“The vegetables often leave their stalks. Yes, they go gallivanting about. Yeah, mostly at night. Oh, they are always back on the stalk, or vine, by morning. Why do you ask?”

“Couple of veggies been acting up. On the west side of the garden.”

“The west side? That’s where the eggplant, the aubergines, grow. And the green beans. Those horrible beans.”

“What, you don’t like the beans?”

“Only the green beans, friend, only the green.”

“Pray tell, why?”

“I had a friend once, fell asleep in his garden. Damn, them things grow fast.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“They grew, I tell ya, and choked my friend in his own garden! Imagine that! Choked him to death, there lying in his own garden.”

“I’m trying to. How long was he asleep? How long was he out there?”

“We don’t know.”

“Really.”

“Yeah he was gone when we got there.”

“He was, as they say, off the vine. Stalk fatigue, they used to call it. Some vegetables are just not meant for the vine, the stalk. They consciously uncouple—temporarily—and go cross land. It’s at night this can be dangerous, for both the vegetable, and, well, others.”

“What others?”

“The fruits, and the grains… those grains.”

“The ergot mold?”

“You said it, chappie.”

“You ever heard of Cacao Carlo? That pod?”

“The Jackal?”

“No.”

“That rolling unsweetened bastard?”

“Big ergot freak, I’m told.”

“By whom?”

“The beans.”

“The green beans?”

“No, a much craftier, though less deceitful legume.”

“Off or on the stalk?”

“Both.”

“Limas?”

“How did you know?”

“I’m tripping too.”