A Little Green, A Little Grey

The crack was not a promising address. Number 47 Between The Third and Fourth Paving Stone Outside Bellamy's Hardware Shop City Centre. No garden. No soil to speak of. No one who had looked at this particular crack and thought: yes. Something should grow here.

But something did.

It started as nothing. Less than nothing. A suggestion of green so small that seventeen people walked over it on the first Monday without seeing it at all.

By Wednesday it was slightly less nothing. Two leaves. Both small. Both determined in the way that small things are when the alternative is not existing.

The city did not notice. The city was busy. The city had buses and offices and Bellamy's Hardware Shop and the general business of being a city which left very little time for noticing small green things in cracks.

The pigeon noticed.

His name was not anything. Pigeons don't have names. But if he had had one it would have been something like: Gerald. Or possibly: The One With The Slightly Bent Feather On The Left.

Gerald landed on the pavement next to the crack on Thursday morning. He looked at the plant. The plant looked up at Gerald.

Gerald tilted his head. Left. Then right. Then left again. This was not curiosity. This was Gerald considering whether the plant was edible.

It was not edible. Gerald stayed anyway.

This became a pattern. Every morning Gerald arrived. Landed next to the crack. Tilted his head. Stayed. Not doing anything useful. Not doing anything at all. Just — being there. The way pigeons are when they have decided something is theirs.

On Friday a boot came. Large boot. Not paying attention boot. The kind of boot that walks through cities looking at phones and not at cracks in pavements.

Gerald stepped in front of it.

The boot stopped. The person attached to the boot looked down. Saw Gerald. Went around.

The plant survived Friday.

On Monday a bicycle wheel. Gerald waddled into its path. The cyclist swerved. Said something that pigeons don't understand and don't need to.

The plant survived Monday.

On Wednesday the city worker came. Orange jacket. Clipboard. The specific expression of someone with a list of cracks to fill.

He crouched down. Looked at the crack. Looked at Gerald who was sitting directly next to it with the expression of someone who had opinions about what happened next.

The city worker looked at the plant. Really looked. Two leaves had become six. Six had become twelve. The green was the particular green of something that has decided very firmly to be here regardless of anyone's opinion on the matter.

The city worker looked at his clipboard. Then at the plant. Then at Gerald. Gerald tilted his head. Left. Then right.

The city worker put the cap back on his filler. Stood up. Walked to the next crack. Which was three paving stones away and contained nothing except a crisp packet and a small amount of old rain. He filled that one.

The plant stayed.

By the following Tuesday a small child had left a bottle cap full of water next to the crack. By Thursday someone had drawn a tiny fence around it in chalk. By Saturday there was a sign. Handwritten. Slightly wonky. Entirely serious. PLEASE DON'T STEP HERE. SOMETHING IS GROWING.

Gerald sat next to the sign. With the expression of someone who had known this all along.

The plant grew. Not fast. Not spectacular. Not the kind of growing that makes headlines or changes cities overnight. Just — steady. Quiet. Persistent. The way things grow when they have decided to grow and nobody has managed to stop them yet.

Winter came. The plant went small. Not gone. Just small. Conserving. Waiting. The way living things do when the world gets cold and the question is not will I survive but how.

Gerald stayed. Every morning. Next to the crack. Next to the wonky sign. Next to the bottle cap that someone kept refilling through the cold months without being asked.

Spring came back. The green came back with it. Bigger this time. More certain. Two leaves became twenty. The crack — the entirely unpromising crack at Number 47 Between The Third and Fourth Paving Stone Outside Bellamy's Hardware Shop — had a flower.

One. Small. Yellow. Entirely unnecessary and absolutely essential.

Gerald looked at it. Tilted his head. Left. Then right.

Seventeen people walked past. Fourteen of them looked down.

Not bad for a crack in a pavement in a city that was busy being a city. Not bad at all.