Secret Life
For months the vine refused to grow, or die. The woman forgot about the vine. She watered it automatically, in much the same way she stapled papers together or answered the telephone or had lunch with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend ignored the vine, his disregard a palpable presence in the room.
But one day, in the spring, she entered her office to a new smell, a fragrance unfamiliar to her. Perfume? Air freshener? No. It smelled vaguely of honeysuckle, of fresh berries, of vanilla, but wilder, more pungent.
She turned toward the window—and gasped, almost dropped her purse. The vine had turned a dark, healthy green, racing up the trellis, muscular and thick. It had blossomed: large, fluted flowers, a bright yellow that had transformed it into a fountain of color.
The plant brought her great happiness after that. People complimented her on it. She felt better because the air smelled like a garden all the time. The vine outgrew her small trellis. It outgrew the medium-sized trellis she brought in to replace the old one. At first, she had clipped its offshoots, but found she did not have the heart to prune it. It was too beautiful to contain.
Oddly enough, her boyfriend now liked the vine. This change of heart irritated her and she soon stopped seeing him.
When the vine outgrew even the large trellis, she faced a decision: cut it back or give it some new outlet. The flowers were huge now, as large as any she had ever seen, and a pure yellow that gleamed like gold even in the gloom. The vine was taking over the office, but she still could not bring herself to cut into such a healthy plant.
So one morning, she shut her office door, pulled her chair over to the vine, and carefully climbed up onto the seat. Using a ruler, she pried up a ceiling tile. The top of the vine unfurled itself and sprang upward as if it had been waiting for just that moment. It disappeared into the space she had created between the tiles.
From then on, her problem was solved and she did not think about the vine for many months. The curl of vines as they reached the ceiling concealed the gap in the tiles. No one noticed. Her vine had become such a part of the office décor that few visitors ever commented on the tangled explosion of green and gold in the corner.
Home
They found the manager after many years, finally. He had not quit without notice. He had not gotten trapped on the forbidden fifth floor without a key and died of starvation. Neither had he flung himself off the roof and landed in a drainage sluice. Nor had the large billboard visible from his office, the one advertising island holidays, been too great a temptation.
No, they found him inside his own desk. A night janitor had triggered the secret latch under the right-hand filing cabinet, revealing the secret compartment, revealing the manager.
He lay curled up inside, a man in a business suit, the skull now buried in the jacket, the leg bones loose in the slacks. He lay upon a simple bed, a pillow at one end, a tiny television at the other, a bottle of good brandy tucked into the corner.
They found a peephole in the front of the desk. They found a toothbrush. Floss. Towels. A jug of water. Snacks. Cans of tuna fish. A can opener. Several people wondered if he had ever left the office. The night janitor remembered him staying late to compile reports or edit the next training film. Some said that the images from those films had affected him, had seared themselves onto his skin, these ghostly tattoos only seen when the lights were off. In all ways, he had made his own coffin.
It seemed only incidental when the company coroner discovered that someone had broken the manager’s neck and shoved a very cheap ballpoint pen between the manager’s teeth. No one knew why this should be so. Nor could anyone recall a moment when the manager had ever been truly happy.
