Corridor, Plants, Alien

many times when i woke up during the night, i thought i was exiled. exiled from nowhere to another nowhere. continuously longing for something i didn't know. something a bit more grounded. a bit more unambiguous. a bit warmer. perhaps with a clear and visible end.
               

               - (translated from one of my earlier writings.)

A girl lived in the same HDB flat building where my mom and I lived. She was always looking at us. She would cautiously open her window and glimpse at us whenever we passed her door. Every time she was doing that, her eyebrows went cooperatively harmonised with her brain - deeply frowned, which altogether would always give a, you know, suspicious expression. Of course we didn’t know the motive but didn’t think much of it. It was strange and normal.

She had many plants. She put them in the corridor, which was in the public space. Everyone could walk past by. Everyday. She didn’t mind people watching her while watering the plants. The corridor was quiet. Perhaps also agreed to the plants being there. The corridor was extremely long and meandering. Revolving around the whole building. From the first floor to the top. Especially at night when there were only dim corridor lights. When I looked through the corridor, I couldn't see the end. My sight was always disoriented by the plants. I thought there were about 300 of them. She was not watering them well - more of a feeling that she had to take care of them. I thought maybe she got them from someone. Or perhaps, was it a school project?

I watched how she watered them. For instance, I knew something about Begonia. You shouldn’t water the leaves. Only the roots and branches. At least that was what I read on the internet. But she didn’t do it right. She was just using a big old watering can (functioned poorly; paint peeling off) and spreading all of the water from the can onto the Begonia. Including the leaves. Poor plant. I thought. I even had the idea that I wanted to talk to her. Nevertheless, three years of living in the same building, same floor, I had never talked to her. I wanted to tell her: you did it wrong! You shouldn't treat the plants like that. They don't like it. But like I said, never did I talk to her.

One day one of her plants died. Patently and foreseeably, this was meant to happen. It was not doing so well in the past few weeks. The leaves got dry and yellow. However, the branches were still standing. She was watering it like there was nothing wrong. Just like other plants. But suddenly, one day after school, I walked through the corridor and passed her apartment. I noticed that out of all the green and standing plants, one looked empty. Like some pressure had gone from the inner space of that plant. Like you know implosion. Not imploded already but was in the process of implosion. I stood there. Feeling strangely revengeful. I felt many things, frankly. I felt absurd. I felt hilarious. I also felt relieved. I wanted to laugh. So bad that I couldn’t control it. So I laughed. Standing in front of her apartment. Next to her window. That dreadful girl and her plant. One of her plants. I saw she opened her window. Like all the other times. Same body movement. Same cooperatively harmonised facial expression. Only this time was not hearing my footsteps, like there was a thief or criminal.

She opened the window and looked straightly into my eyes. I wasn’t prepared; she would find my eyes that quickly. So I felt a moment of frozenness. Perhaps a little awkward. What was the feeling? Like some secrets were revealed accidentally by a teacher or correctional officer. We looked at each other. Into the eyes. Both of us didn’t know this would be how we genuinely acknowledged each other’s existence. I had thought a few times, maybe:

Scenario one: she would say hi to me the next time I walked past her apartment.

Scenario two: I could be proactive, act like a well-mannered foreigner, and greet her first when we reencounter each other.

Scenario three: I accidentally step onto her plant(s), and she hears the noise, opens her door, and sees my crime.

But this. This. Now she will think even weirder of me. That every time I walked past her apartment maybe I was thinking of murdering her? Chopping her into pieces. Because that is how a foreigner would do. Completely uncivilised. Completely carnivorous. Completely an alien.

But now, her plant died. She felt awful. And was that my responsibility to action anything?

I thought: the endless corridor would give a funeral. And me, I was just an alien.