The Night Flower

I never liked that cat. Ever. My wife dotes on it, calls it silly names, feeds it from the table, I could even argue that she loved it more than me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. We’ve been married for too long now; we’ve reached that stage in our lives where we’ve grown out of the joys of life. Some people say that love blossoms more over time. Ours didn’t. If anything its wilted and died, slowly. Still, I’m not really too fussed to be honest. I have my garden and my job and that’s enough for me. As for the wife, well, you’ve got to take the good with the bad, as my father used to say. And on the bright side, I might be able to get a dog now. I’ve always wanted a dog; I had one when I was a boy. But the wife wanted a cat, so a cat we got, and a nasty, horrible thing it was too.
That brings me around nicely, in fact, to why I’m writing this. I don’t really want to admit this to anyone, because its my little secret, but I have to tell it somehow, even if no one ever reads it. I know what happened to her cat. I know all about it and it brings a smile to my face as I lie in the dark trying to go to sleep while my wife snores beside me like a dinosaur. I don’t know if dinosaurs ever snored, but I’m willing to bet that as my wife is a fierce bag of old bones and she can snore, then its quite likely that dinosaurs did too.

On reflection, I guess I sound ungrateful. There’s that saying that you only miss something once its gone, but in all honesty, I challenge anyone to live with my wife for a week and not feel as I do. Its not that she’s unpleasant, its just that she’s so big. She has a big voice, she has big hair, her big curves get in the way as she walks around so that I have to duck back against the wall whenever she walks around our tiny house. When she sits in the car next to me I feel like I must be in one of those clown cars where everyone gets stuffed in. She sits next to me, struggling to wrap the seat belt around herself, nagging constantly about my driving and playing with the window; ‘Charles you’re driving too fast, Charles, you’re driving too slow. Brake Charles, brake, don’t you know where the brake is? Oh, you’re going to crash into the back of that car, watch where you’re going, don’t you! Charles it’s too hot, open your window as well. Charles its cold, shut the window I’ll catch a cold.
On and on she goes, she’s like a never-ending motor that gains momentum on its own steam. But I digress, this is where my secret begins you see. This is what my life was like, meeting the every need of my wife, as she sits on her backside, ordering me about. With that, and my job as a bank manager at a failing bank in a small village, my only solace in life was my garden.
I loved that garden, really truly loved it. There’s nothing like growing something from scratch, watching it shoot up into the world, dependant on your care and devotion, rewarding you with its beauty and simple existence. But the cat, that cat. I’ve said before that I don’t like it and when it comes to my garden, dislike is a downright understatement. That cat and me are at war, and it knows it. From the day my wife brought it home I knew, I could just tell that we weren’t going to get on. It would target my garden deliberately and dig up the plants or sit on them; all to ruin the one happiness in my life.
One evening I was out, just about to plant some newly grown marigolds I’d raised, when I noticed an odd little seedling amongst the soil. It was about an inch tall, and was half buried under the loose soil as I dug around. Now, you may ask why I didn’t just pull it out as it was probably just a weed, but I had been gardening now for sometime and knew the difference between a weed and a seedling, and what I was looking at was no weed. I didn’t recognize it, but with my back beginning to ache, and knowing that the cricket was about to start in ten minutes I decided to take a chance on it, and let the plant stay. I gave it a little water to get it by, and left it to fate. I mean, if it was a weed, I could always just pull it up later on.

The next day, before work, I came out with my morning coffee and looked over my garden. I find it somewhat calming to do this, before I’m thrown into the hustle and bustle of life. I also like going out there so I can check that the cat’s not been at it during the night. But to my relief, my garden was fine, better in fact, as I noticed that my odd little seedling had grown. It had doubled in size, and stood with its leaves off the ground. Satisfied, I drained my cup and went to work, looking forward to the evening when I could tend to it properly.

That evening, I saw to my delight that the plant was still there, that the cat had not got at it, or some blackbird or such, as they had a habit of tearing up seedlings as they looked for worms. If anything, in fact, I thought the little seedling had grown again, but I just put this down to my imagination getting the better of me. Over the next few days, I watched it, trying to decide what it was that it would grow into. I couldn’t decide what it was, to be honest. It was like no plant that I had ever seen before. Over the next couple of days, it shot up alarmingly quickly, and within a week it was as tall as the palm of my hand, and had leaves sprouting from it.
