“Of all the crazy things you ever came up with, Jack, I, for once, can’t believe you’re making me do this!” Richard said, exhausted and sweating profusely in the unforgiving sunshine, as he tried to force his shovel through the obstinate dirt. They had been at it since the first rays of dawn, about five hours or so ago, and the meager area they had managed to till got lost in the vastness of land yet to be confronted.

“Shut up and dig, Snake, we only have a week to make this valley of tears look planted,” Jack mumbled through his teeth, just as exhausted as his friend and in a vile mood.

“What do you think people assume when they see us walk into the desert with a heavy bag and shovels?” Richard asked, panting from the effort but not slowing down the pace.

“What did you want us to carry our supplies in? Glass jars?” Jack asked.

“I’m just saying,” Richard gasped, struggling to dislodge a large rock from the middle of the border he was trying to define, a place from which the cursed thing refused to budge. “You know, if our parents wanted to devise a punishment for our creative truth telling, this would probably be it!”

“Don’t mess with karma, dude!” Jack said philosophically, suddenly distracted by the fact that digging got a lot easier than it had been so far, and upon further examination he noticed he was shoveling through soft silt. “This medium is completely worthless!” he cussed under his breath.

“Just mix it in with clay, I’m sure it’ll be fine!” Richard suggested, wiping his brow.

“And where do I get the clay?” Jack asked, and then, following Richard’s unspoken directions, retorted. “Since when are you the expert in plantings?”

“Since you made me study them. Hey!” Richard suddenly remembered. “Why is karma punishing me? It was your idea!”

“You unleashed Brenda upon plant land,” Jack justified himself.

“You made us break into the lab!” Richard protested.

“You sneaked into the factory and didn’t tell anybody about the plant!” Jack said.

Richard pondered it for a bit, then shrugged.

“Still,” he said. “Harsh!”

“So, what are we planting,” Jack asked, “before I collapse of heat exhaustion?”

“Succulents,” Richard said. “From over there,” he pointed somewhere in the distance, where one of the springs had created a little oasis of greenery.

“Oh, no, that’s great,” Jack kvetched, “as long as we don’t have to make several half mile trips to get them!”

“Would you rather have carried them from town?” Richard replied. “Besides, they’re native to this area, if we have one chance in a million to keep something growing here, they’re it,” he frowned.

“You know?” Jack said, filling the bag with clay to amend the silty soil. “Maybe this was not the best idea in the world.”

“Now you’re telling me!??” Richard burst with annoyance. He looked towards the dome and got instantly aggravated. “That stupid plant made a rain forest in the middle of this desert and we can’t even grow cacti!”

“Maybe we should have started by building a dome,” Jack commented sarcastically.

“That’s it!” Richard threw in the shovel. “I’m done! I’m not dying in this damned place! I’m going home!” he exclaimed, and then he felt both guilty and ridiculous about the protest and he headed towards the oasis in the distance to grab some plants.

“Hey!” Jack yelled from behind him. “What about the water source?”

“Details will take care of themselves, Jack! Look at the big picture!” Richard responded without turning around, suddenly irritated again.

The next day they stopped the planting to score a little watercourse through the petrified dirt and bring a shy trickle from the dome to the site. One couldn’t tell whether it was luck or science that made it so that the dome was uphill from the planting site and not too far from it, either, and the boys were, frankly, too tired for this sort of philosophical musings.

The environmental recovery area didn’t feature tree saplings, to Carol’s unspoken disappointment. Despite the limitations of climate and location, she had always envisioned the boys’ project as a new born evergreen forest. Carol didn’t show her lack of enthusiasm, and as always she encouraged her son to continue, a little confused about his sudden shift in interest from mechanics to botany and trying to convince herself that all of his work was for a good cause.

The planted acre had served its purpose, which was mainly to be anything other than the brimstone laden dome. There was no expectation on anyone’s part that it would be a smashing success. The plants didn’t prosper by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn’t die either, holding on for dear life under the heartless sun. Both spiky and succulents hesitated for quite a while, unsure whether to adjust to their new home or not, but nobody was the wiser about that, because their thick and shiny foliage looked frozen in time, hiding the drama underneath their skin.

“Have you ever thought about all the things we’ve done lately, all because of this blessed plant, dude?” Jack asked Richard later, while they were trying to comfort their aching bodies with their usual vanilla floats at the malt shop. “I don’t suppose you ever imagined being involved in propagating cacti.”

“Of course not. Those things are vicious!” Richard remembered with a frown. His hands were still stinging from the pricks and his face had acquired a healthy tan from being out in the sunshine all day. He pondered for a while, and then said. “Come to think of it, I never took any interest in plants, I always found them kind of boring.”

“Except one,” Jack laughed.

“Yeah,” Richard said, smiling. “In a way, I felt like I owed the plant one. You know, for Brenda.”

“Do you realize how lucky we are?” Jack said. “Most people spend entire lifetimes without ever encountering something so extraordinary. We are like the first ones who saw the light bulb.”

“Worth every fib, no doubt!” Richard agreed.

“Not everybody seems to agree with that,” Jack offered, after a brief pause. “As far as some of my mom’s colleagues are concerned, this situation is a nightmare, but it will surely pass, because even if life has become frightening and completely out of control, any moment now somebody will find a way to kill that stupid plant and return existence to normal, whatever that means. Quite a spectacular display of denial, especially coming from a profession specifically trained to expose and dismantle it. Even if somebody managed to kill that plant, you can’t unknow its existence, at least I can’t,” he said, looking down, kind of sad.

“Why would you want to?” Richard said, obstinately.

“I guess it’s in the human nature to fear anything you haven’t encountered before,” Jack said. “Heck, even I am reluctant to interact with your Brenda, even though I know you made it,” he said, lowering his voice. “That thing looks terrifying, dude! You have to do something about that.”

“My parents just like to pretend that the plant doesn’t exist,” Richard pointed out. “My sisters wouldn’t care if it grew out of their own heads, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their social agenda, and little Teddy, well, we’re not supposed to talk about the plant in front of little Teddy, because it gives him night terrors. It seems to be some sort of scary monster to him.”

“What about you?” Jack asked him directly, making him recoil from the unexpected question.

“What do you mean, me?” he asked.

“What comes to your mind when you think of the plant?” Jack eyes gleamed with curiosity, and Richard realized this was a question that preoccupied his friend for a long time.

He didn’t respond, trying to find the best explanation.

“Do you remember when we went to the zoo for the first time and fed a giraffe? It was so unbelievably tall, you don’t realize how large it really is until you’re really close. I was kind of scared of it, but excited, too, and I knew it was a giraffe, because we all saw pictures of them in our kindergarten books. This plant is just like the giraffe, only without any prior warning. I look at it, I touch it and feel that it’s hot, and still have trouble believing it’s real half the time.”

“I thought as much,” Jack said softly.

“Why?” Richard asked.

“Brenda. You wouldn’t have taken Brenda to the factory otherwise, at least not the you that I knew.” Jack replied. “You might have trouble coming to terms with the fact that it’s all real, dude, but I assure you that it is.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just…snow in July. Every fiber in your body tells you that it shouldn’t be there and you question whether your senses deceive you, but it’s not something that’s out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it even happened. It’s a very rare occurrence, but certai