A fad had swept across the nation. It was originally showing up in television news shows at the end of the broadcast. A left over oddity story. A tiny blip in the real news about the “crazy things people do these days.” It was a story told, tongue in cheek. Some silly fad that Americans were spending their money on. “A product that helps you plant yourself like a tree.” The absurdity. The newscaster would usually pun the end of the story making a recycling joke out of a product that was hitting the markets and was surprisingly popular. Months went by and it became less of a joke. People were buying a product that helped them plant themselves like a tree. Although you couldn’t prove that the buyer died, there were legalities involving personal rights and privacy. This product was well designed enough with many different features so that while you were “gone” the company could, for a fee, handle certain arrangements for you.

That’s where I came in. That was my job. I worked for this company that sold it’s product in a rather large perfectly square box. In it came all the instructions you would need. Even pre-made postcards, as generic as store bought kid birthday party invitations. Complete with blank lines for your handwritten notes. They went something like this:

Mr. and/or Ms.(Mrs.) ___________________________ Is informing you that they have Planted themselves on ___________________ You are receiving this note because you are an important person in his/her/their life.

There was even a line in case you wanted to explain your reason for planting yourself. The instructions even stepped you through how to word your explanation as concisely as possible to fit on the card. The reasoning was something as philosophical and enlightening as, “You know you’ve considered your purchase for planting yourself long enough to be able to sum up your reason in ten words or less. Think of this reason now." Step 15.

You usually got a stack of 20 or so cards in the box along with all the simple and numbered instructions of all the steps you needed to take to successfully plant yourself. It even came with a placard to put on the front of your house. “This House is Home to a Planted Individual.” That way door-to-door sales people would simply move along. It was all in the instructions, every contingency. All thoughtfully and respectfully worded. Carefully numbered. The problem was that some people skipped the instructions.

There were instructions about turning off your electricity if you decided to plant yourself in your house. Some people planted themselves outside in public parks, under trees. And because of the significance of someone choosing this drastic and extremely unnerving choice, people weren’t really sure what to do. It’s not like you could remove them, or mow them over. People avoided them and left them alone. And the box told you all the places you could “get away” with planting yourself as there were loop holes about the individual not being asleep, “residing”, or being dead.

Eventually the tongue in-cheek newscaster was replaced by a solemn well dressed person with a microphone standing under a shaded tree in a park. These “in-depth stories” strove to unravel the mystery of why someone Planted themselves. Behind the newscaster you see two feet hanging up in the air of the Planted. And behind that person’s feet, you see more. People had begun to plant themselves and the newscasters now earnestly wondered why.

The problem was you couldn’t interview these people before they planted themselves or even after because they were gone. People didn’t plant themselves for a week and come back. No one came back. At least not yet. And so they interviewed me.

“Tell us, what is it like to walk into a ‘Planted House?’”

“Well, it’s quiet. Usually they’ve followed all the instructions and emptied the house of food and trash.”

“But can you tell us why they’ve decided to plant themselves?”

“Well, sometimes people leave little effigies around them. One lady had all the pictures of her cats surrounding her.”

“Do you think they dream or do they speak or move at all.”

I laugh and shake my head, “No.” They’d no more move than the statues in a church. They’re planted. And if they did, I wouldn’t tell.

I tell the newscaster about a lady that called the help number one day. I respond in the case of someone not understanding the instructions completely. That’s most of my calls. I go before they’ve planted themselves but I don’t ask them why. This lady told me her wedding fell through and was canceled but she didn’t tell me why and I didn’t ask. I went about the work not really looking at her. She told me she couldn’t face her family and sent out all the postcards in the instructions. I nodded. I notice she bought the white box and she’s wearing her wedding dress. I can see why she bought white. She had a rather blank look on her face before she planted herself. She had set up part of the apparatus incorrectly. It’s a little like putting together a bike gear and brake system. Little sets of wires in little rubber coated metal hooks. In this case they were white hooks and white wires all perfectly matched. Two of the hooks were off and I fixed them for her. And up she went dress and all.

They don’t exist in gravity there--Planted like a tree. Their head is submerged in a kind of material you pour out of a large bottle that comes in the box. All the instructions are numbered. The last number is where you plant yourself. There are people that call the help number and explain that they really want to plant themselves but they’re sure that they’d never be able to do it because they can’t even balance on their head. I smile and tell them that it will be no trouble. If they follow the instructions it will happen perfectly, there’s no gravity there.

There’s the tandem box for couples who decide to go together. And the newscasters and are wondering about the legalities of assisted suicide. They ask me. Microphones in my face, a grim sky behind me. Tennis shoe clad feet hanging silently in the air. They don’t wave like trees, they don’t sway in the wind. They don’t get wet if it rains, they don’t age, they don’t die. You can’t prove they’ve died and you can’t prove they’re alive. They don’t decay or make a sound. And the cities are rapidly becoming quieter as more and more people decide to plant themselves.

I’ve been called to the house of a lady and a friend. They’ve decided to plant themselves and have bought the tandem box. Of course they’re arguing and one of them is extremely intoxicated. I’m pleasantly there, offering no judgment only listening. The very intoxicated woman has convinced herself that this is the perfect weight loss system. While she’s planted she won’t eat. I help her, never explaining that on the box it clearly says, “this is not a weight lost system.” I set her section and off she goes. Her friend had planted herself incorrectly. She hadn’t read the instructions and her head popped out of the ground in such a way where she looked like she was in a horrified dream. Her eyes open, her body twitching. She was slumped in a crooked way as if she’d crumpled herself in a bad yoga accident. This was why the intoxicated lady called me. Her friend had stupidly planted herself wrong. And while I helped her friend, who she berated the entire time for being too stupid to read the instructions, the intoxicated lady said, “I’m going to dream I’m eating all the cake I want!” And she planted herself. I was left alone with the friend. She was hearing and yet not hearing. She was twitching and crooked. I shook my head quietly because I’ve seen this before. She was drunk when she read the instructions. I re-righted what she set wrong and she went up straight and perfect like a poplar. Like tucking a sleeping child in to bed, off she went. And I left.

I didn’t tell this story to the newscaster. We don’t tell personal stories like that. It wouldn’t seem right. I tell them about the lady who paid the company to arrange that the lights in her home stay on. She was afraid of the dark and didn’t want to think that the lights would go out. How very touching this story is and that’s why I chose to tell it. She arranged with the company on the box to perpetually pay her electric bill and I go over once in a while to replace any light bulbs that had blown out. And the newscasters marvel as I tell this story into their microphones. People across America hear how very kind and sympathetic our company is. How great of a product our box is.

I monitor this garden of people. I don’t talk to them while I work. I rather like the quiet. And more and more people are coming to find another set of questions to ask me with their microphones in hand. And meanwhile all the boxes are bought before they hit the shelves. And the questions regarding the company are becoming harder and harder to answer. I smile about that because all the questions you want answered are in the box. If only people read the instructions more carefully. But it’s okay. Mostly the people with the cameras are more imploring than ever as the traffic thins and the grocery lines are nonexistent. They follow me around on my rounds and I smile and tell them I don’t have much more I can say—I’m supposed to water the plants for Mrs. So-In-So because she so loved her plants.

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