A town sat in the recess of a valley. Where once it had flourished, fruits and vegetables and grains had filled its fields, it now grasped at the land, wilting and begging for morsels; prayers to which the land would not respond. The yields that came were insufficient, and every year they only shrank.

The scientists gathered to shake hands. One opened a bottle of champagne. Biologists congratulated botanists. Physicians congratulated chemists. In a separate room visible through a glass pane in the wall, a middle-aged man lay on an examination table.

“How are you feeling Bruce? Any headaches? Nausea?” One of the physicians asked through an intercom.

“No. I feel just as I did before.”

“We tried to keep the dosage light, just three shots. We’ll have you under observation for twenty more minutes then you’re free to go.”

In an enclosure down the hallway, a chimpanzee drank from a bottle. His skin and fur had begun to turn a light shade of green.

Two weeks passed.

“How have you been feeling Bruce?” The physician asked. “Anything of concern?”

He moved a light from side to side in front of his patient’s eyes. Bruce’s pupils blossomed and followed the bulb.

“Not at all. I feel great. Better, even.” Bruce said. “I haven’t eaten in ten days. But I have a lot of energy. Been drinking much more water.”

“Getting plenty of sunshine, I hope?”

“Yes. That’s the only time I start to tire out really, when I can’t spend time in the sun.”

“Make sure you get outside as much as you can.”

Linda, Bruce’s wife, noticed it first. She thought he’d contracted jaundice. Yellow skin was a common symptom. It started out subtle, but worsened over a few weeks.

“Please, just make an appointment with Dr. Philmore. Have him examine you.”

“I feel fine. My next check-up isn’t for another month. They said there might be side effects.”

“What if it’s something else? Your liver maybe. You know how you used to drink.”

“I haven’t had one in years, and ever since the treatment, I haven’t wanted to. This is the best I’ve felt since my twenties. I don’t want to bother John.”

This exchange occurred daily. Until one day the yellow turned to green, and Bruce relented. He moved his check-up ahead a week.

“You seem fine to me.”

“I’m green, John.”

“Yes… we did notice that in the tests. It happened with some of the chimpanzees. But we thought we’d worked those kinks out.”

“How many of the chimps?”

“Er… all of them, but one. It’s because of the chloroplast. Nothing to worry about. Trust me. We’ll get on it immediately, and you’ll be back to your old color before you know it.”

“I trust you.”

“Is there anything else you’re concerned about?”

“No. I was telling Linda, I feel amazing. Been drinking a lot of water.”

“You’ve gotten taller.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. How tall do you think you are?”

“Six foot, last I checked.”

Linda guided Bruce over to the wall. She held the end of a measuring tape in her fingers and let the rest unwrap onto the floor. Standing on the tips of her toes, she set the end of the tape against the wall next to the crown of Bruce’s head. Her foot kept the bottom of the measure taught. A few glances up and down to check the alignment, then she read the measurement.

“You’re six foot two now.”

“They said there’d be side effects.”

Bruce had been in and out of sleep all night. His skin itched. He could not stop scratching his chest and arms. Then his legs. Then his back. He ran to the bathroom. The lights blinded him. When he could see again, he looked in the mirror.

His skin was green, but that was normal. There was more noise to it this morning though. He looked down at his arms and saw mossy stubble. When he ran his hand over it, he felt the cool moisture of an early morning lawn catching its first droplets of dew. It didn’t stop there. It covered his whole body.

On his chest, the beginning of a budding leaf stemmed from below his skin.

He left the bathroom, light still on, and walked out his back door. Linda, now coming to, watched him depart. She followed him.

“Honey? What’s going on?”

Bruce didn’t answer. He stepped out of his slippers and started pushing his toes into the dirt. When this proved ineffective, he bent over and shoveled earth with his hands until he’d covered his feet. He dug his fingers into the same soil and let out a sigh of relief.

“Could you get me a glass of water?” he asked Linda.

Dr. John Philmore didn’t make house calls, but today was an exception. Six months ago he’d suggested to one of his patients that they volunteer for an experimental procedure. The process, if successful, would solve hunger. It was based on plant photosynthesis and made non-plant organisms capable of converting sunlight directly into energy. But now the side effects were getting out of hand in ways that none of the chimpanzee testing had shown.

