NOVEL SIMPLE 34. Diminishing
“Good morning, world!” Aloe got out of bed with a jump, her mood soaring. “How glorious is it to have a good night’s rest!”
Even after going to sleep with a beaten body, the long sleep had helped her greatly. Not only was she full of energy, but her calves weren’t killing her! That was a win in her book.
“Hmm, today’s too pretty to start with a glass of water, I think I’ll have some coconut milk.”
Aloe donned her sandals, and still in her nightgown, got out and collected a low coconut. Not all palm trees were born equal, and there were a few short ones here and there, especially date ones. Fikali was sleeping, so she didn’t bother greeting the dweller.
“Alright, how do I open this?” Aloe set the coconut on the kitchenette countertop. “I’ve heard that coconuts are tough like human skulls, will a knife suffice?”
The only way she had to find answers was to try, so she did. Scarily, Aloe stabbed the coconut, but because of her odd angle she didn’t even make a dent on it and the knife’s tip slipped, almost cutting her other hand.
“Aloe, don’t mess up this great morning by being a moron.” She told herself. “Just grab the coconut tightly and make a hole to then cut through.”
Easier said than done, but after recomposing herself, she managed to make a indent on the surface. And with a bit of finicking, she opened a hole big enough to drink from.
“Yeah, screw it.” Aloe reached for a glass in the cupboards. “Why open it more when I can just pour it.”
The white liquid was less thick than Aloe had thought. She grabbed the glass and smelled the contents. It had a funny yet calming smell.
“Why do they call it coconut milk? This looks more like water. I guess coconut water doesn’t roll that good out of the tongue.” And then she drank it. “Hmm~ Certainly better than water.”
She downed the whole glass and poured herself another one. A single coconut had a lot of juice inside, enough to satiate her petite body.
“I could have one each morning, but it’s such a tedium to open them...” Aloe groaned her way over to the fruit bowl and picked up a banana, it was already half brown. “Last one.” She sighed. “What will I do these coming days for breakfast? I have heard that coconut meat... is it called meat? Bah, people do eat the insides of the coconut and it’s still fruit so... I’ll ponder it later.”
With a satisfied sigh, Aloe finished the banana and the coconut milk.
“What tasks do I have to do today?” Still in her nightgown, she sat on the desk chair as she structured today’s timetable. “I should plant the medicinal plants Umar gave me, then water all the plants, also clean the latrine and Fikali’s poops, and... that’s all I think. I should continue to boil some water to have a stash, but otherwise, those are the mandatory things I have to do.”
Aloe stretched her arms and legs, jumped out of the chair (which she couldn’t touch the floor while seating on it), and donned a fresh set of clothes.
“Oh yeah, also washing and doing the dishes. I should do that.” She remembered before making her way out of the house with the medicinal plants in hand.
Umar didn’t give her a lot of seeds, and they weren’t that uncommon, so Aloe was faced with a decision.
“Oasis or greenhouse?” Whether she should plant them outside on the oasis or inside the greenhouse. “They are inexpensive, but nonetheless, Fikali might still eat them. But space in the greenhouse is few and precious, and besides...”
That’s where I want to plant the evolved plants.
That was what decided the final outcome. It would be problematic if a traveler found the oasis and decided to rest on it, only to find magical plants blooming around it. Aloe swayed her head viciously at that thought. The greenhouse provided some obfuscation and better living conditions, if she were to plant evolved plants, they would be inside the greenhouse.
Though that didn’t mean in the oasis there was exactly free space to plant. She couldn’t seed a place next to the palm trees as they would take all the nutrients, and she didn’t have the tools nor the strength to cut them down. The only thing Aloe could do was to yet again remove more patches of Cure Grass to plant all her new seeds.
“Well, at least they won’t go to waste. These are just more prime matter to make vitality pills.” Aloe piled up all the grass to then stash it in a jar for later use.
Whilst not exactly a master of the craft, Aloe was getting more proficient with her hoe heaving, she didn’t tire as much and overall was being more efficient with each strike. After uncovering the dirt from the Cure Grass, Aloe began to make spaces for the seeds to grow.
“Which ones do I have? Thyme, chamomile, sage, and black seeds, hmm... Neither is that big, so I could place them close together.”
Aloe wore her gloves and excavated some finger-sized holes for the seeds. She had opened a sizeable area from the grass, so she was able to use all the seeds Umar gifted her and planted them by lines. First thyme, then sage. Third chamomile, and finally the black seeds. Not that she would remember after they began growing though. She almost forgot their position already.
Two hours later, Aloe had all the seeds planted, the plants watered, and the water boiled. What remained wasn’t that pleasing though.
“Ugh, I really put it as back as I could, but it’s, unfortunately, time.” A groan wasn’t enough of a word to describe the sheer repulsion that came out of Aloe’s throat.
Her grip on the shovel’s handle tightened as she wielded it. She slowly moved the shovel down until it hit a dry yet soft bottom. Aloe’s face contorted in a myriad of emotions as she picked up the waste from the latrine and put it in the sand bucket.
Time seemed to slow down as she shoveled her feces outside of the latrine.
“The smell...” She went outside to have some fresh air and not evacuate her breakfast. “Still far better than eating grass.”
In the end, it just took her a couple of minutes. But the heavens knew it felt way longer. The wastes in the bucket were dry, but nonetheless, she shoveled them onto the soil where she planted the banana seeds as they were the plants that would need more nutrients. She looked at Fikali’s spot, but the dweller hadn’t done her business today, so Aloe let her free as she took a well-deserved rest.
The shade of the palm trees was sublime, it was incredible how just blocking the sunlight it could get infinitely colder. Aloe took a sip of her waterskin, the water wasn’t cold, but it felt like it.
“If I only had a yakhchal to cool down the water...” But Aloe knew it was impossible for her to have an ice pit. Not only they were big, but also expensive to build. Certainly more so in the middle of nowhere.
She observed Fikali have fun rolling down the dunes, but quickly she became too restless. After moving nonstop for four days, Aloe was incapable to stay still.
“I can’t stay like this.” After obtaining the pills, it made no sense for her to stay with her vitality full. “A single pill more or less restores enough vitality for an Infusion. So what I should do right now is infuse all the plants I have.”
Her first choice was the pistachios as they shouldn’t take that long to grow, and being on the good side of Fikali would do well for her in the future. She wasted all her vitality in three seeds and dropped to the shade of a random tree in exhaustion.
“Ugh, how many pistachios did I plant?” She counted the mounds on the ground. “Nine? Ugh...” And groaned again. “Even if I take multiple pills, it is going to take a lot of time to do the rest of the plants.”
Aloe cleaned her hands on the oasis and refreshed herself by washing her face. Then went back home and cut open two pills from the plate. She down the first one easily, instantly recovering part of her lost vitality but as she went with the second one, she noticed something strange. The vitality replenished her, and her body felt lighter, just like yesterday, but...
“Huh?” Aloe looked at her hand, the second jolt of lightning felt way weaker than the first. “Diminishing returns?” She hypothesized.
But that wasn’t enough evidence, it may as well have been a fluke. Maybe the second pill had less grass or maybe it had dried too much. Aloe tried a third one.
“Diminishing returns.” She groaned in defeat. “Each damned Cure Grass pill restores less than the next one... Fuck.”
That changed her plans. She still had to check if it was a permanent effect, meaning that every pill would become worse to the point of being useless; or temporal, meaning that after resting a new pill would have full power.
“I think the latter is the most likely, the first pill restored around the same amount of vitality as yesterday.”
And whilst she couldn’t test this just yet, her vitality was now restored, and she still had a lot more plants to infuse.