One weekend I decided to visit the local plant nursery, for my curiousness about the strange little plant was really growing. I took a leaf, wrapped carefully in a sheet of newspaper, and took it to them.
At the tills, under the pretense of a careless curiosity, for I didn’t want to give away my secret to them, I said I’d found a leaf off a plant on a walk somewhere and wondered if they could identify it. By chance it was the manager I spoke to, who took the leaf from me, looking at it from under his glasses.
‘Well, it sure ain’t like any plant I’ve ever seen. Where was it you went on this walk then? Was it round here?’
Pretending to think about it, I played it cool, I thought, trying not to be too eager with my answer. Telling him vaguely about some field I was walking in by a river, I waved my hands and gestured, hoping he’d think I was a bit clueless. I could tell, you see, that he was interested as there was a glint in his eye behind his glasses. For this plant nursery specialized in growing plants themselves. They’d cut samples off trees and plants and grow them in the nursery, selling them off at a profit. So I knew I had to be carefully here with my special little plant, for if he caught wind of where it was, he’d be after my seedling in a flash. Luckily, though, my vague act worked.
‘Well, in that case, mate, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you much. If you remember where you found it, I might be able to help you. But until it grows a bit more and we know what we’re dealing with, there’s not a lot we can do now. But, er, if it turns out to be something interesting, bring it back and I’ll give you a good price for it.’
He said the last comment with a joke and a wink, but I wasn’t falling for it. I took the leaf carefully off him and smiled and thanked him, and walked back to my car, carefully, so as not to look like I was rushing. On the one hand, I was a little disappointed that he hadn’t been able to identify my plant, but on the other, I was quite chuffed that I had something brand new. I might even have a brand new species of plant in my hands, and I was defiantly caught up with it, all the way home as I drove, I entertained myself with images of winning prizes at flower shows with my fantastic new famous breed of flower, or of being interview in gardening magazines about how I grew my famous new plant. Alright, these were a little big-headed for a small little seedling, but a man can dream can’t he? Or so I thought before I got home and saw what the cat had done.
When I got back from the garden centre, calling out to my wife announcing my return, I noticed she was a little more cheerful than usual. She had that kind of smug smirk on her face that she gets when she hears of a new scandal in the village. She sat in her chair, not bothering to get up, smiling smugly at me as I stood in the hall. I’ll admit that a slight chill went down my spine as I saw her, because I knew that smile and it always bode something bad for me, and I was right.
The cat had been at my garden. In fact, ‘been at my garden’ is another understatement. The cat had wrecked it. Everything was shredded; all torn up and dug up and chewed and spat out and wrecked, and the cat sat high up on the garden wall, curling its tail with the same smug look my wife had given me, waiting for me to see what it had done. It had even torn out my special little seedling; it was lying on soil like a broken corpse. I couldn’t help it. I knew my wife would be eagerly listening out for me, as was the cat, and I knew this would be the climax of their enjoyment but I couldn’t help it. I screamed aloud with frustration, with anger and pain, with sorrow and loss, with everything I had, I couldn’t help it.
I turned to the cat and I bellowed again. Before I knew what I was doing I had picked up a stone and threw it at the cat, but it darted away. I am not usually drawn to attacking animals, indeed, despite the constant mutiny I get from the cat, I had never once raised a finger to it, but that day the cat went too far. It had crossed the line and I wanted to hurt it, just a little, so it wouldn’t dare go near my garden again. Had the garden been bigger I knew I would have gone after it and chased it until I caught it, but unfortunately my wife intervened.
Getting up from her armchair, she followed me, wanting to see first hand the look of destruction on my face as I saw my garden ruined, but she walked in just as I was throwing a brick at the cat. I missed it, so the cat wasn’t harmed in any way but that didn’t matter to her, all she saw was me attempting to strike the cat. So, according to her logic, if I hit the cat, she could hit me.
‘What the hell do you think you’d doing throwing stones at mr moggins!’ She shrieked.
