A Fairy Cares for the Garden

Over the next few days, I got used to having Myra in my apartment. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, mostly because she was really small. If Myra had been the same size as an actual human, the things she did would have been annoying, not cute.

For instance, on Saturday when I got back from work, I found out that she had accidentally spilled dirt on the floor near the windowsill. She explained that she had been adjusting the garden so that it would get a more appropriate level of sunlight, and that she had shaken it too much, to the point that some of the dirt had fallen on the ground. I helped her clean up what was left, but it honestly wasn't too much. 

Or on Sunday when I got back from the afternoon service at the local church and found out that she had transplanted a miniature barrel cactus into the garden. I told her that there wasn't enough room for five plants in the garden, but she pouted and insisted that she was the fairy, and fairies were more equipped to nurture plants then normal people. The only reason I relented was because she was very insistent that this was a good thing and that the plants would all be better off for it. 

I woke up on Monday, put on my work clothes, and walked into the kitchen. That was as far as my normal schedule went that day, because when I went to open the refrigerator I heard Myra call to me from the garden. I turned around and yawned.

"What is it?"

"The garden needs more room." She said nonchalantly while sitting on top of the old man cactus. The strands on the cactus that had been braided together were rearranged so that they formed a kind of pillow on the top of the cactus.

"...I told you that the barrel cactus was too ambitious. I'll just take it out before I go to work."

"No! I worked hard getting that in there." She said adamantly. "Besides, it's not about the barrel cactus at all. It's about the color palette of the whole garden. It's too plain, don't you think?" She stood up and fluttered over to the kitchen before getting beside my head and framing the garden between her hands as if she were a photographer. 

"It looks fine to me. The plants have been more vibrant ever since you showed up, isn't that enough?" I said while looking away and pouring myself a glass of water.

"O-oh, you noticed!" 

"Of course I did." I took a sip of water and leaned on the kitchen counter beside where she was standing on it. "I look at it every day. I'd have to be blind not to see how much greener the plants have been looking as of late."

Myra stood there on the counter and out of the corner of my eye I could see her beaming. Her fiery orange eyes were wide and staring right at the garden and she was standing on the tips of her toes with her hands clasped behind her back. But it was her smile that really caught my eyes. It fit her face so perfectly and seemed to light up the kitchen despite how small it was. I couldn't help smiling too.

"What are you smiling about?" She said when she stopped looking at the garden and saw me looking at her. I blushed and laughed a little bit as I looked away.

"N-nothing! I just, uh, it's nice to see you happy about your work. I know how it feels to finally get a big project done after working on it, so seeing you do the same thing makes me feel happy too." I shook my head and took another sip of water. "So... you're sure that the garden needs more space?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it could use a little more space. How do you feel about potted plants?" She asked as she flew up to my eye level and put her hands on her hips while eyeing the garden critically. 

"Depends. How big of a plant are you thinking?"

"Nothing too ambitious. Maybe a wax plant beside the windowsill, out of the direct sunlight." She fluttered over to the spot where she wanted the plant to go. 

"Wax plant... Let me look that up." I pulled out my phone and swiped past the job offers I'd already received that day and looked up how much a wax plant and a pot would cost. After a few minutes of browsing, I found out that I could get a cheap pot from one the hardware stores I frequented. The wax plant would have to come from a specialty store; thankfully, it was pretty cheap. I put my phone away and looked at my watch.

"What are ya thinking?" She said as she sat down against the baseboard of the wall next to the windowsill.

"I'm thinking about how I can afford the wax plant and the pot." I finished my glass of water and put it in the sink before standing still and thinking. It would take a little more work this week, but an additional thirty dollars wasn't too bad. Plus, it seemed like wax plants were long-lasting. "Alright. I'll see what I can do about the wax plant."

Myra smiled wide again, and as she did, the sunlight pouring through the window seemed to brighten up a little bit. 

"Thanks Juan! I really appreciate it." 

"Don't mention it." I looked at my watch again and clicked my tongue. I didn't have the time to cook anything, so I slapped together a sandwich pretty quickly before heading to the front door. "See you later Myra." 

