Third Person Thursday - Stan & The Beanstalk

Today's third person feature is a fictional short story.

“Look, dad! They grew!”

“Wow,” Stanley responded to his excited six-year-old, Peter. He couldn’t manage to muster up anywhere near the excitement Peter had. In fact, he was annoyed. He was trying to read the paper before he had to leave for work.

Stanley was actually disappointed by how well the kidney beans Peter was holding in front of his face were growing. When Peter had brought them home from school in their clear plastic cup, he thought they’d be dead and off his hands within a few days. They had already extended their hair-like roots down and around the bottom of the cup. Now, well over a week later, the stalks reached skyward nearly a foot and were as thick as number two pencils. The leaves that were once withered looking had unfolded and were a deep green.

Stanley looked at the plant and cringed on the inside. It sat in the sun near the window, where Peter so responsibly made sure he placed it each day right after moistening the paper towel that was balled up inside the plastic cup.

“Maybe we should move it to a bigger cup,” Peter suggested, “but a clear one so I can still see the roots.”

“We’ll see,” Stanley said. “Now go get your book bag or we’re both going to be late.”

Peter grabbed his bag as instructed and stepped onto the front porch. Once he was out of sight, Stanley reached over and moved the bean stalks to a spot in the shade. Then he followed Peter out the door and drove him to school.

Stanley enjoyed being at work. He married Carol when he’d gotten her pregnant and took his current job to pay the bills. But, at least he was left alone there. People didn’t see him as a husband and a father. He was a dedicated salesman when he was there. A top ranking salesman.

He had started taking his wedding ring off when he was in the office and nobody seemed to notice. He didn’t talk family at work and he wondered sometimes if anyone there really even knew he was married. Stanley found that liberating.

On top of it, there was a new girl working in customer service who seemed to be giving him the eye. He hadn’t thought much of it at first but as the days went on, she started engaging him in conversation, twirling her hair in her fingers as she did so. Stanley was impressed with himself.

Work became an even more welcome escape now. He started passing his down time at work planning the details of keeping an extra-marital relationship secret from Carol instead of playing solitaire on his computer.

Upon returning home that evening, Stanley was met in the living room by his wife.

“Your son has to show you something,” Carol said quietly.

Immediately, Stanley remembered the bean stalks. He hoped he would be telling his son that he did a great job and learned a lot from growing them, but they were obviously not doing as well now and he needed to just throw them out.

“Is that daddy?” Peter shouted as he rushed down the stairs. This prompted Stanley to think that Peter was taking the wilting of his bean stalks quite well.

“Come see, daddy,” Peter said, taking Stanley by the hand and leading him to the kitchen and pointing to the bay windowsill.

Stanley was shocked to see the stalks had doubled in size. When placed on the floor, they were up to Peter’s waist and the stalks were as thick as the training pencils Peter had been using in preschool now.

Stanley stood with his mouth opened.

“Now they have a lot more room,” Peter said.

Stanley took notice that the roots were spread along the bottom of the thick glass bowl he liked to eat his potato chips out of when he watched baseball. He reasoned that his wife must have shifted them to the new home and placed them back into the sunlight when she returned home. Meanwhile, Peter was still staring at him, waiting for his reaction.

“That is…” Stanley began, trying to find an adjective quickly so as not to disappoint Peter, but also wanting to choose one he didn’t choke on as it came out. “… really something.”

Peter ran back to the toys he’d been playing with in his room as Stanley stared at the flourishing plant. It admitted freely to himself that Peter’s little Earth Day project gave him the creeps. He was disgusted by the human hair-like roots wrapping around themselves and twisting along the bottom of the bowl. The leaves reminded him of the weeds that liked to grow along his garage, detaching from their roots so easily as he tried to pull them and growing anew within days. And the speed with which it grew just wasn’t natural. There was something about the plant that seemed altogether unholy.

Nothing ought to grow that quickly, Stanley thought and then got the notion that the plant was mocking him, much the way he’d begun to feel about those weeds along the garage. How were they growing, anyway? They were coming up between the cracks in the concrete.

As he stared suspiciously at the bean stalks, Stanley began to feel ridiculous. This anger at a plant was silly. He was becoming upset with something that, while technically alive, was as close to an inanimate object as you could get. It became obvious to Stanley that his anger should be aimed at Carol for moving the stalks back into the sunlight and into a new container. His favorite chip bowl at that. He even found himself growing angry with his son for bringing the damn thing home in the first place.

But, just as she seemed a step ahead of him on every other household disagreement, Carol appeared behind him and kissed him neck.

“I think it’s so sweet that you let him use your bowl,” she said and passed through the room.

“Yeah,” Stanley said in defeat. He knew that was how she communicated. She did what she wanted, used his property in whatever manner she saw fit and then acted afterward as if the whole thing had been his idea. But what could he do? It was already done and she knew it. He had to just go with the program and save face.

Yet as Stanley left the room to go take a much needed shower, he gave one last glare to the stalks. He realized then that, despite the irrationality of it, he hated them.

…

Weekends were sacred to Stanley. Especially during this time of year. There was the yard work, which was about the only exercise he got these days, and there was day baseball.

To top things off, this particular Saturday saw Peter and Carol heading off to a birthday party for one of Peter’s classmates. That would give Stanley a four hour window of uninterrupted sports viewing pleasure.

As Stanley passed through the kitchen, he noticed the ever-growing bean stalks. He reckoned they were nearly as tall as Peter now. However, he wasn’t going to let that ruin his day. Not even the fact that he needed to find an inferior bowl to hold his chips could sour Stanley’s mood today.