Dr. Philmore parked his car in front of the house and walked to the backyard. He’d barely made it halfway when Linda stormed around the corner.

“There you are you son of a bitch.”

“What’s happened? You said on the phone it was urgent.”

“Urgent? Urgent was a month ago when my husband started shoving his hands and feet into the ground! At least then he would come back inside after an hour.”

“We told you there might be side effects, we’re working around the clock to sort all this ou-”

“Side effects? Oh you- If you weren’t the only person on this fucking planet that could fix this I would personally run you out of town. What is happening now is beyond side effects.”

“What has happened?”

Linda sighed. “Just come to the back. You’ll see.”

When Dr. Philmore stepped into the yard, he saw a tower more than seven feet tall of leaves, vines, and moss. Looking closer he saw the form of a man.The plants surrounding him rose and fell in respiration. Facial features poked out from deep in the shrubbery.

“Oh my. Bruce…?”

Leaves unfurled revealing Bruce’s visage. Chlorophyll eyes creaked open, half sunken, when the sunlight hit his face.

“Hey John… thanks… for coming by… beautiful day… isn’t it?”

“I… What are you feeling? Are you in pain?”

“No… thanks… for asking… I feel… so peaceful…”

He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun.

Dr. Philmore turned to Linda.

“When did this happen? How long has he been like this?”

She looked out into space, damming tears.

“Last month. When the moss appeared on his body, it didn’t stop there.”

“Is he sleeping? How does he fit into bed like that?”

“John, look at his feet.”

Dr. Philmore looked down where Bruce was standing. He saw roots branching out from his patient’s ankles, from his toes, and out the tops of his feet. They reached into the earth, fixing him to the ground where he stood.

“He doesn’t sleep in bed anymore. He doesn’t come inside. He doesn’t leave that spot.”

“We’re going to have to move you out Linda.”

“This is my home. I am not leaving!”

“The foundation is shot. It’s only a matter of time before Bruce’s roots rip this whole place out of the ground.”

“Where. Am. I. Supposed. To. Go?”

“We’ve found you a place. It’s a small house on Jefferson Street. You’ll like it, I promise.”

“John…” Linda cried. “You promised you’d help. He was supposed to be better by now.”

Dr. Philmore wrapped his arms around her, his face heavy.

“I know, I’m sorry. We’re doing everything we can.”

He left her in the house to pack and stepped out to the backyard. His team had filled the area with tents. Each of them housed a laboratory. They hoped to cure Bruce. So far they had not succeeded.

Bruce now took on features more of forest than of man. Vines and vegetation canopied the yard. His body, no longer visible, lay at the center of the underbrush wrapped in thick vines; pythons of plant guarding their sapling.

Communication with Bruce had become difficult. The vines only unwrapped after extensive attempts. When they did, he appeared with sunken eyes and drowsy speech. Any conversations progressed slowly and briefly. He would not remain exposed too long before retreating into his shelter.

Deep in the ground his roots had taken over, ready to level everything on the property.

John held a test tube up to eye level. The liquid in the glass refracted a green glow over his lab table. His other hand compressed a dropper that released a single bead of blue liquid into the vial. The blue wisped into the green, an azure smoke in dense protoplasm. John watched for several seconds, hoping for a reaction, but the liquid sat still in its pool. Ready to mark down another failure, he gave the vial a shake for good measure. That gave it the kick it needed. The glass in his hand cooled and the green liquid changed to a clear, colorless fluid. John slumped back into his chair, setting the vial into its holder. Tension in his neck that he’d never even noticed loosened for the first time in several months.

He exited the tent and walked to the top of a nearby hill. Gazing out, he searched for his house down below. His team no longer worked out of Bruce and Linda’s yard. They had taken refuge on the outskirts of the town with the rest of the residents. Tents clustered and makeshift settlements littered the bordering mountains. A jungle of his making had consumed everyone’s home. Looking out upon it, John thought he could make out the roof of his house.

He focused on it and thought of the vial sitting in his tent. The same ingredients from Bruce’s treatment composed it. If he were to apply heat to his new cure, it would transform back into the original concoction.

He thought of Linda who had been forced to evacuate yet another home as a consequence of his mistakes. And he thought of Bruce.

