Part 5

They finally stood in front of the new, shiny greenhouse. The humming grew louder as they approached and it now took on a musical quality. Every couple of seconds, a new pane of glass would appear, or a new metal pipe would sprout to support a new section. It was slowly building itself, and Leah found it deeply unsettling to watch. The entrance doors had no handles and slid silently open for them as they got closer. Warm air slapped Leah in the face. This air had almost none of the humidity of the previous greenhouses, but something about it felt mobile and alive, like the hot breath of some giant metal lung.

The interior was almost completely empty. Where the other greenhouses had mostly dirt flooring, this floor was intricate stonework. One tree occupied the center of the building, and its roots disappeared through the stones. The thick trunk was a pale gold, like you’d see in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. Branches reached and snaked in every direction. They were covered in small unopened buds. There were potentially millions of them, and every few seconds more and more buds appeared. Leah was speechless for a few moments as she took in the sight of it.

“What does this one feed on? What is it the god of?” Leah finally broke her silence.

In a voice almost too quiet to hear, Pliny replied, “Expectation. This one has never flowered.”

“Why not?” Leah couldn’t pull her eyes away from the perpetually growing buds.

“Because no one actually ever arrives at anything that ends up here.” Pliny sounded deeply sad.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither does it.” Pliny slowly walked around the trunk. “I’ve been watching it for decades now. A long time ago, when I was young, people prayed for rain. They prayed for healthy children and a fruitful harvest. A prayer for a safe journey every time someone left the village. Those prayers eventually ended.” Pliny extended a hand and touched the smooth bark.

“So, those gods stopped answering? Or they disappeared?” Leah stepped closer to the tree.

“No. They just changed.” Pliny looked and pointed upward, toward the tangle of branches above them. “Listen.”

Leah tilted her head up and instinctively closed her eyes. Almost immediately, she became aware of voices she hadn’t noticed before. She caught what she could only describe as fragments of other people’s thoughts being delivered to the tree.

“On Monday… after the promotion… next year… after the kids are older… when I retire… once the mortgage is paid… when I have more time… tomorrow… tomorrow… tomorrow…”

Leah opened her eyes and saw the entire tree visibly shiver as thousands of new buds erupted from the branches. “What is this one called?”

“It doesn’t know yet. It has been trying on names for a very long time. But it has more worshipers than any god who has ever existed.” Pliny reached up and touched an unopened blossom and one petal trembled open just long enough for Leah to see the inside. Instead of the typical plant physiology she was used to, Leah saw a tiny compass, its needle spinning frantically and endlessly, never settling on any specific direction.

Pliny pulled his hand away. “I think humanity accidentally created the god of time wasted. The god of intention but never becoming. They make plans, then wait for the right time, wait to make the time, waste time, then plan to make it up, when the reality is that the time is gone. It’s always gone. All it does is go forward, completely indifferent to plans and lives.”