He watched with a smile as Peter poured a little water into the bowl to keep the paper towels wet, then he walked Peter to the car and helped him get buckled in before his mother drove off. Stanley waved after them as they headed to the party. Then he checked his watch. Twenty minutes to first pitch. He had a little time to watch the pre-game show.

Stanley hopped up the stairs of the front porch like his son would after school. He even snatched his baseball cap off the hook near the coat rack and cheerily placed it onto his own head. He then headed to the kitchen to pour his traditional bag of chips into a bowl.

When he got into the kitchen, Stanley was surprised to see that Peter’s bean stalk bowl was resting inside of the other bowl he had set aside for his chips. He could have sworn Peter left the bean stalks on the bay windowsill where he always had put them. Stanley even thought back to watching Peter freshen the water in the paper towels.

“Must not have been paying attention,” Stanley said out loud to himself. He removed his old favorite bowl from the one he intended to use and thought to himself that he would likely never eat out of the bowl where the roots were now tangling ever again.

After rinsing the new bowl out, he quickly dumped his chips into it and headed down to the big screen in the basement.

Stanley was overjoyed. He was drinking beer before noon. He spoke his opinions out loud to the commentators on the pre-game show. When the game started, he barked orders to the player as if he were the manager. He had no fear of his wife or son thinking he was crazy for shouting at the television. He felt uninhibited.

By the seventh inning of the first game, he had run out of chips. Stanley stood and raised his arms above his head.

“Stretch,” he yawned and made his way up the stairs.

Stanley took another beer from the fridge. He had the top off and was taking his first long sip before he had even closed the door. As he turned to look out the window, he spit most of his mouthful of beer out in a cartoonish spray.

Stanley couldn’t even see out of the bay window in his kitchen. The entire view was blocked by the leaves from Peter’s bean stalks. Stanley swore there hadn’t been that many leaves just an hour or two ago, when he last saw the thing. But as he took another sip from his beer bottle and looked at it sideways, he convinced himself that they must have been there and just unfolded while he was downstairs.

“Freaky,” he mumbled then broke into, “Take me out to the baaaaallgame,” as he shrugged and made his way back to the basement.

When the first game was over, Stanley sat and scratched himself. He had half an hour until the next game started and he was out of beer. He had only had two, but hadn’t checked his beer stash prior to the start of the game. He reasoned he had time to go grab another six pack and be back before the second game.

Stanley jogged up the stairs and just as he exited the kitchen after passing through, he stopped. He thought he’d seen something from the corner of his eye. He turned around and poked his head around the doorway.

Stanley hadn’t been imagining it. There lay a long, green, thin stalk across the kitchen counter, like a tentacle. Stanley shuddered. He must not have noticed that because he was distracted by the leaves last time, he figured.

As he walked to his car, Stanley thought he might accidentally knock that thing on the floor when he returned home. Even if it cost him his favorite bowl, it would be worth it to get rid of that thing.

“It’s just a freakin’ science experiment,” he said to himself and drove off to get his beer.

By the time Stanley got back to the house, the new stalk had leaves everywhere. In fact, most of the kitchen counter was now covered in bean stalks and they all had little leaf buds sprouting all over them. Stanley stood in the kitchen doorway, dumbfounded.

“When Peter gets home, you’re gone,” Stanley spoke to the plant. “I’ll let him see you, then you’re out.”

Then he made his way through the kitchen, keeping his back to the wall that wasn’t becoming overgrown by vegetation. A few times, Stanley stopped to look at parts of the plant that he swore he saw move.

Upon reaching the basement, he saw the second game was about to begin. He shook all the other thoughts from his head and sat in his easy chair, his new six pack of beer on the floor beside him.

As the game went on, Stanley consumed beer after beer. He shouted at the television, jumped up from his seat and even applauded a home run. He found himself wondering what it would be like to be a bachelor again, watching games anytime he felt like it.

Before he knew it, Stanley was down to his last beer. The empty bottles sat on the floor beside the cardboard box he’d once carried them in.

Upstairs, Stanley heard a banging sound and figured it was about time for his wife and son to return home.

“Fun time’s over,” he said to himself. He stood to head up the stairs and realized the beer had more of an effect on him than he had thought.

Stanley made his way up the stairs slowly. He braced himself against the walls of the stairway. He didn’t even notice the leaves and vine-like stalks that grew along the ceiling above him. On his way through the kitchen, he watched his feet carefully and upon entering the living room was surprised to see nobody there.

A glance out the front window confirmed his wife’s car wasn’t parked out front yet. Stanley began wondering if he was going crazy. He would have sworn that he had heard something upstairs.

Stanley’s thoughts turned to the final beer he had downstairs. Without the ball and chain home yet, he had time to finish that last brew, he thought. Besides, he was sure to catch hell for being half in the bag in front of the kid, might as well live it up while he could.

When he turned to head back to his easy chair in the basement, he tripped over something. Stanley fell flat on his face. He saw stars and his vision grew fuzzy. As he rolled onto his back, he realized it felt as if there was something wrapped around his ankle. He picked his leg up to look and saw something that looked like a green rope around it.

Suddenly, Stanley felt his arms pulled to his sides. It looked through the haze in his eyes like the green rope was now around his body as well. He also felt his breathing become more difficult.

The last thing Stanley saw was what he thought to be a thick, green leaf cover his face. Then, everything went black.