They’re creating a movement. Joining forces. Spreading awareness. Unwilling to stand for it any longer, intent on ending it once and for all. Their opposition has reached crisis levels. Self-sacrifice – suicide – is now acceptable, expected even. “This will end,” they say. “One way or another, it will end.”
I am a murderer…of plants. And their kingdom is rising in protest against me.
While it’s always been fairly obvious, the bad blood between us. I insisted on making a spectacle of it, of them, a few years ago. The back yard of our little house in Florida faced the street. I couldn’t stand its drab presence, the undeniable ugliness my neighbors and passersby had to endure upon passing our abode. So I forced my husband to accompany me to Home Depot, select a few hanging flower baskets, and then drill holes – impossibly difficult holes – into the concrete exterior of our back porch in order to give these baskets a home.
Their presence to me served one purpose: to make my house look pretty. I did not love these plants. I did not take time to pick off their dead petals, to make way for new growth. I watered them once, maybe twice, before I realized, “Man! It’s hot out here. What is…? Is this…back sweat? I’ve been out here watering these things for five minutes! Forget that.”
To be fair, it was July. In Florida. No amount of prettiness was worth spending even the slightest bit of quality time outside in that hellish environment. They died. Real quickly. As did a little piece of my husband’s spirit.
Fast forward to my grandmother’s funeral. We had plants. Lots and lots of plants. We each had to pick one out, take it home, keep it alive. I begged for the strongest of the bunch, the least likely to fall victim to my genocidal ways. I thought I got him. Sturdy. Flower-free. Presumably, fragile-free. I was wrong. Despite my diligence in watering him, in turning him so each side faced the window, he perished. Developed some kind of slimy, fungal-ish disease. Perhaps I drowned him. Perhaps I was too diligent in my care.
Oops. Sorry, Grandma.
When my kids started going to day care, this relationship between plant and human grew more turbulent. I’d get tiny little plants in Styrofoam cups with “I love you, Mommy” and “Best Mom in the World” carefully etched into the surrounding scribble marks. And each time, they’d die.
I’d given up entirely on discovering the right way to care for them. I’d water them and place them near the window. But my attitude toward them had become one of indifference. Despite the nagging feeling that by killing them, I was killing a little piece of my child’s love for me in the process, I did not dwell too much on the subject. They were plants. I was a plant killer. We’d never find harmony.
Then my son brought one home from day care at the end of last school year. And, with the help of my husband (Okay, because of my husband.), we kept him alive. Herbert. That’s the name I gave him. He flourished, his emerald green deepening with each week. We carried him on weekend trips up north, had a family member babysit him while we were gone for a week. We bought him a new pot, a new home. Gave him his own little place on the front porch. And then, inexplicably, Herbert gave up on us. He began wilting, browning. No amount of water or sunlight could save him. He was no more.
I mourned Herbert’s untimely death, tortured myself with fantasies of what I’d done wrong. And then – an epiphany. It wasn’t my fault at all. They’d gotten to Herbert, convinced him of what he must do. Sacrifice himself. Commit suicide. Show me that there couldn’t be – would never be – a peaceful relationship between one of them and me. The leaders of the plant kingdom brainwashed my Herbert, turned him against me, took his will to photosynthesize.
In the back of my mind, I knew this was craziness. Plants can’t think, don’t have the capacity for vengeance. Still, it was awful curious that Herbert should die without cause, now wasn’t it?
My suspicions of the plant uprising were confirmed last summer. My weeping cherry, whom I hadn’t named but who shall now forever be known as Berta, gave up the ghost. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Berta was resilient, even survived my husband’s attempt at trimming her – a rampant butchering of her branches – the summer before. Granted, we had moved her to a new spot in the front garden to give her more room to grow. But a little change of location shouldn’t have killed her. No, I know the true reason for her downfall. They’d gotten to her as well.
Sadly, here I am, my plants having turned against me. With the help of some good friends, we redid our landscaping in August, adding dozens of new Herberts and Bertas to our collection. I fear for them. Hope they’re stronger than the last, able to withstand the pressure from their fellow flora.
Regardless of their outcome, the message is clear: I am a murderer, and I deserve to be punished.
Well played, plants. Well. Played.