We exchanged a quick wave before I stepped out.
~~~
My first job involved cleaning out an older woman's kitchen. It was quick, and she insisted on giving me a few tamales afterward. The pay was a little subpar, but I was never one to turn down free food. 

My second job that day involved "fixing" a newlywed couple's car. All it needed was an oil change. Easy work, even if the guy tried to get me to do it for too cheap. If he was going to have me change his oil, he had to pay for both the oil and the work. I offered to let him watch and learn, though he was too busy messing around with his wife. The next time his car needs an oil change, he'll have to pay for someone else to do it again; some people don't understand that it feels really good to be able to do things yourself. It also tends to be a lot cheaper.

I thought about that while I was doing my fifth job helping a guy clean out his garage. A lot of people didn't understand how nice it felt to go out and accomplish something, even if it was only something small. Once I finished helping get all the stuff out of the guy's way, he handed me a couple twenties and said that he'd probably hire me again sometime soon. I nodded and smiled despite being preoccupied with my own thoughts.

While driving to the specialty store with the pot in the passenger seat, I thought about how I fell into my line of work. No boss, no job security, no hard schedule, no guaranteed wages; the list went on. To some people, what I did was lazy. To other people, what I did was too much for too little. I didn't mind what they thought; I was enjoying what I was doing. I looked up at the red light of the intersection as the sun began to approach the horizon and smiled. 

After the light turned green, the drive didn't take long. I pulled into the specialty store a few minutes before it closed, grabbed the wax plant as quickly as I could, paid for it and put it into the new pot, then started driving back to my apartment. It was a quick drive and by the time I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex it was barely nine thirty in the evening. The walk up the stairs to my apartment was slightly more taxing than normal since I was carrying the potted plant in my arms, and I ended up opening the front door a little more loudly than I had intended to.

"Oh, you're back!" Myra said from the garden. As I walked in, I saw her flutter over to me quickly. This time, she wasn't covered in dirt, but it was obvious that she had been sweating recently from the way her hair looked a little bit messy. She saw the wax plant and smiled excitedly. "It looks great! Here, come over here!" She turned around and motioned for me to follow.

"Give me a second." My steps were stumbling and I almost tripped over my couch. Thankfully, Myra warned me in time to avoid it, and moments later the wax plant was in its new home next to the windowsill. I took a step back and looked at it. In the light of the moon and while it was close to the garden, it did look pretty good. "Not bad."

"Not bad?!" Myra turned sharply and flew in front of my face, with a very disappointed look. "Mr. Guillermo, you cannot possibly be seeing the same thing I'm seeing. Don't you understand how much more beautiful this simple wax plant has made your garden?" She flew over to it and gently caressed the petals of the flowers with a slight smile. "It's a splash of color in your otherwise entirely green garden."

I nodded seriously even though most of what she was saying sounded completely foreign to me. It was nice to hear her being so passionate about the garden.

"Not that green is bad at all; I like it a lot. I just think that the wax plant adds something that other plants wouldn't." She stretched and flew back towards me. "I've been doing a lot of planning today, and I think that the only plants that would make sense from this point on would be more cacti. They tend to look nice together." She put her hands on her hips and smiled proudly. "All of that to say that this garden looks a lot better than 'not bad.'"

"You're the expert here." I conceded the point with a smile, before turning around and taking off my boots. Myra followed me as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the last of my sausages and tortillas from the refrigerator. I tossed the sausages into my skillet and put a couple tortillas onto the griddle. The only light in the room was the one shining from the living room behind me, and so my shadow was over the stovetop and my face was in the dark. Myra hovered next to me, examining the process of cooking.

"Thanks again for the wax plant Juan." She said as she landed on top of the counter next to the stovetop.

"No problem." 

"How was your day?"

"Not bad. Got some free tamales from an older woman who needed help cleaning her kitchen. I also had to pick up someone's dog from a grooming parlor; a bulldog, if you can believe it. Helped a dude clean out his garage too; he had a lot of old exercise equipment. From the look of the guy, I think he got too beefy for them. He was huge." I chuckled.

"That's a little weird." She said with a slight laugh. 

"What about you?"

"Nothing too crazy. Like I said, I spent a long time thinking about what kind of plants we should add to the garden next. I did take care of the worms again; and I also made sure that each plant was getting the right amount of nutrients."

"How did you do that?"

"I listened to them."

I stopped what I was doing, turned off the stovetop, and looked at Myra.

"What do you mean you listened to them?"

"I mean that I stopped talking and listened to what they were telling me."

"Sumecha." I shook my head and wrapped the sausages in the tortillas before putting them on a plate and walking over to the table and sitting down. Myra fluttered along behind me and  laid down on the table with her long black hair flowing off the side of it as she looked up at me. It took me a few minutes to say anything back. "You mean 'listen' by paying really close attention, right? You don't mean something magical, do you?"

"I'm a fairy." She replied without hesitation. "What do you think I mean?"

"Huh." I stared down at my sausage taco and took a few bites out of it. Once I'd finished the first one, I looked back at Myra. She was freely dangling her hair over the table's edge and watching the ceiling placidly. "Myra, what else do you like doing? Aside from taking care of the garden."

"W-what?" She turned her head to me and raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm just curious, that's all."

"Uh, well... I guess I like singing. Flying's pretty nice too." She said the words with hesitation. "The garden is my main priority right now though. It's my job and I want to do it well." She sat up and swiveled so that her legs were now dangling over the edge of the table instead of her hair. "Thanks for asking, I guess."

"It's just a question."

"Yeah. I-I guess so."