Invasive Species

By: John Dennis

My mother kept plants that frightened me.

Large tropical things

with split leaves

and hanging roots

that drank sunlight greedily from the windows.

At night, they changed shape.

At least I believed they did.

The monstera beside the hallway

seemed larger after dark,

its shadows opening across the wallpaper

like hands.

My mother spoke to them while watering.

Not lovingly.

More like negotiations.

After she died,

the apartment became impossible by degrees.

First came the smell—

wet soil, heat, something green turning inward on itself.

Then the insects.

Tiny pale spiders in the bathtub.

Fruit flies lifting from the sink

like ash disturbed from a fire.

The plants continued growing without her.

That felt wrong.

The radiator clicked all night.

Roots appeared beneath the floorboards.

I stopped inviting people over.

One morning I found a vine inside my bedroom drawer

curled softly through my socks.

Another had entered the medicine cabinet.

The leaves looked waxy and healthy.

Healthier than me.

Friends told me to move.

The landlord blamed moisture.

But sometimes, late at night,

I could hear the apartment breathing.

Not metaphorically.

An actual inhale.

Slow.

Patient.

As though the rooms themselves

had lungs.

Yesterday, I found green beneath my fingernails again.

This morning,

while brushing my teeth,

I noticed something small and pale

uncurling gently from the corner of my mouth.

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John Dennis was born in New York and moved to Sweden after being stationed in Italy while serving in the US Navy. He holds a Master’s degree in Pedagogy from Malmö University where he also studied Creative Writing. A stroke ended his teaching career giving him more time to write. He has been published in Nunum, Midsummer Dream House and Beyond Words Magazine. He is married to Anna, father to Julia and grandfather to Noah.