Roots

          It was the height of the building we live in – three floors high. As father and I, and our neighbor, gazed at the long creeper which slithered along the rainwater-drainage pipe running from the rooftop to the ground, I heard a crack sound. It must be from my neck – so high ran the green “useless” plant, now having started to grow thick sort of branches, clutching the wall and destroying paint.

          ‘It will be a lot of labor chiseling that all down,’ observed father, as I started due to an ant bite between my toe and the finger beside it. The plant had been a partying place for all the ants, which, very normally these days, thanks to the plant, entered our rooms, and our bathrooms.

          ‘We must cut it from down there, and the upward part will dry away itself,’ continued father, once looking above and once down.

          ‘Sir,’ reported the neighborhood uncle, ‘Before you came here, I have given that a try multiple times. For some time, it seems to be working – you separate the plant from the roots by cutting, and over the next few days, the stem and leaves hanging along the wall die. But before soon, the undead roots give rise to a new episode of it.’

          Father nodded, as a gullible me wondered if we could just put the whole thing to fire.

          We looked at the ground, guessing where its roots would be. The ground was solid and plastered, and if we wanted to kill the roots, we would need to first compromise with it. Which was impossible. No way could any of us do something to the ground just to get rid of a plant … and some bathroom ants.

          When the neighborhood uncle had gone, father brought his tools – a thin household saw, a long stick, among others – and I brought a screwdriver. He said he would give it a try. First he would, just like that uncle, cut the whole creeper from down and then see if he could do something about the roots. That day, we didn’t have much of other works.

          It took around an hour for the performance, but finally succeeded. The so thick and so entwined stems at the base had been sawed and almost half of the plant above that had been pulled down. Now that some of the wall was visible, we could actually see the amount of damage that had been caused.

          Nevertheless, the roots were inaccessible. Owing to that disability to uproot the floor, and the setting sun, we called it a day and went to wash our hands.

          During the next few days, I noticed the effect. The remaining plant suspended from the rooftop by its own connections, had started paling down and drying. Its leaves fell, ants dwindled and the brown stem assumed the look of the parched skin of the old. The tall plant that had stood here like a ruler’s palace from so many days, from its waist to its head, was dying, with its legs already separated and done away with.

          Hence it seemed we had succeeded, for once.

          For once.

          Because yesterday when I parked my bicycle near the neighbor uncle’s bike, and was about to climb the stairs to our floor, my gaze met with the grass-like something that had started growing from the place where we had cut the plant. At that time, father came, held my shoulder, and whispered, ‘No ruin without the ruin of the roots.’