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Two months ago, I traveled to Spain for a vacation. During this vacation, I went to a local greenhouse to buy some coffee seeds to plant and grow my organic coffee since coffee is a commodity that is hard to get and expensive in my community due to low importation. So Immediately I traveled back home with the coffee beans which were still in good condition, I quickly planted them in my backyard where I have a little greenhouse and two months later they grew enormously. The coffee plants now are quite large and look very tall for their age which makes me happy that I have made progress. Then I realized that I should make the soil more fertile to speed up the growth. So I made a mental note to go to the farmers' market and get some fertilizers.
The next day, the sun was out, and I could already picture what my organic coffee would taste like as I slowly opened my eyes with anticipation to begin my day. After taking a shower, I dressed up to go to the farmers' market, but my car wouldn't start. So I took the public bus instead. It was a hot sunny day, I was exhausted and irritable by the time I arrived at my destination. The moment I stepped inside the farmer's market, I felt the heat of the day hit me from every direction but I didn't allow that to stop me.
Entering a retail store for farm fertilizers, I walked up to one of the salesmen and told him what I wanted, but he told me the particular fertilizer I wanted was out of stock. Feeling frustrated, I asked, "Please can you just check in the back?" The salesman looked at me squarely and said in a daring tone, "can you just accept we don't have it?! The back ain't some magical place. What do you think is back there? Santa's workshop?! The things back there are clipboards and junk!."
"Excuse me?!" I said, feeling infuriated, but then, I calmed down and told him that I'm not leaving until they give me what I want, he sighed and walked off. Then, I saw a woman who looked a lot older than him walk out of their storage unit at the back. She asked the kind of fertilizer I wanted, I told her, and then she said, "I apologize for my blockhead salesman's behavior. Sorry dear, but we don't have any of those fertilizers. We have some other things that will help your plants grow faster, but we don't have them here."
I was confused by her words and asked, "What do you mean you don't-"
"come with me" she said, interrupting me.
So I followed her to their storage unit at the back, but when she opened a door with dark stairs leading down to a small room like a basement. I felt unsettled and thought about how strange the whole situation was. Why would people store manure in a basement? I followed her downstairs, and as we got into the basement, there were stacks of wooden boxes in a corner with a light bulb hanging off the ceiling. Pulling the chain attached to the dangling bulb, the light came on. Then she opened one of the wooden boxes and brought out a transparent bag filled with fertilizer, but it was black which prompted my questions in my mind. Then she handed it over to me and smiled slightly.
"This is what you need and you will not be disappointed, trust me, dear. I have helped farmers with these for years and it works wonders overnight" she said.
Ignoring my intuitive questions, I quickly paid her the amount it cost without further questions and left so that I wouldn't miss the public bus going to my area. On the way, I couldn't stop thinking about the woman, what she said about the fertilizer and how she said that she helped other farmers in my community. When I got home, I put the fertilizer in the soil along with the water and after I was done, I put away all the tools to retire for the night as the sun was beginning to set.
A few minutes after midnight, in my deep sleep, I began to feel chilly, even with my heater on. It felt like the temperature dropped to zero degrees. As I shivered, I got up to check if my heater was still on and then I noticed there was a soft glow of light coming from my greenhouse. I switched on some lights and went to check out the glow only to discover my coffee plants were glowing like glistening gold. Astonished, I went out to get a closer look only to realize that my coffee plants had multiplied threefold and had grown to almost the stage of harvesting.
I was shocked at what had become of my greenhouse, as it was filled with lots of coffee plants. I couldn't believe it. The old woman did say I won't be disappointed, but then I thought what kind of fertilizer she had sold to me? Excited, not caring about how this came to be, I went ahead and plugged out a coffee bean fruit to feel for myself so I know it isn't all a dream. Touching the fruit in my palms, a feeling of satisfaction washed over me and I thought about how I would sell coffee to everyone in my community at an affordable price and also look into having a big permanent coffee farm. In the end, it was a magical harvest for me.
This is my entry to Spill The Beans Contest, Prompt 19.
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