I should point out, though it probably doesn’t need to be said that Mr Moggins was a name she gave the cat. Its not its real name, I called the cat toby at first when we first got it, but since our mutual disagreement, I’ve thought up other names to call it, so long as my wife doesn’t hear. But my wife likes calling it nicknames.
Anyway, Mr. Moggins, after narrowly avoiding the stone, hissed at me and darted off, while my wife rounded on me. I tried pointing out my wrecked garden, the proof of Mr Moggin’s criminal deviance, but she refused to take my side. She just screeched about how cats behave just as cats should and that I had no right to hurt such a poor defenseless creature.
It was all nonsense though, I knew as well as she did that her second favourite hobby, other than watching those infernal quiz shows on television, was having an excuse to shout at me for something. I could almost hear her, a week from now; ‘and don’t think I’ve forgotten about that time when you hit mr moggins with a brick, he’s still got the scars from that.’ Each time, she’ll add new things to it. But enough of the cat, or the wife. This is about my special plant.
As soon as my wife had gone back inside, I was down on my knees trying to rescue my little seedling, and it was the first plant that I re-planted. How long ago the cat had wreaked its vengeance, I don’t know, but it must have been a fair few hours as the seedling was beginning to wilt. The rest of my plants too were looking worse for wear, such as the marigolds, but I put that down to the cat sitting on them and chewing the flower heads off and ruffling the stalks the wrong way. But my seedling, I couldn’t get it back to life again. I felt like a doctor almost, as silly as it sounds, trying to bring back a patient from the edge of death. I couldn’t let this little plant go, not when it meant so much to me. I still had yet to identify it, to know what kind of plant it was. I couldn’t just give up on it and let that damn cat win, but it just wouldn’t stand up, it had wilted too much.
Looking around, I found a plastic plant pot on the floor and dived on it. Cutting it up, I tried to prop up the seedling. It almost worked until I slipped, hearing my wife cackle suddenly with laughter from inside. That bark of a laugh, like the guttering cough of a rusty machine gun make me jump to the point that my finger slipped across the edge of the plastic and I sliced my finger open. It wasn’t a deep cut, more like a large paper cut, but it did nothing to improve my already foul mood. I cried out harshly and sucked my finger, but not before a bead or two of blood welled up and dropped from the pad of my finger. The blood landed on the little seedling, falling on top of a leaf. Instead of rolling off like water normally does, the drop of blood stayed there for a second or two, then reluctantly rolled off it onto the soil below.
Behind me, I could still hear my wife giggling to herself about my newly destroyed garden. Fuming, I stood up stiffly, and went inside, vowing a string of unspoken revenge prophecies at the cat.

I was unable to sleep that night. I was too anxious about my plants wilting and dieing after their savage uprooting, and I was convinced that my little seedling would be beyond salvation. I was still furious, too, about what the cat had done, and the injustice of seeing my wife side so easily with the cat instead of me. So furious in fact that I was up and out of bed far earlier than usual for a workday. I went straight to my garden, but to my surprise, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Granted, some plants I hadn’t managed to save, and some were shredded beyond repair, but I hardly noticed; all I saw was the change in my little seedling. The night before it was wilted and drooping and would barely stand. Now, it was a whole new plant. It was standing upright and crisp, and it had grown to almost twice its previous size. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t taking over the flowerbed, but compared to the tiny little plant beginning to emerge from the soil the night before, it now looked like it was a few weeks old, not days. But I wasn’t complaining, far from it, it was incredible I thought. Its leaves were fuller and brighter, and had a deep bright green quality to them, that almost made them shine in comparison to the rest of the plants in the flowerbed. There were even the beginnings of a flower growing at the top of the plant. From what I could tell of it, it was a deep purple in color that contrasted nicely with the deep green of the leaves, but this was only the colour of the bud that encased the flower, it could be something very different when it bloomed, I thought eagerly.
I would have stayed there all day if I could, but what with work and an evening meal with friends afterwards, it was fairly late at night when I could finally tear myself away from the rest of the world and return to my little flower, and when I did, I was in for an even greater surprise.
