Voices in the Greenhouse

There is a reason nobody dares to go inside Jane’s greenhouse.

You could say that Jane was an impatient botanist. She thought science had no time to waste. What nature took millions of years to do, she wanted to see completed within a lifetime.

Jane discovery–she claimed–was a growth hormone for plants. She said she was producing the hormone in large amounts. Hidden from the public’s eyes she had a greenhouse where she was doing her tests.

Three months after she started the experiments she announced that she had made a breakthrough. Her friends didn’t share her enthusiasm. According to Jane, the hormone didn’t only stimulate growth, but also the process of evolution.

“The plants talk to me,” Jane said to her friends, neighbors and everyone who wanted to listen. “They grow and they learn, and I talk to them and they talk back to me!”

Of course, it didn’t take long for the rumor of the mad botanist to go around town. And it wasn’t too long after, that the authorities came to take Jane away and put her in an asylum.

In quiet nights if you walk behind the brick wall of Jane’s garden you can hear soft noises. Reasonable people might say that what sounds like voices is just the wind blowing through tree leaves.

There is a reason nobody dares to go inside Jane’s greenhouse, and if you were to ask her, she would tell you it’s because the plants are calling out for her to come back home.