Taking Time to Listen

Honey Rush stepped out into the summer sunshine and breathed a deep, happy sigh as she walked through the garden, past the hydrangeas and the strawberries growing in their pots, down to where the garden stopped at the decorative woven fence and dropped away into the grassy fields beyond the town.  She smiled at the green curls slowly encircling the fence post as they gently intruded over the boundary, an intrusion that so many had furiously fought back but she had slowly come to tolerate, even welcome.

“Good morning,” she smiled as she knelt, gently drizzling the contents of her watering can along the fence. Her husband Fabian came shuffling through the lawn, bringing her a mug of tea. 

“Still trying to start a conversation?” he chuckled as he passed her the mug and started up the camera for their garden video diary.  Was it really so long ago we came here, thought Honey as she took a sip, the new doctors in a town so far from where we’d grown up?  Those first few years had been rough for everyone, as it always was when new towns began, and yet somehow she and Fabian had found time in their busy schedule to start this garden – their ‘green pipe dream’ as their neighbours had called it.  While other townsfolk had been desperate enough to hack, slash and even burn the borders of their properties, the Rushes had accepted the local flora – which had been here first, after all – and, rather than try to push it away, considered it something of a persistent neighbour.

“Morning, Doctors Rush” came the voice of Constable Ward over the wall as she ambled down the cul-de-sac.  Honey and Fabian had been retired for years but so many of the younger townsfolk still called them doctors – not surprising when they’d been there for most of their childhoods.  Fabian returned the sentiment, while Honey quietly commented to the plants “That’s Vicky Ward, nice young lady and a very diligent officer.”

Constable Ward shook her head in polite disbelief – if the Rushes had a penny for every time someone in town had told them the plants couldn’t talk back, that Honey was wasting her breath and she may as well talk to her watering can, they’d be billionaires.  But her green neighbours came back every year and could tell her if they needed anything, in their own way, so why shouldn’t she reply to them?

As Honey tidied along the fenceline, trimming grass and picking up dead leaves, she spotted one tiny, baby bud poking through the fence and struggling to open its leaves fully.  Dipping a brush into her watering can, Honey used the bristles to gently prise the leaves apart, to open them to the sun.  As she put the brush down, she felt one of the thin green tendrils wrap itself around her free hand with a gently squeeze and turned to look at the seedling.

“Thannnss” the little one whistled.  That small whisper seemed to fill the whole of the garden as the gentle squeeze repeated – a thank you in two languages.

“You’re welcome” smiled Honey, imagining the look on Constable Ward’s face as Fabian lifted the camera for a closer look.  She heard Ward dial a number and babble “Sarge, you won’t believe this . . .”

Three weeks later Honey, Fabian and the seedling – whose name, it transpired, could roughly be spoken by humans as ‘Fweesh’ – were on the news, giving an interview that was being broadcast throughout the inhabited galaxy.  For years it had been known that Fweesh’s kind, the plant-like Hryla, were arguably sentient but now it had been confirmed for the first time that they were so much more.  A simple exchange had proven that they would and could communicate with humans, opening up conversations and negotiations that had previously been believed impossible on the world that humans called Mahuta and Hryla called Liiwee.

“I always knew they had something to say,” grinned Honey.  “It was just a matter of taking the time to listen.”