It wasn’t a particularly dangerous mission. The plants were not violent, just pervasive. The nerves stemmed, rather, from the stakes involved. Doubts lingered. The serum worked on the chimpanzees from the earlier study, reverting them back to normal. But none of the chimp’s conditions had progressed to the degree that Bruce’s had. Without a human test subject, the efficacy of the serum could not be known with confidence. If this didn’t work, no one knew what other options remained.

There was no special plan. Dr. John Philmore would try to find Bruce. He would carry four thermoses, each holding a syringe filled with serum. He didn’t know what dosage amount was needed. He hoped that would be enough.

“John, take me with you please.”

“It’s too dangerous Linda, what if something happens to you out there? The town is overgrown.”

“I have to see him one more time. What if something goes wrong with the treatment? What if I never see him again?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Please John. If you won’t bring me along, I’ll just go look for him on my own.”

Dr. Philmore bit his cheek.

“Fine. But if at any point things get perilous, I’m sending you back.”

John swung his machete through a thicket of vines opening just enough space for him and Linda to slip through. Moments later, the gash in the jungle stitched itself back together erasing all evidence of a path ever existing, just as it had every step since they had entered the growth. A curtain of moisture wrapped the air, hanging on John’s skin and filling his lungs.

“Let’s rest here for a second.”

They dropped their packs, sat on roots, and guzzled from their canteens.

“We’ve got to be close, right?” asked Linda.

“Should be. Unless our navigation has been completely off.”

“I think I recognized the old Schofield residence about a half mile back.”

“Yes. We shouldn’t have much further to go from here.”

John let the exhaustion sink in. It pulled on his mind as much as his body, as if gravity were not enough. His bundle of roots felt evermore comfortable with each passing second. It dragged him to slumber. His eyelids drifted closed. If he laid down, he could stay there the rest of his life. He could forget all his problems, let the jungle swallow him whole.

“That’s enough rest. We have to keep going.”

They reached the heart of the green close to noon on the following day. Despite the sun that normally bore down on the town, they carried lanterns to see through the thickness of the growth. A tower of vines stood in the glow of their lights.

“Bruce. We’ve come to help you. Can you come out please?”

The trunk slithered about itself. Through spirals and contortions, it revealed the face of a man. Or what was left of it. Bark and moss and sprouts covered the skin. A set of eyelids fluttered briefly, a deep set green glossing underneath.

“John…,” a voice echoed from the jungle.

“Yes Bruce, it’s me. And Linda. We’re here to cure you.”

“Lin… da…?”

“Brucie, it’s me honey. I’m here for you. You’re gonna come home with me today okay? John and his scientist friends created a cure for you.”

“Lin… da…”

Linda looked at Bruce then back at John then back at Bruce.

“Bruce, the team and I have a serum. It’s a series of injections. Will you let me administer them? We hope it will help,” John said. “Lin… da…”

Linda restrained the lump in her throat.

“I think that’s as good of an affirmation as we’re going to get.” John said.

John grabbed his thermos. He slid the syringe out, then walked up to the face that once belonged to his friend.

“Bruce, I’m going to administer the serum now. Hopefully it will fix everything.”

He lined the shot up against the vine where Bruce’s neck would be, pushed the plunger down, and waited. Echoes of dew hitting the forest floor rang in the silence. Bruce’s eyelids fluttered; a quick succession of twitches, then a gentle rhythm of closing and halfway opening.

“Lin.. da…”

John watched the eyelids of a man struggling to wake from the depths of sleep.

Linda approached.

“Linda…,” Bruce spoke.

“Oh Brucie, I’m here. I’m right here my dear.”

She shoved her way to her husband’s face, reaching out to touch it. Before she could make contact, a vine swung out from the depths of the jungle and swatted her. She flew back, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

“Linda, are you okay?” John ran over to her.

Another vine sprouted from the dark to bat John away.

“What the hell–,”

“Linda…”

John shouted across the clearing, “I think it’s working, but some kind of defense mechanism is kicking in.”

He armed the next dose and advanced towards Bruce, syringe in one hand, machete in another. A vine shot out again, but John sliced it away. The vines tried to push him back, but each swat met a parry. Suddenly, the vines flailed. A cluster exploded from the canopies. John’s stomach lurched. He swung his machete, but it was too late. The ground gave out from under him, and he flew to the other side of the clearing.

