The sun rises, the day begins, and Hellen wakes up groggy. He looks outside to make sure it's actually morning, and he has not, for some reason, awoken in the dead of night—which has been happening more often lately.
Surely enough, it's daytime. He stretches, rubs his eye, and sits up.
Immediately, the fish scraps from yesterday are brought to his mind. He wonders once again if that was a waste, and they would have been better made into stock for a soup, then promptly sends the thought away with a small shake of his head.
It doesn't matter, he already threw them outside. Maybe they've been eaten by an animal. Or, if they’re still on the ground, they’ve probably attracted flies and bugs. Flies and bugs like scraps.
Pitcher plants like flies and bugs.
He thinks he'll go check to see if the flies and bugs are suitable for his plant to eat.
So he stands, goes to the plant, and gives it a cursory glance to see how it's doing. It looks fine—it hasn't mysteriously started wilting for no reason, which is good, because he's heard that plants do that sometimes. It’s a little bit heavy in its pot, but not too heavy to carry in one arm while he opens the door and steps out. The fresh air greets him.
It’s cloudier today, the sunlight is a little bit dim, and there's less wind. He isn't sure if he prefers weather like this—it feels dreary, but he tries not to notice.
When he tossed the scraps the night before, he went quite a ways away from his house to make sure they wouldn't bring any dangerous animals to where he lives. (Also, so they wouldn't bring any husks. He isn't sure if husks are attracted by fish, but he would rather not take any chances.)
(Also-also, so he wouldn't smell them while he was sleeping.)
They should be easy enough to relocate, though. He just walked forward in a straight line to avoid getting lost, then dropped them off when he deemed himself far enough. It's not too difficult to get there again.
A few times, his arm gets tired and he switches the plant to the other one—now and then, he holds it with both hands. After a while of walking, watching the stalks and pitchers of his plant bob lightly with his footsteps and hearing leaves crunching under his feet, he's back where he left the scraps.
His first impression is that their odor, certainly, has gotten at least a little bit worse since they've been left on the forest floor for a night.
His second impression is that they have, in fact, attracted bugs. A quiet buzzing fills the air while flies circle around, landing every so often to nibble on the fish parts.
Carefully, slowly, so as to not scare too many of the insects away, he puts the plant down next to the scraps. He pushes the pot into the dirt slightly, just to make sure the plant doesn't topple, and then takes his hands off.
The bugs don't swarm to it immediately, nor do they seem to pay much mind to it at all, but he supposes it would probably be a while before they take notice. They are very small, and very preoccupied, or maybe just not very observant.
He starts to sit down, but takes a moment and realizes it's probably not ideal to settle on the plain ground. He recalls there's an old blanket in his backpack, so he slips off a strap and brings it in front of him, opening and combing through it until his hand lands on a soft piece of fabric. He pulls out the blanket, lays it down, feels sort of bad for putting it on the ground because it's a nice blanket, ignores that, and sits.
Then, he waits. The pitchers put out an aroma that's naturally pleasant, at least to the flies, so they should start buzzing over to the plant soon enough. The scent is probably much stronger to the little flies' senses than his, considering he has to get quite close to smell anything. It's rather subtle, sweet and herbal, and also a little dusty smelling. Hellen is actually okay with the smell of dust; in fact, he likes it, which works out, because his house smells of dust constantly. It's understandable—he does live in an abandoned building in the middle of the forest.
He thinks about finding or making a duster for cleaning, though he doubts that dusting would get rid of the smell. It smelled of dust when he first arrived there, and still does, so he thinks it may just be imbued into the walls. All homes have a history, and he is entirely unknowledgable about this one's.
Very funny, to live in a house that you know nothing about. Maybe it's just supposed to smell like that.
And no, he doesn't exactly consider it his home yet, even if he calls it by that title sometimes, and even if he's been living there for many years at this point. That's mostly all it is to him: a place to live, and he's unsure at what point he would start to consider it his home. He supposes it would have something to do with attachment, or memories, which sentimental things often have to do with. His memories of that house begin with him coming there as a place to rest for the night, and then never really leaving. It's just something that was convenient. It is convenient.
