A quick bit of fiction

"Sometimes they grow wrong"





Swindled by a stranger's charm, I cast three seeds aimlessly on the lawn last night. I'd jested a beanstalk but to my surprise at sunrise I saw myself gestating from from the vines. Three me's of near equal size, but only one breathing. "What are you?" I asked myself in a whisper, and then the other I answered.




"Cold."




Of his kind, the second sprouted funny and lied lifeless with his head still in the dirt. The third it seemed choked on the vine of the first, leaving it dry, wilted, and unable to ripen.




I clothed the first in a frost cloth and it asked for some water.



"From the hose or a glass?"




"A pot," he said. "One large enough to fit your- errrr, my head."