John spat out a mouthful of blood. The walls of the forest spun in his vision, and he keeled over to catch his breath. He let the fear subside and the adrenaline kick back up. His vision refocused and he looked back at Bruce. Determination drove him into a dead sprint straight at his old friend. Vines swung out and he knocked them away. Roots grabbed at his feet, but he leaped over them.

Against the fury of the jungle, he reached his target, and injected a fist full of serum into Bruce.

A calm descended over the space. Linda and John shuffled back together. They watched Bruce. His eyes slowly opened again. The plants surrounding his face released their hold. His head appeared. Then his neck supporting it. His chest and arms followed suit. The chlorophyll in his eyes remained, but now distinctly lighter.

“Linda, my love,” Bruce said. “John. It’s great… to see you both.”

“Bruce, my darling,” Linda said.

John closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders into his breath. Bruce smiled at Linda and gazed into her eyes.

“It looks like the serum is working. We’re going to need to continue administering the doses to get you back to normal,” John said.

Bruce smiled at him. “John… you can’t…”

“Bruce, you’re coming home.”

Bruce held a gaze through gentle eyes.

“John… listen to me… if you free me… it will be… disaster”

“What do you mean?”

“The jungle… the growth… the green… it’s awake…”

“Not if we get you out honey. We’re here to free you,” Linda said.

“Something else… will stay… even if… I’m freed…”

“What?” John said.

“It will be… wild… un… controlled… dangerous…”

“A consciousness,” John said.

“Yes… the consciousness… of the… green…”

“Let’s get you out now, and we’ll deal with that later. Come home to me.” Linda said, a crack coming through her voice.

“Linda… I love… you…” Bruce said, “The green… it will grow… uncontrolled…”

John stared at Bruce.

“John’s serum… has brought me back… just enough…” Bruce continued. “I… can… control it… again.”

“No. No Bruce. Honey. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Linda is right, Bruce. We have to free you,” John said.

Bruce managed to open his eyes fully and took in Linda. He closed them again.

“Okay…”

Linda sighed. John grabbed another thermos and readied the next cure. He walked up to Bruce and administered the syringe into his neck again. Bruce closed his eyes and fell unconscious. For another half an hour he remained that way. Finally, the last part of Bruce’s body released from the green vegetative mass. He collapsed towards the ground, but Linda and John caught him.

The jungle rumbled. Vines shot down from the canopies. Roots emerged from the depths of the soil. The rescue party huddled to defend their prize.

When Bruce came to, he saw Linda’s face hanging over him. She cradled his head in her lap, smiling. He smiled back. Her cheeks glistened. Bruce held her gaze and perched up. She leaned down and met his lips.

Vines swatted at the group. Machetes swatted back.

Next to the couple the physician stood. He pulled his last syringe from a thermos along with a lighter. A flame under the glass induced a green flood into the clear hue. The doctor walked out of the huddle, full syringe in hand, and stepped into the space in the jungle that his patient had just fallen out of.

“John, what are you doing?” Bruce said. Linda looked up.

Dr. Philmore shot the treatment into his arm, pushing serum through his veins. The vines paused their attack. They hung frozen in the air, then began wrapping themselves around the doctor. The jungle recognized a new host.

Bruce and Linda ran to stop the process, but arrived too late. The greenery had swallowed John Philmore.

Soon after, a path leading back to the mountains opened through the overgrowth.

Linda cradled a pot of peonies. She lowered them into a hole in front of the vines that lived in her backyard. Bruce knelt down beside her and helped her pack the dirt over the roots. A year had passed since they had lost John.

“I miss him.”

“I do too.”

Bruce stood up and held his hand out. Linda grabbed it, and the husband and wife walked back into their house together.

Out of the backyard, a series of roots sprawled out into town. They sprouted against the houses, reinforcing foundations and propping up walls. Houses of rich red brick draped themselves in a deep set green of ivy. The roots linked with gardens, sprouting flowers and trees. The air of busy streets that previously hung thick now floated filtered and clean. Trees tangled at the sides of those roads, providing canopies for passersby. At the outskirts of the town, the farms and ranches that had long suffered from wispy dust for soil, had grown in that year, strong and rich from the life that had bud out of newly enriched earth. Fruits and vegetables and grains returned to color the countryside. The growth kept the climate warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The crops flourished and the people thrived. And the town thrived, like it never had before.



Thanks to Megan Xiao, Ross Hardin, and Nathan Schulz for reading drafts of this.