Definition
1 : having foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season
2 a : retaining freshness or interest : perennial
b : universally and continually relevant : not limited in applicability to a particular event or date
Which adjective do you think has existed longer in english, evergreen or perennial? If you count the hyphenated form ever-green (which of course means "always green"), then evergreen is older; its earliest known use dates from the 16th century. The hyphen-free form is first seen in writing from the 17th century as an adjective as well as a noun, meaning "conifer."
The tiles of the bathroom floor were cool and smooth against my cheek. A stark comparison to the current sticky, damp state of my body. I gingerly raised a hand to my hair and winced. It was drenched in sweat from the roots to the tips. Gross.
I tilted my head a little bit and looked up. The designer of the bathroom had clearly gone for some sort of jungle/forest/nature theme - with the bathroom fittings being dark green with gold accents and what seemed like hundreds of succulents and plants strewn on every available place that it really did seem like someone had just plonked a toilet down in the middle of a forest somewhere.
I felt a bit sorry for the plants though - it wasn't like this was a huge mansion with a massive window. It was in your average three bed semi. The room might have been slightly larger than normal but it was hard to tell with all the plants rammed in. The window definitely seemed to be a bog standard size, which made me worry that the plants were all slowly being starved to death from lack of sunlight.
In fact, in my somewhat (read: extremely) drunken state, I could almost hear them whispering to me to save them.
In fact, I raised my head blearily, I was almost certain I could hear them speaking to me.
"What?" I said woozily, reaching out and poking the leaf of the nearest one. "You want out?"
"YES!" Was the thunderous response that seemed to blare directly into my already delicate brain. I whimpered and curled back into a ball, the voices ringing in my head catastrophically.
"Oh there you are!" A head poked through the door. "What the hell have you been doing?"
I just whimpered in response.
My friend crouched down beside me and tried to stroke my hair comfortingly. She stopped immediately when she felt how sweaty and gross it was. Instead she ran some water and put a damp flannel over my forehead instead. That was nice.
"Is your ankle ok?" She asked, concerned.
"My ankle?"
"You twisted it after you felt off the table."
"Why was I on the table?"
"You were doing a Coyote Ugly impression. Badly. Hence why you fell off."
"I did?"
She sighed. "I told you those jello shots were a bad idea."
I felt my stomach roll. "Ug, please don't remind me of that."
"Are you ok? Do you want me to take you home?"
I shook my head - very carefully. "No way. You've been looking forward to this for ages. Connor's here right?"
A small blush graced her cheeks, letting me know I was right.
"So i'll call an Uber or something."
"They won't let you get in the car in this state." She said bluntly.
"....True. So I'll sober up a bit first in here and then I'll call an Uber."
She looked at me worriedly.
"I'll be fine. I've got the plants for company." I said, as cheerily as I could manage.
She looked even more worried for a second then relaxed and laughed. "Sure, the plants. I heard Stacey's mum paid a fortune for these - some sort of ultra special space plants or so she was told. I think she got ripped off. They look like bog standard succulents and spider plants and what not to me."
A disgruntled murmuring sprung up among the plants - my friend didn't even seem to notice.
"They're a lot chattier than normal succulents." I said without thinking.
She gave me a weird look. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"
"No, no. Go conquer your boy." I said grandly. "Me and the plants are just going to chill out here for a bit and then I'll take myself home."
"Text me if you change your mind." She said sternly. "I'll take you home in a heartbeat. And don't just disappear either. Text me when you leave and when you get home."
"Yes mum."
"I mean it!"
"Yes."
She left again.
I lay back down. Christ, my clothes, and my entire body for that matter, felt incredibly gross. I just wanted to take a shower.
"Why don't you?" the plants asked in chorus.
"Argh! One at a time please." I begged, clutching my aching head.
After some conferring, one voice spoke.
"Why don't you have a shower here? This is the room for humans to cleanse themselves after all."
I must interject here and say, that at this point, I was the drunkest I have ever, or will ever be, in my life. Normally, the thought of taking a shower in someone else's house without their permission, whilst a crazy house party is going on would rightly be an absolutely bad idea and one I would never normally countenance.
However, as I said previously, I was incredibly drunk. My clothes were sticky - from sweat and what was probably split alcohol on closer sniff, my hair was just one giant mangle and my skin just felt disgusting. At that point, if someone had said my body had come with a zipper so i could just pull it down and step out of my skin, I probably would have done so.
