She grows the tomatoes by accident. Something alchemic in the compost. She has a few weeks where she feels almost maternal toward them, as each flower gives way to a tiny green bauble.
A man on the radio says this year a small average temperature drop has reduced a certain quality needed to turn tomatoes red. She cannot remember the details. She is neither a gardener nor a chemist, though she works in a nursery. She listens to this show, a gardening show, because she likes how the host rolls his rrrrs: says rrrhododendrrrhon, starrflowerr. She knows now that starflowers are a north American perennial.
On the news there is a report that people, civil servants in a hotel in Cuba, have been attacked by some sort of wave. Electric waves. Micro waves. (She is not a physicist, either.) These people are now tormented by a high-pitched noise, headaches. It has been months. They may be spies, the papers are saying …