HCE received a lot of high-quality submissions for The Green Issue – sadly, too many to fit inside the magazine! So we offered some writers and artists who’d sent in work the chance to be published here on the website. Keep an eye on our social media for more great work like this, now that The Green Issue print magazine has been released! (For more information or to purchase your copy, visit our shop.)
Augustus Stephens
Meteorite
Kayleigh heard about the meteor shower from a lady on the television on Thursday evening. It might be spectacular, said the astronomer, so Kayleigh put on a big jumper and a warm coat and hat and stepped into the kitchen garden. The farm’s fields stretched off into the darkness as the crescent moon began to sink below the horizon. Kayleigh craned her neck and looked at the sky above, not really sure which way she was supposed to look.
After two minutes she was considering going back in. Nothing had happened. This was not the idea of spectacular she had imagined. Then, out the corner of her eye, she saw a streak across the sky, just a small thing, but a thing nonetheless. She turned to look at the area of sky that had produced this little wonder.
Five minutes later, there was another one. Heading North to South it crossed her line of vision in a moment. The rate of appearance was slower than expected, but it was a pretty sight. Ten minutes went by without anything, then another, bigger one, that seemed to leave a trail. Kayleigh stepped inside to get a scarf, it was a cold night.
A few more meteors streaked by until it was almost 11 o’clock and Kayleigh was about to give up when something different happened. A speck of light in the sky grew bigger and bigger before there was a bang and the sound of objects falling on wet ground. A small shower of dirt rained down on her.
She didn’t like this anymore, so she went inside to join Richard in bed.
***
In the morning, Richard got on the tractor and headed out to feed the cattle. A few minutes later he came zooming back with exciting news. There was a big hole in the next field, he said, Kayleigh must come and look. So she climbed in the tractor with him and they rattled and bumped their way across the field, through the hedge and into the next field.
There, by the hedge by the road, was a hole or crater, about three meters across with a lump of what looked like metal at its centre.
Kayleigh got off the tractor and looked in wonder at the new arrival. ‘This is news. This is real news,’ she said. She took a picture with her phone and headed back across the field towards the house.
She sent the photo to the TV company with a note for the lady astronomer – would she like to come and look at the shooting star that had landed in their field?
It took three hours for anything to happen, when a TV crew arrived and asked to see the meteorite. Kayleigh took them across the field, through the gate and over to the crater, but now it looked different. The lump was still in the middle, but all around the edges of the crater grew the most extraordinary plants. They were each less than a foot high, with heart shaped leaves of the most vivid and vibrant green, they almost shone in the sunlight.
‘Oh, beautiful!’ said Kayleigh.
When the TV crew and the astronomer had finished their piece to camera, more people arrived. They said they were from the university and Kayleigh showed them to the crater, but this time she took a trowel and a flower pot. When this new team had finished examining the crater and the meteorite, and had taken various measurements and readings, they loaded the lump onto a cart which they trundled back to their van and drove away. At last it was quiet and Kayleigh dug up one of the plants and transferred it to the flower bed under the kitchen window near the back door. It looked wonderful.
‘I wonder what it is,’ she thought.
***
The next morning when she came out, to her surprise the plant had grown considerably during the night. It had sent tendrils up the wall and along the top of the window frame.
‘What a peculiar thing,’ Kayleigh thought. She went inside to get a pair of secateurs. She clipped one of the tendrils about six feet up. When the shears cut into the plant, it almost seemed to shudder, and nearby leaves curled up. This did not deter Kayleigh though, and she cut the thing back until it was no more than six feet tall.
‘That’s better,’ she said.
***
On Sunday the plant had made even more progress. Now it reached all along the kitchen window and up toward the bedroom. She called for Richard and told him how strange it all was. How could a plant grow that quickly? What was she to do?
‘Oh, why not leave it?’ he said. ‘Just look at that beautiful green, it’s gorgeous.’
So she put away the secateurs that day and did her gardening elsewhere.
***
The dawn came up bright and sunny with the lush verdant leaves of the plant shining in the golden light. A robin flew in and settled on a branch, sang a few bars then flew off in a hurry. A lone caterpillar munched on a leaf, stopped for a moment, then fell off, dead, onto the ground beneath. Apart from that, not a creature was on it; no grub, no spider, no butterfly.
By now the plant covered the whole of the back of the house, although it had left the windows and doors clear. As Kayleigh prepared to do some more weeding she thought she’d give the rabbit a run, so she opened up her cage and the little white thing hopped out. It nibbled a carrot top. ‘Hey, leave that,’ said Kayleigh and shooed her away. The rabbit then started to nibble at the strange new plant and Kayleigh turned back to her weeding.
After a few minutes there was an odd squeak. Kayleigh turned to see the rabbit lying on her side.
‘What’s up with you?’ she said, but when she stroked the rabbit she found there was no breathing, no heart-beat. The rabbit was dead. ‘What on earth?’ Kayleigh thought.
