Cleo sat on her bed, eyes slowly scanning the plants in her room. It was somewhat difficult to see them between the hairs in her fringe, but she always made do with that. Her eyes would slowly rest on each piece of flora before moving on. This was her life, contained entirely in this room. Her plants meant everything to her, she had nothing or no one else.Well, perhaps that wasn't entirely true anymore. She thought about the different individuals she had met during her freshling years. Just as she predicted, most of them seemed completely uninterested in getting to know her further. She was a quiet, plant-obsessed freak; she had accepted this for her life. But there was one who actually seemed interested in her and her interests. Her new roommate, Susumu, had been pleasant from the moment they had met. He wanted to know more about her plants and she had learnt much about a new culture from him.
Perhaps symbiosis was possible not only amongst the organisms she had studied, but also between herself and others she encountered. Hesitating, she slowly reached for her least-read book on her shelf. It was a book on communication and forming… relationships. She picked it up tenderly, as though it was a bomb ready to explode. Her eyes quickly scanned over the pages, picking up key words such as 'diction' and 'eye contact'. 'Eye contact.' Feeling like a grand discoverer taking the greatest risk of their generation, Cleo picked up one of the unused hairclips previously donated to her. With a deep sigh of weariness, she clipped back part of her fringe, resulting in a window of hair that partly revealed both her eyes.
She would always love her plants more than anything else, but perhaps it was time to extend her knowledge to more social endeavours.
