DESK FLOWERS

Only when an aloe vera the size of a garden shed burst through the roof did anyone realise what was going on.

The office block was empty and unremarkable, another mass of concrete and double-glazing; not the kind of place we expected to see popping open like a squeezed spot. Kara and I lived over the road, seven storeys up in a boxy new-build flat.

I was sitting on our balcony when I heard the loud crack and looked up from my laptop just in time to watch as the big green fronds erupted through, tossing rubble to every corner of the roof. The aloe vera was springy, with leaves like the foam noodles they use to teach kids how to swim.

Other people had seen it, too. We met them as we crossed the street to take a closer look, growing until there was a little crowd of us. Everyone hummed with a tripping excitement, the energy of leaving our flats for the first time that day or week.

I put my face up close to the ground floor window. Inside, there was a reception area overrun with plants, all the usual office varieties: papery spider plants on the verge of death; ornamental trees nobody could identify or cared about; orchids in plastic wrappers.

Only, these were three or four times their normal size, roots splitting open pots and spilling soil onto the marble floor. I took a photo of a fern with its spine curved against the ceiling, like someone trying to crawl into a child's playhouse.

I worked on the balcony a lot back then, while my hours ballooned around me. Remote working had seemed at