The flower was blooming, right before my eyes, as if it had been waiting for me. Just as I shut the back door behind me and knelt down beside the flowerbed, I saw the plant curl slightly, as if caught in a breeze, and its bud twitched slightly. The outer casing of the bud had already fallen off, and the petals had spilled out from their case somewhat, but as I watched, the thin, wrinkled, paper-like petals began to uncurl. Slowly the petals unrolled and I saw the flower in its entirety. Small, it was quite sharp and pointed, with the bud being hidden deep within the flower’s core, as the whole shape of the flower resembled that of a bucket somewhat. The petals were a deep purple on the edges, and became a lighter purple, almost a grey-lilac towards the center. It was broken with uneven lines of deep blue that ran through the petals like veins, while streaks of yellow touched the inside of the flower bud.
I was so caught up in the flower that it was a moment or two before I noticed the rest of the plant. The leaves had grown out longer, and they tapered off into points at the end of each leaf, which curled slightly over itself in a kind of arch shape. Thorns had sprouted up over the stem of the plant, which glistened as if covered in a waxy sap, and in between these thorns, the plant had grown short wiry hairs, trapping loose fragments of soil and moisture. I didn’t touch the thorns though to be honest as they looked sharp enough to pierce the skin, and besides, as I said, I really only had eyes for the flower.
As it opened, I discovered that it had its own type of fragrance, and my god, what a smell it was. Out of all the perfumes I have ever smelt in the world over my course of life, all the fantastic fragrances in life, this was by far the best thing I have ever held in my nostrils. It was indefinably soft and delicate, like a whispered kiss on your senses, and yet it was strong too, a kind of smell that took you in and made you notice it. It was as if someone, some fantastic magician or chef had conjured up my most favourite things and put them together into one fragrance. It was perfect. I could have sat there and smelt that flower and not have noticed the years go by, it was delightful. I smiled to myself as I sat on the dirty soil strewn ground, smelling that little flower. I had always thought of my little flowerbed as a paradise away from the world, and now it really was.
The wind changed then, and blew in the opposite way, taking the flower’s fragrance away. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d reached out for the plant to tilt it back towards me, but before I’d even got that far, I stopped, crying out sharply, as my skin was pierced by one of the thorns.
Blood welled up and dripped from my finger again, and annoyingly it was the same finger that I cut before. But what struck me was what happened next. Drawing my hand up to my face, I sucked the blood from my finger again, as it was only a tiny spot, but the plant moved- I’m sure of it. I had heard of plants growing and moving slowly towards the sun over time, but I had never heard of them twitching at the sight of blood.
As I look back on this incident now, I can see it with a clear sense of clarity, but I must admit at the time I did feel slightly out of wits. The flower’s perfume, as seductive as it was, was still heavy in my mind, and I felt dazed at what I had just seen, as if it wasn’t entirely real. Without thinking it through, and indeed, without any real clue of what I was doing, I held out my cut finger over the plant and squeezed it, forcing a small bead of blood to well up. Keeping my finger above the plant, I watched in my fragrance-induced daze as the tiny bead of blood dropped off my finger, onto a leaf of the plant. Instead of it rolling off the waxy leaf, it stayed there, quivering slightly as the leaf moved from the slight weight disturbance of weight. Then, to my utter astonishment, the blood started to fade, or rather disappear; the plant absorbed the blood.
