The fan in the tropical room sounds like a bird. The greenhouse amplifies the heat and humidity, and I can

feel the air parting around me as I walk. It smells like summer—the mulch piled up on my driveway, the pollen from the yellow oxalis speckling my yard, the heat cooking the asphalt that warms my feet. If I close my eyes I feel like I’m in the Amazon Rainforest, except I don’t know what the Amazon feels like. My elementary school-aged self loved it until learning about Goliath Bird-Eating Spiders, which have eleven-foot-long legs and bodies the size of dinner plates, and eat birds. 

At least, that’s what I remember. I’m not too keen on googling “Goliath Bird-Eating Spider” and permanently

burning whatever image comes up into my retinas. I have no idea what they look like, and I’m content to live in blissful ignorance. In grade school, I was convinced one was going to crawl out of my showerhead, because I showered with hot water and the Amazon is south of the Equator, so clearly the water there is hot and that’s where my shower gets the water from.

But there are no bird-eating spiders here—just me and the plants, the green leaves that are as big as I am

and the accents of pink and purple and orange. I push through the foliage as I head towards the door and into another room, where I am staring down small, skinny trees meticulously arranged in rows. They’re plain in appearance, branchless except for a tuft of green at the top. Their trunks are a little brown, a little yellow. My eyes go straight to the lighter green leaves, the ones that are dying. I can’t help but wonder if I want to go out like this, in a burst of color that catches everyone’s attention, or if I want to slip away in peace, unnoticed.

There’s someone at the other end of the row of trees, writing. I don’t know their name, but the trees form an

aisle, beckoning me towards this mystery person. I’m taken back to my senior year of high school, in late April before the reality that we’d be leaving set in, and a field trip my friends and I took to Beardsley Zoo, a small zoo not too far from our school. Towards the end of the day, when we were waiting for Mr. Kukucka to round up the freshmen, we found ourselves in a room with these same types of trees, placed into pots so they were easily movable. We pushed them into an aisle and held a fake wedding for my friends Kaitlyn and Gracie. Avery sobbed as she walked Gracie down the aisle, and I consoled Kaitlyn about her nerves before officiating. Taylor ripped leaves off the trees and threw them on the ground as she walked a few paces ahead of Avery and Gracie. Reagan, following Taylor, carried branches she had twisted into rings. Abby gave a passionate best man speech, and Jaclyn a hilarious maid of honor speech, before we were interrupted by a very unimpressed Mr. Kukucka, who wished the newlyweds well before requesting that we put the trees back and get on the bus.

We didn’t have to worry about the impending doom of adulthood—we could just pretend we were getting

married. I wonder how different things would be if we all got together for a vow renewal ceremony three years later. What we were so easily able to forget has now become our entire world.

In the present, the door to the room I’m in slams shut, wrenching me from my head. The person has walked

down the aisle and left without stopping for a fake wedding. It reminds me I’ll have to leave the greenhouse and rejoin the outer world eventually.

But I head into the desert room instead, ready to spend some time with succulents.