Pteridomania

              

Here we go again. This week's topic:

                   - Flight - 

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     Lillie McFerrin Writes
      Five Minute Fiction

Rose's room in the nursing home looked very much like her neighbor's at first glance: the same number of walls, two windows, the family quilt on the bed, a favorite chair, a huge piece of family furniture - in her case a wide dresser - ungainly in the room but holding too many memories to discard.

One day her son brought her a small fern 

                           and it sat tidily in its corner,

   

 but was soon joined by one from her    

 daughter, never wanting to be outdone, and so this 

 fern was a bit bigger, a little more exotic.

Rose was surprised by her own visceral reaction to these plants, but continued acquiring them until her room started to take on the aspect of a Brazilian rain forest, bringing her into some disfavor with Administration, who would occasionally drop by with pointed references to facility rules.  

One evening she slid out of bed, first pausing to put on her slippers, and padded over to the corner where she stood before her newest, tallest fern and then moved a frond aside until she saw what should have been an institutional pink wall, but was now limitless and filled with a green misty brightness.

Stepping into, and then past the fern, she heard a distant unfamiliar birdcall, and felt the warm air as her arms spread and carried her away, leaving behind two crocheted slippers that lay forgotten on the beige linoleum.