For my birthday, my girlfriend gave me something she made. Last year it was something she constructed from forks and spoons.

This year it was a flower pot, out of which a hand was growing. I recognized the hand; I had bought it for her to hang jewelry from.

“You don’t have to water this kind of plant.” She laughed.

I watered it everyday after she left for work. It didn’t take long before the hand grew a wrist.

Under some pretense, I took my potted hand from her apartment, claiming it would look good in my house, which I hardly called home at all these days.

There I watered it dutifully, spoke to it, played it pleasant music. The wrist grew a slender arm, which grew a graceful shoulder.

A woman! I grew excited and pulled on the arm. A beautiful woman emerged from the soil. Our eyes met. We embraced. Then she pulled me back into the soil.

Later that day my girlfriend came by. She didn’t find me. But she found a flower pot with two hands in it. Presuming I had made it for her, she took it back to her apartment. Her birthday is tomorrow.