Now, as I have said, I am somewhat of a keen, if not amateur gardener, and I know as well as anyone that plants do not absorb blood, the very notion is absurd, but as I watched, the proof was there. The plant took in the drop of blood. The more I sat and stared at it, the more I couldn’t help but believe it was true. Its leaves straightened slightly, as if they had become a little firmer, and the petals seemed a little crisper than before. All in all it was very odd behavior for a plant I thought. But then another thought occurred to me, one so bizarre and fantastic I couldn’t help but smile at it. It all came down to blood really, I thought with a smile. The other night, after I slipped and cut my finger, when a drop of blood fell onto the soil, the plant seemed a little stronger and firmer, and now, the plant seemed to be improving again, when blood was involved. As I sat and pondered my radical, absurd idea, I was torn between actions; on the one hand, it was ridiculous to even think it, and I was probably just a little tired, and drunk from the evening meal, not to mention caught up by the flower’s deliciously intoxicating fragrance. But after a few minutes, a rebellion of sorts welled up inside me, and I decided to act on it, thinking to hell with the consequences. Before my wife caught me, I went to the kitchen. I knew that she had some steaks planned for our dinner tomorrow, for she always did like to eat meals with an ironclad regularity, and Thursdays were always steak nights. Quiet as a mouse, I snuck into the fridge and cut of a small sliver of raw meat off the larger of the two steaks. I didn’t feel too guilty about this to be honest, as my wife always ordered one steak bigger than the other, and it somehow always managed to end up on her plate, so I figured it was about time they were evened out. Anyway, with the sliver of raw meat in hand, I closed the fridge and snuck back out through the back door. Barely thinking through my actions, I picked up my plant trowel and dug a small shallow hole next to the base of the plant. Placing the piece of meat there, I covered it loosely with soil, and patted it down. Hoping that the cat wouldn’t be able to sniff it out, I left the trowel over the hole, and went inside to bed. I found I needn’t had bothered about my wife finding out what I had done, as she was passed out on the bed, still fully clothed after drinking too much wine. As my wife continued to snore beside me, I drifted off to sleep, still smelling that delicious fragrance from the flower.

The next day, feeling slightly sore in the head from the previous night, though I was a lot better off than the dear old wife, I rushed out of bed and went down to see my flower garden. And let me tell you, if the previous nights were considered surprising, what I saw the following morning could be considered astronomical. It was no longer just a little flower, oh no.
It was as if the plant had exploded. It had spread out from its original little corner and stretched across the flowerbed, growing over the few marigold and pansies that survived Mr. Moggin’s attack. It stretched up the garden wall too, splitting into sticky vine-like creepers that were covered in the small pointed waxy leaves and thin thread like hairs. The dark green colour of the plant struck my eyes as soon as I beheld it by the back door, for the sight of the plant’s rapid transformation left me immobile for a few seconds. The longer I looked, the more surprised I was. It was like it had taken some bizarre kind of nuclear growth hormone, the kind of thing our grandson reads about in his comic books or something. It was astonishing. The more I looked the more I saw on the plant. Two more flower buds had bloomed during the night, taking it up to three flowers, thought they were closed during daylight.
Realising that I was almost going to be late for work, I reluctantly left my garden and hurried back inside. The days at work usually go slowly these days, but that day was even slower than normal.
With hardly anything to do that day, I sat impatiently behind my desk for most of the morning, snapping at the other bank clerks as they stood and gossiped, but then as they all went for lunch, I struck. I had thought it through you see, and had been waiting all morning for their lunch break. As soon as they were gone, I went over to one or their computers and started to search for my little strange plant.
I didn’t find anything, much to my disappointment; my little flower was still as elusive as ever, but I secretly pleased by this, if I must be honest. All my life my wife had taken a cruel, vindictive pleasure in telling me just how ordinary I was, how boring and common. Boring old Charles the bank manger, nothing more, nothing less. And I didn’t mind, truth be told. I had a nice little house, we had James, our son, and I had a wife and a garden. All right, so life was not a wild rollercoaster of thrills and spills, but it was my life and I had a certain amount of acceptance and pride for it. I liked my little existence, it had a degree of regularity to it, and that can be quite comforting to know exactly what is what, and where it is. But just lately, over the years, and I think our son growing up and moving out had something to do with this, but my wife had become slightly bored of it all. She’s taken to making snide little remarks, trying to get me down to her level, as she doesn’t have a garden you see, just that fat little cat that she pampers. Still, it does get you down after a while, and I had started to realise that my little plant was just what I needed. No longer was I just Charles the bank manager of a branch no one used anymore, oh no, I was Charles the bank manger, gardener extraordinaire! Alright, so maybe that was me again, running away with my thoughts, but why shouldn’t I? I had grown that plant, that marvelous, wonderful, strange and fantastic little plant with those beautiful rare flowers. I had grown it from a small tiny seedling, I had looked after it and cared for it, why shouldn’t I be proud of it and call it mine?