She looked at the rabbit. She looked at the plant. ‘Richard?’ she called.
Richard popped out of the back door. ‘What is it?’.
‘I – I – I think the plant just killed Flossy,’ she stammered.
Richard laughed.
‘I’m serious.’
Richard stopped laughing. ‘You can’t be.’
‘I am!’
‘It’s ridiculous.’
But Kayleigh just glared at him.
‘Best thing to do is bury her and forget all about it.’
Then Kayleigh burst into tears and Richard held her until she was calmer.
Kayleigh didn’t want to be involved, so Richard buried the rabbit at the far end of the garden with a stone placed lovingly on the grave.
***
Tuesday morning. The pair found that the back door was blocked by foliage, so they went out the front and round the back to survey the situation. The plant now stretched along the fence and was spreading across the neighbouring field that belonged to the Joneses, as well as covering half their own garden.
‘This is absurd. You’ve got to do something,’ said Kayleigh.
‘The damn thing will just have to go. I’ve got to plough the bottom field today, but I’ll deal with this this afternoon. It’s a job for my trusty axe,’ said Richard, puffing out his chest. Leaves rustled and then Richard headed off toward the barn to get the tractor.
Kayleigh spent the day cleaning inside the house, but the green tinge to the light coming through the windows at the back disconcerted her, so she just kept her efforts there to a quick hoover.
At about four thirty, Richard returned the tractor to its spot by the barn and headed to the shed where he kept his axe. The shed was now covered by the plant and, unusually, the door was open.
Richard bent down to enter, as there were two branches snaking through the open door. He went to the right hand corner where he kept his axe, but it wasn’t there. He searched and searched for it, but to no avail.
Inside the house he quizzed Kayleigh. ‘Have you had my axe?’
‘No dear,’ she said. ‘What on earth would I want with that?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is, it isn’t in the shed.’
‘Well, I haven’t had it.’
Richard huffed for a moment. ‘I’ll go and buy a new one in the morning,’ he said.
***
In the morning they found the front door was now covered by the plant too.
‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Kayleigh.
Richard took the Samurai sword from off the living-room wall and swung it round a couple of times. ‘This’ll make short work of that pesky thing.’ He gave Kayleigh a peck on the cheek then opened the front door.
A wall of bright green was all there was to see. Richard lifted his arm and swung the sword. Leaves and twigs parted before him. He swung again and a shower of leaves fell to the ground at his feet. He swung high, he swung low as he made a human sized path in front of himself. He stepped out into the space he had created and continued to swing around.
Then, as he lifted the sword above his head, a tendril grabbed his wrist and tightened. He couldn’t move his arm. Another tendril curled round the sword and plucked it from his hand. Kayleigh screamed as tendrils snaked out and wrapped around his left and right legs, and his left and right arms.
There was a moment of silence, then all the tendrils contracted and Richard’s limbs were pulled apart. Kayleigh heard his joints pop as arms and legs came out of their sockets. Richard screamed, but the tendrils kept contracting and Richard went silent as he was literally pulled limb from limb. Red blood spattered the green leaves around him and his torso lay in a bloody mess on the ground.
Kayleigh stood motionless. Petrified.
Then she pulled herself together and slammed the front door shut, but no sooner had she done so than a tendril pushed its way through the letterbox and wormed its way toward her.
She ran upstairs into the back bedroom.
Through the window she could see Joe Jones, out by the garden fence with a flame-thrower. He was using it to attack the plant. As he squeezed on the trigger a tongue of flame spurted out in front of him and the plant’s leaves and twigs blackened, shrivelled and turned to ash.
Kayleigh opened the bedroom window and shouted out. ‘Help. Help me. This way. For God’s sake, help!’
Joe looked up and waved. He turned in the direction of the back door and started to burn away at the plant as he made his way towards her. Two tendrils snaked up toward Kayleigh and she closed the window in a hurry.
She went back across the room and opened the door to the landing, only to find the landing was now covered in green leaves with tendrils reaching out at her. She closed the door with a bang and stood in the centre of the room.
‘Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!’ she screamed.
Under the door snaked a tendril and crept toward her. She ran to the window where the light coming in was now green. The overwhelming mass of leaves, vines and tendrils scared her and she ran into the corner, just as the window smashed into shards where she had been standing.
From left and right tendrils reached out for her. One wrapped itself around her legs, another round her left arm, then one went up her nose, down her windpipe and into her lungs. She fought to breathe, taking great gasps of air as she felt the tendril rip through her internal tissues, wrap around her heart and squeeze.
Augustus Stephens is a writer and entertainer with a special interest in mental health. He uses his own experiences of mental illness to inform, educate and make people laugh. He has taken four one-person shows around the country, receiving five star reviews, and has appeared on BBC1 television. More information about Augustus’ work can be found on his website.