Tom Comes Home
Tom is a weed who has grown up on the bumper of a car, rooted onto a bit of dirt he found caked in a crevice. His car was in a big crash, and now he sits with his car, forgotten among many other broken cars in a concrete parking lot.By Andy Valencia
Tom had wilted, accepting his fate to sit here alone, never again to talk with another plant.
Which is why he didn’t at first hear a car drive up. It stopped right behind his car, and he started awake. He didn’t recognize the car, but – the two people climbing out of the strange car were familiar! His people, he thought. They came over to his car.
Now, like most weeds, Tom didn’t pay much attention to people. They had something like roots, but they came out of the top of their heads, which just wasn’t natural. He trusted one of them even less, because he even had something like roots coming right out of his face! (Nobody had ever told him about “beards.”)
The man knelt down and looked right AT Tom. And then he gently bent the bumper, and started pulling at Tom! Oh dear, Tom felt his dirt shifting, and his roots were being pulled along with the dirt right away from his car. Tom thought wildly that this must be what weeds felt when deer were eating them up.
Tom came loose, and for the first time since he was a seed, he was not rooted to the car. The man carried him to the other car, opened the door, and now Tom went inside a car for the first time in his life. The man put him gently into a round pot filled with dirt, and patted the soil to cover his roots.
Ooh, this felt good. The dirt was richer than anything he’d ever experienced. Then the woman got into the car too, and poured a little water onto his soil. Tom had heard about gardeners, but had never been given care like this. He couldn’t even pay attention, he was sunk in the bliss of such nice, rich, wet soil.
Presently, he realized that the car was moving – but he wasn’t being buffeted by any wind. Now he saw why the people went inside the car to drive. He smelled the usual wet, salty air and felt the gentle rocking, and more driving. When the car stopped, the woman carried him in his pot out of the car.
He was home. He caught only a quick look at all his friends, because he was carried right into the house. He’d always imagined it as a sort of big planter, empty except for dirt floors and wooden walls. But it was full of such a variety of shapes and colors that he was soon overwhelmed trying to remember things to tell to his friends outside. And then the lady placed him on a table, and he felt the sun on his leaves and could see outside even though nobody could hear him. He got a little more water, and then fell asleep even though it wasn’t even night.
Over time in his new home, he learned about tables, and chairs, and saw his people do so many things, most which would always be a mystery to him. He learned about “windows,” and at first was afraid that he’d never get to talk to his friends outside. There was the sun through the window, but also mini-suns here and there in the room, which people called “lights.”
On nice days, the lady or man would take him out and put him at the edge of the driveway for a few hours. The weeds and grasses, and even the trees would listen as he told about all the things he had seen.
Tom grew into a great big weed, bigger than anybody had ever seen, bigger even than old Samsamrotatidion. He lived on for years and years, so old that sometimes the younger weeds claimed he was part tree. Every now and then he’d form some seeds, and let them loose the next time he was out on the driveway. His babies grew up, and each of them tried hard to get a seed up onto the bumper of a car, and maybe someday somebody would succeed.
That would be its own story.
THE END
