THE MOUND / CHRISTOPHER MURTAGH Fiction
The moneytree died. Iris was not surprised, every one of the last six attempts to plant something in the office plant pot had swiftly met the same fate. The pot was huge. It had a square inverted ziggurat shape. Grey and stylish but brutally stained, like concrete, almost exactly like the facade of the sixties office block they worked within. The pot had outlasted tens of managers, hundreds of staff. Outlasted corporations, mergers, dissolutions. When an influx of cash meant it was time to rip out all the tables and filing cabinets, the pot remained. There was no planting budget. It was a good enough looking pot. It would have taken two or more of them to move it. So always, the pot remained. Tyler crouched beside the dead plant, much to the surprise of Iris. Few had ever given it that 28
much attention. He was a good lad Tyler. Very polite. Maybe someone had told him to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, or maybe, he just had good fashion sense. He was rarely off-trend. His shirt was always ironed. The locks that flowed from his centre parting were never unkempt. Iris knew he wouldn’t be with them for very long, but in a good way. Tyler took out a pair of office scissors and started cutting away at the moneytree leaves. Then he worked away on the branches. Some of the thicker pieces he had to take over to the guillotine to slice. “What are you up to Tyler?” Iris asked. “Permaculture micro-posting,” he replied. “Really? How lovely.” He piled up the leaves and cut branches in the centre of the pot, then went off to the kitchen / staff room. Tyler tore