I discovered though, some things about a different type of plant that was similar to mine. There was a plant called the Night-blooming cereus, but it wasn’t the same as my plant. For one, the picture was almost cactus like, and mine, while having pointed leaves, was not a cactus plant, that much was for certain. The other thing was that they are short lived, with the flowers blooming only at night, and usually for only one night. This struck me actually, for I had only seen my flower bloom the once. I couldn’t bear it if that was all it did, I thought, or if I had to wait a year or so until the flower grew back again. What if the cat got it again during that time? All these thoughts of panic ran through my head for the rest of the day and I must admit that I almost rushed to get back home.
Though once again, my thoughts of panic were unfounded. My plant was fine, just as I left it in fact. Kneeling down beside the flower bed, I opened my briefcase, checking that she wasn’t behind me, just in case and got out the fresh steak I had bought from the butchers on my way home. It was just on the off chance really, just in case, as I didn’t even know if it would work or not, but I couldn’t help trying. Poking around lightly in the dirt, I looked for the small sliver of steak that I had buried beneath the plant the day before, but it was gone. Licking my lips slowly, I thought about the sudden effect that a small sliver had on the plant; what was going to happen when I planted a whole steak there? Unable to keep my smile hidden, I dug a small hole under the plant’s leaves, and placed the steak inside, covering it up.
‘There, there, little plant. You grow big and strong, ok? Such a hungry little plant you are. Yes you are, you little flower you.’
I don’t know why I was crooning to the plant, I really don’t. I was just so caught up my excitement and looking after the plant that I found myself doing it before I realised. Unfortunately, to my utter embarrassment, there was an advert break on, and my wife was snooping around, checking up on me.
‘Charles, what are you doing? Are you singing to that plant?’ She guffed, bursting out her machine gun laughter again, the sound cutting through me as I knelt beside the flowerbed. What’s worse is that as I stood up, all flustered and guilty, my briefcase slipped from my hands and burst open on the ground. Files and pens scattered between my wife and me and littered the small paved back garden. I must have looked a sight to her, for she burst out laughing again. I didn’t say a word, and she just walked back inside, cackling to herself the whole way. Dejected, I picked up my things, hearing her laughter echo in the house. The cat appeared behind me, high up on the wall, watching me with those cold yellow eyes, but I couldn’t do anything about it, not with the old battle-axe still nearby. It could smell the meat in the air, I knew it. It kept sniffing the air and licking its tiny mouth, staring down at me insolently. I couldn’t do anything though.
I suffered for my sins that night. I was so embarrassed. I even burnt the dinner, something which usually earns me a good hour or so of nagging from her, but tonight, she’d decided to celebrate my kareokee to the plants as she called it with a bottle of cheap wine, so she didn’t really much care whether the dinner was eatable or not.
She changed her tune towards the evening though. At about ten at night, she started pacing around the house calling out for Mr Moggins. She couldn’t find him, she said, and that she hadn’t seen him for a good few hours now. I wasn’t too bothered really, the less I saw of that cat the better, but she wouldn’t drop it. She did this kind of panicked dance where she’d clasp her hands together over her bosom, and bounce on the balls of her feet, wailing about how he’ll get cold at night on his own. In the end I lost my temper a bit and snapped at her. Cats belong outside I said, they like walking about at night, going through bins and such. He’ll be fine. She didn’t believe me, but she gave in and went to bed eventually, but there was still no sign of him the next day or the day after that.
My plant is doing wonderfully well though, I must say. It now covers the whole of the back wall, and has grown out across the flower bed; I’ve had to re-plant the marigolds in separate pots and place them over the paving stones instead. More little deep purple flowers have appeared too, and their scent fills the night air, which is so pleasant now that it has reached summer.
It’s been weeks now, and Mr Moggins is still at large. My wife keeps going around posting those missing cat posters, but I don’t think she’ll get very far. I don’t know myself what happened to that cat, and I’m not really inclined to investigate it further to be honest. But I did see, when I was re-planting my marigolds, a few loose ginger cat hairs on the soil around my little seedling plant, half buried amongst the soil, right where I planted the steak.
It always was such a clever little plant.