FREAKY FLASH FRIDAY: Extinction Event by Jenny Hart

Lucy cocoons her damp hand around the baby plant hanging from an umbilical runner dripping from its mother. It weighs no more than a balled-up tissue and fits perfectly in her palm. A tiny bundle of thin green fronds with little roots ready to tickle down into moist coconut bark. Nancy and Tom won’t miss it.

Lucy knows she should ask them, but what if they say no? Tom is showing everyone a rock that dominates the orangery. It has a dark line running across it, like mould in a loaf of bread.

He says it's the ‘Permian-Triassic border.’

An ‘Extinction Event.’

He says, ‘If we all die tomorrow, in four million years you would never know we ever existed.’

Rob is staring at her, wearing his lopsided ‘I know you’re up to something’ smile.

At home, they soak sphagnum moss in rainwater and push the plantlet into a cracked teacup that Lucy loves too much to throw out. She positions it on the table where it will get the morning sun and covers it with a plastic mixing bowl. No substitute for the tropical humidity of Tom and Nancy’s orangery, but she hopes it will suffice.

By morning, its roots have twisted around the table legs. Rob lifts the bowl, and a mass of long sticky fronds unfurl like a magic trick. They loll towards the patio doors, so Rob nudges them open. A butterfly floats into the dining room, landing on a slender green ribbon. It snaps round the insect. Lucy steps towards the plant as the butterfly thrashes its wings. Even if she rescued it, it wouldn’t survive.

The plant thrives on flies and spiders and the occasional fledgling bird. When it starts licking Rob’s leg with its hundreds of sticky green tongues, Lucy stocks up on lean mince from Sainsburys. Walking home, she tries not to notice the missing cat posters on lampposts. She closes the patio doors and brings the sprinkler inside. Its ceaseless fiss-fiss lulls them to sleep.

Mushrooms grow on the bookcases and the room smells earthy. Lucy buys a jasmine to keep the plant company while they’re at work. But the creeper coils around Rob like a sweetly scented snake. Lucy doesn’t think it's safe to leave him like that.

She wonders if she should confess to Nancy and Tom what she’s done. Ask their advice.

But the plant needs feeding first.

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Jenny Hart is a writer from England whose short fiction has appeared in ‘Trash Cat Lit’, ‘Urban Pigs’ and ‘Frazzled Lit’. She lives across the road from a cemetery, with her two cats, Jason and Jeff.

You can follow Jenny on Instagram, Bluesky and X using @JennyHart2001    

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Photo by Wix