I will have to get back on you
on my absence. I can confirm that it was not spent on a tropical beach,
day-drinking.
I had a conversation with my
friend Jol the other day. I said that if I was a Pokemon my score card (you
know, the ones that had all the statistics and kids used to exchange and
somehow stage fights with, sometime in the early 00s), my two signature moves
would be: panic gardening at 10 am and panic face-waxing at 8 pm.
I don’t know why I do this. I
get home from work, relax, talk to friends, watch a series (cause my currentlifestyle has rendered me incapable of reading any books) and then, out of the blue, I just have to go to my balcony, inspect my plants
and proceed to garden the night away. I suddenly decide to repot plants that I
bought months ago and never bothered, somehow believing that they will not
survive another day in their tiny, constricting pots*.
But when they wither and they
are nothing but twigs, I am at a loss. Momentarily, because of grief and
because I can’t let go of things. But mostly because I don’t know how to
dispose of the body. What do I do? Cut it in little pieces and let the wind
take it? Viking funeral pyre? It seems unfair to just put it in a bag and throw
it in the garbage. Not after what it’s been through.
And here’s where I think I may
have turned them paranoid (much like me). See, when they die, and I don’t know
how to dispose of the body, I just leave it there for weeks. Over time they
turn into tiny crumbly toothpicks, bend to the will of the winds.
But here is where the magic (and
paranoia) happens. I think that the other plants take this as an example. Their
peer, lying there, lifeless, punished for not being glorious enough. Much like
Crowley in Good Omens, I think my incompetence in dealing with plant death
blackmails them and makes them fight for their existence.
After a few weeks I just shove
the plant in a trash bag and they never see it again.
As for panic waxing, need I really
dwell on it?
*Oh, they will. Somehow the
plants I get accept their limbo state pretty soon and are forced to adapt in
order to survive. They have to patiently sit there, let me water them whenever
and try to survive. When they wither, they are dead to me. And this is not
because of my indifference,** I want to believe.
**I water them and give them a
special medicine. The problem is that I do it irregularly. I overcare and then
I care not. I drown them in medicine, to the point they suffer from poisoning.
I give them iron (a disgusting powder that turns water crimson red and makes
your balcony like the Red Wedding just happened) and then I let the rotten
leaves drown them.