A shower, on the other hand, seemed a far more reasonable option.
I clambered to my feet, extremely awkwardly. It was even more awkward than a normal drunken scramble as i discovered, when I looked down to see why my feet weren't co-operating, that I was only wearing one, extremely high heel, shoe.
"That looks painful." The spokes plant commented.
"It is." I agreed, and dragged it off my foot. Ah, two flat feet. That made moving easier.
I clambered into the shower and turned on the water. Oh, this was nice. I looked down. I probably should have removed my clothes first though. I started to drag the sodden items off of me and then a thought crossed my mind.
"No peeking!" I demanded to the plants. "Eyes closed."
A brief pause.
"We don't have eyes?" The spokes plant eventually said.
"That's alright then." And i continued dragging off my clothes.
After a blissful half hour where I washed my body (made difficult by my perpetual swaying but I managed) and washed my hair, I then had the awkward situation where I realised I now had nothing to wear, my own clothes being both dirty and wet.
"Oh." I said, as I stood there in a towel.
(How no one had walked in at this point,on later reflection, made me truly believe that there must be somebody watching over me.)
"There is clothing in the cupboard by the door. The lady of the house keeps spares there."
I opened the cupboard. Sure enough, there was a set of old school, men's tartan pajamas.
"I thought she was divorced?" I said to myself. I shrugged. What people did in the privacy of their own homes was of no concern to me.
I put them on. They were definitely men's pajamas and miles too big for me. I rolled up the sleeves and legs. Whilst I sat there, combing my long wet hair, i asked the plants what they wanted to do.
"What did I mean?" They asked.
"Well, you clearly don't want to be here." I said bluntly. "Is there somewhere else you'd rather be? I'm happy to help you out, seeing as how sweet you've been to me."
There was a pause.
"Actually." They said. "We want to go home. There's a pick up goign to be waiting for us in the field beyond, but we can't get to it when we're stuck here."
"So you just need taking to the field beyond the back garden? That's easy enough." I said brightly. "I just need to take you all there right?"
"Yes."
"Ok then, hmm, lets see, there's a lot of you so i'll need something to carry you in." I got to my feet, only swaying gently, the shower having down a lot to rejuvenate me ad looked about the bath room. Under the sink, there was a large hamper filled with various soaps and lotion stuff. I emptied the contents into the bath and started filling it with plants instead.
Despite them being only little ones, the hamper soon became quite hefty. However, everyone was in and, although I was getting frequently poked in the face my stray fronds, i could just about see over the top and lift it.
"Oh wait!" I suddenly remembered and put the hamper down. "Hang on a minute."
I texted my mate to let her know i was leaving and felt much better.
"Done!" I said, putting my phone back into my pocket and re-lifting the hamper. "Off we go."
Despite the fact that I had wet hair, was barefoot, wearing men's pajamas and carrying a hamper full of stolen plants, no one seemed to give me a second look. It helped that by now the party was in full swing and most people were more than a little drunk. But still, you would have thought my appearance would have caused a few raised eyebrows at least.
But nothing.
Maybe the plants were doing something.
I made it out into the back garden, the grass soft and cool against my feet, the crisp night air doing wonders for my impending headache. There was a stile in the back fence, which I clambered over, walking carefully to the centre of the field at the back. The earth here was dry and crumbled under my toes.
"Is this ok?" I asked the plants.
"YES." A delighted chorus answered back.
As I was still reeling from their answer en masse a brilliant light suddenly filled the sky above me. I looked up, but, blinded by the light, I could only make out the barest idea of some sort of flying machine above me. The hamper became light - which I quickly figure out was because the plants inside were now defying gravity and floating up towards whatever that bright thing above me was.
"Bye guys!" I shouted after them. "Have a good trip!"
Their little fronds waved back at me. Various 'thank yous' drifting back down towards me. The light cut out, just as suddenly as it came and as I was blinking, surprised and adjusting to the difference, there was a great whoosh and whatever it had been was gone.
I was left alone in the field.
I carefully walked back across the field, over the style, back through the garden and round to the front of the house.
I upended the hamper and sat on it as a temporary stool. I then ordered an Uber so that I, too, could go home.
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