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.