He thinks he sees a fly land in one of the pitchers, and it doesn't come back out.
A pleasant scented plant.
Could a plant imitate the smell of fabric? There's lots of weird greenery out there. Hellen's favorite smell is fabric–clean fabric, which is funny, because that would seem like quite the opposite of dusty smells, but he likes both. Sometimes, strangely, cloth still smells like dust even after it's washed and cleaned many times. He recalls laundry days back in his old home, when they would hang scarves and cloaks and shawls and blankets out on a line to dry under the sun. It was brighter where he lived, then, so they dried fast.
He liked to sit and watch the fabric billow on breezier days.
It was a nice spot for conversation, too.
Perhaps he should set up an outdoor clothesline for himself. It is a bit shady by his house, though, so he isn't sure if it would do much. He already has an indoor clothesline by a drafty window, and it gets the clothes dry before they start smelling bad, which means it works decently enough. They just dry with the wind instead of the sun, now.
It's not as though he has a lot of clothes that he needs to wash, either—he's only one person. He doesn't even do laundry very often, just when his clothes notably need to be freshened up, and he has the time for it.
(He always has the time for it. He has a lot of time.)
Hellen thinks that the loneliness may be getting to him, lately. His dreams leave him feeling sad.
Which is, of course, why he tries to find distractions—but he does miss (among other things) when his clothes would come off of the line sun-dried and slightly warm. Sometimes, impatient, he wears clothes that are cold and damp still. He should probably stop doing that, or he's going to catch something.
Leaning over to the plant, he peers down the pitchers and sees a scattering of flies that have found themselves trapped. They twitch.
That should be good enough. He takes the pot in his hands and lifts it, not paying any mind to the bugs who startle and scuttle away, then starts walking in the other direction while the sun is still in the sky.
(At some point, he realizes he forgot to bring the blanket and trudges back to retrieve it.)
With yet another walk home, Hellen wants to say that he knows this forest like the back of his hand, but that would be a lie. He doesn't wander much, hasn't made a map of any kind, only knows a few landmarks, and only strays as far from his house as he needs to on any given day. He's really not much for exploring—which makes it all the more peculiar that he's ended up here at all, now that he thinks about it, but it's not the worst place to be.
It's also not the best.
He assures himself that there's, at least, a variety of insects here for his plant to eat.
He then remembers that he also, in fact, needs to eat, and that he should probably just get food while he's already out. However, he doesn't feel like hunting for anything too excessive, considering he is still holding an entire potted plant in one of his arms.
What to eat that doesn't involve hunting? Maybe berries would be good.
He's always been better at gathering food than cooking it, and he doesn't really know how to extend ingredients into a meal that can last, but it doesn't matter too much. He's never really needed big meals. What he does need is a reason to go out everyday, and finding little things to hunt or forage is a good reason, even if it is monotonous.
Berries would probably be good. He detours and looks for some.
As a child, he was taught what types of berries are poisonous, what types of berries are good raw, what types of berries are okay, but need to be made into a jam first—though he never actually learned how to make jam. He decides to try and find a type of berry that can be eaten without cooking.
They should stand out decently against the green foliage, usually varying in shades of warm red. They turn deeper colored and mushy upon becoming overripe, which makes for an unpleasant eating experience. In his childhood, when they kept berries for too long, they would sometimes have fun using the mush to stain and dye their clothes. It was never enough to dye anything substantial, of course, and the deep red color never stuck fully after washes (it always mellowed out into a light, faded pink color), but one time he made a splotchy dress for his baby sister that way.
He keeps looking, the sun starts setting, and he forages a decent amount of berries—like little clusters of flavorful pearls in his hand. When he gets home, he washes and eats them, and they're sweet, and slightly tangy, and soft.
Hellen puts off the laundry for later.