.

“I’m sorry”, she gasps dispelling the last spittle from her mouth. “The blood I know is not good”. She licks her lips then takes my hands. Her touch is freezing.

“I don’t know what is wrong” she begins in confusion, “surely I am cut within for I am leaking day and night. It comes when I pass liquid and there are rivers of red every month like the Ganges at sunset”.

“I saw you holding your stomach before as though sore and tender. Does it pain you?” I ask. She nods weakly.

“What is the matter?” I urge.

“I know not. All I do know is that there is a tightness within me that tugs tighter still, and my body blows up around me and I feel the weakness come. I cannot eat sweet things for it makes me feel ill, I cannot eat anything for it just sits there and makes my insides chill” she lunges forward again to throw up and stays bent over for a while her hand to her head.

“I have a fever, such a fever”, she whispers softly “I’m infected with a sickness that my body wants to kill. But it is so hard to help it. I’m so frail, so frail”. She lapses into silence and stands perfectly still rooted to the spot as I walk away.

Zingiber officinale

I spy Zingiber officinale sitting at a desk at the back of the garden. She is wearing a smart green suit and talking loudly on the phone. Her lime coloured hair is piled high on her head in tight braids and each one is fastened with a deep fuchsia hair tie. Her knobbly brown legs are covered with fragile papery skin and her bulbous veined feet swing back and forth as she talks. She seems perfectly well to me but as I draw closer I can see that she is actually holding a hot water bottle close to her abdomen, and her words come out stunted through gritted teeth. She looks up as I approach and motions for me to come closer. As I step towards her she hangs up the phone.

“Can I help you there?” she asks all businesslike. I feel impelled to curtsey and so I do.

“Good morning ma’am” I stammer. “I was passing through and I noticed that you seem to be in pain. Why do you carry that hot water bottle?” She attempts to smile through a wince and I can notice on her brow beads of sweat forming.

“If you must know” she begins, “It’s the time of the month, and to tell you the truth I have a hell of a time every damn time”.

“What’s the problem?” I ask concerned

“Spasms, painful bloody spasms all day long!” she sighs. “It’s like there are hands wringing me out from the inside. Hang on a minute will you…” She clutches her middle in pain as her body emits air from either end.

“Oh god I’m so sorry, how awfully embarrassing” she says her cheeks flushed.

“Not at all” I say encouragingly. I notice a kettle and some cake on a table by her side.

“If you like I could make some tea for us, and there’s cake here too, we could each have a slice?” I say trying to cheer her up. She slumps back and undoes the buttons to her pants.

“A nice thought but I couldn’t eat a thing. Never have had much of an appetite”.

She gets out a small black diary from a drawer in her desk and hurriedly rifles through the pages.

“I’m supposed to be flying overseas for business tomorrow and I’m absolutely dreading it. I get nausea you see whenever I travel. Be it by plane, by boat, by car. You can’t take me anywhere!” she laughs but the laughter soon turns to a wheeze.

“And to make matters worse I’m sure I’ve got a cold. My forehead is hot and I’ve got pain in my chest. Not a great time to be heading over to a conference I must say. And those tiny plane seats make my legs stiff and sore. Yet there’s no way to avoid it. Business is business!”

The telephone rings and she picks it up and launches into bright bubbly chatter. I leave her to her conversation, and the stresses of her daily life.

Zanthoxylum americanum

Zanthoxylum americanum is tough and menacing with a spiky grey leather jacket and bright red eyeballs drooping from his sockets. He looks like he’s come from the streets of some small American town, more used to hassling the locals and stealing car radios than partaking in conversation. He sits within a distinct air of annoyance and when I walk up to him he grimaces and smacks his dry lips at me.

“Hello…” I begin hesitantly lest I might annoy him further. He grunts in return obviously not keen to talk. As I stand there I can see his tongue constantly flicking over his teeth at the top left side of his mouth.

“Your teeth…are you in pain?” I ask with a pause. I step back waiting for his acidic reply, yet when he speaks to me his voice is weak and low as though he’s no energy to fight any longer.

“It’s me teeff” he says with some difficulty. “They hurt all the time but the pain don’t stop there”. He points to his left leg and hip.

“It’s ‘ere as well, deep and throbbing, running down me side. It tingles an’ burns and wakes me at night”.

I look to his pale grey legs curled under him and they’re thick and knotted with dark purple veins. His whole body seems swollen around him. The glands on his neck are raised and shiny, like tight white balloons. His joints are puffy and red and stiff as rusted metal. His stomach is full and rigid under his jacket and deep gurgling noises like the sounds from an ancient swamp escape from time to time. Suddenly Zanthoxylum shouts at me.

“Don’t you stare at me kid! Don’t you make fun of me!” I jump back in fear and wait for a further assault, yet his head is now limp and his breath runs more slowly, and I can see from his eyes that he has no strength left.