Houseplant, C’est Moi: A Bad Seed in the Garden
I’m not much of a gardener, but I’m an obsessive anthropomorphizer, and so I garden primarily out of guilt. In the autumn, I shudder to hear the leaves scream as they fall to their deaths; in winter, my heart breaks for the trees, trembling in the cold and wind.
Why? the trees ask. Why?
But I have no answer.
Which brings me to my houseplant—I’ll call her Flannery—a corn plant. I’ve never liked houseplants, I don’t know why. They make me angry. I am, however, a man of much irrational hatred, and only realized why houseplants infuriate me so much this past weekend, when Flannery died.
I took her in a year ago. I was in my local nursery when I saw Flannery there, in a corner beside the door, in a pathetic plastic pot, and she called out to me:
I’m young, Mister, and frightened; please don’t leave me here … Read More
