Creepy crawly creepy crawly spider…
Creepy crawly - tendrils. More like tentacles!
Oh, ok, maybe a spider plant doesn’t have tendrils, technically speaking, let alone tentacles. But these leaves are starting to look real creepy, in any case.
Yes - this spider plant I can’t get rid of. I’ve tried, although in a rather half-hearted way I must admit. And I don’t have it in me to just rip it to pieces with my bare hands.
I put it out on the front porch during a week of almost non-stop rain and wind, waiting for it to be killed or at least badly damaged by outside forces and do you know it just lapped it all up and totally refused to succumb.
Well…I admit I didn’t put it too far out. The softie in me prevented that.
Why am I so hung up about a damned spider plant? Why do I feel like I have to get rid of it? And after it’s been with me for over thirty years, too! And it’s never done anything to me. Has it? Only just grew and grew, like plants are supposed to do. And here I am with wicked designs upon its life. But I just don’t want it in the house. There’re way too many plants as it is.
All my life people have been giving me plants. I don’t know why. There must be something about me that screams subconsciously that of all the things in the world the thing I need most desperately is a plant. And that intensifies at Christmas-time, and I get all these exquisitely-wrapped, ultra-refined, super-delicate, extra-brightly coloured things requiring the utmost care. And I’m not particularly cut out for looking after plants. I don’t have green fingers. I don’t have any patience to speak of, and I tell people I don’t want any plants. It just goes to show that people never really listen to you I guess. At least plants are better than people in that respect. They don’t make any pretence of listening to you.
Anyway the result is that I’ve ended up with a whole houseful of the things. They don’t pay any attention to the fact that I can’t look after them properly and go on flourishing. These aren’t just houseplants, they’re taking-over-the-house-plants. Crowding me out of my own home. That monster of a cheeseplant for example, looming over my bed. Honestly I’ve lost count of of the number of times I’ve cut it down to size (literally) and replanted and given away cuttings and still the thing just grows and grows. Same thing goes for the yucca.
But that spider plant. Sitting out there and refusing even to wilt. I could never kill any plant in cold blood, but how I wish it would just do the decent thing and die slowly, now that I’ve put it out there! But it is one tough customer.
There. I’ve moved it further out … but really, I do feel a brute. Waging an unprovoked war against the plant kingdom which just looks back at me silently, impassively…reproachfully?
Aren’t I being ridiculous. It doesn’t mind me, right?
Even so …
It does look a bit battered, I admit, but it’s still VERY much alive.
What if it never dies?
What if it outlasts me?. That’d be rich. Or ironic, or something.
Or what if it does die and it then it comes back to haunt me? To wreak its revenge?
Oh dear, I can’t stand this ….
Well, I’ve brought it back in.
Really, this whole plant business is getting me down.
I don’t want them around any more. And I’ve tried giving them away but generally people don’t take them. Even when I offer them absolutely free. You’d think that people’d jump at the chance of getting anything for free, especially a nice new glossy plant to brighten up their deadly dull, hideously designed living rooms. But no. And then that one time when I had the bright idea of carting them all off to a local plant sale. And guess what! Not one of them sold! Not one! I was too discouraged to ever try such a thing again. It just seems like fate.
And I have a nasty feeling that even if I did succeed in giving one of them away it’d somehow find its way back, like a homing pigeon or a fiendishly faithful dog or something of the sort.
You see? These damn things are making me superstitious now.
I really must snap out of it…
Look at them, though. All standing together like they were whispering. Whispering about me, no doubt! As if they were conspiring against me, to oust me from my own home.
Of course, I’m REALLY being ridiculous now. I realize that. I’m still sane..if only just.
Too much time to think and ponder about things I regret, and all that. And no-one for company but the plants. Warm, green living things. The forgotten link with nature, ‘to one who has been too long in city pent’ … silly bits of poetry coming to mind now. That was one of the Romantics, wasn’t it? They were always banging on about that stuff.
Oh dear. I wish I had something else to focus my mind.
They are creeping me out , though, these plants. Even though I know they can’t really be plotting against me, or anything crazy like that. I mustn’t start imagining things. I guess they’ve just been reading that silly book too much. The one I lent them. That old Wyndham yarn The Day of the Triffids. I just thought they’d enjoy reading a book about plants taking over the world and all. But of course I explained to them it’s only fiction. They’d understand that, I’m sure.
But what if they start getting ideas? I mean, really?
And just to look at them - they definitely look as if they’re all crowding round together, discussing something.
Me?
Are they planning to get rid of me?
Not my dear old houseplants …
But even if they are, why am I being such a pussy about it?
I can get back at them too, can’t I? They’re just … plants.
You know - I could even try to …
… eat them, maybe ….
I haven’t eaten in so long, just worrying about my goddam houseplants, but now, come to think of it, they do look rather tasty ….
All those lovely greens.
Momma never had to tell me to eat my greens, I just did - automatically. I used to eat the houseplants as well, come to think of it, and I could never understand why she told me off for that. It’s not like they made me sick or anything.
Maybe I am one of them, really …
I never even thought of that!
Maybe this resentment I’ve felt against them is just because I’m trying to deny my true identity, or something. And these days you can identify as just about anything, can’t you?
Well, anyways. I’m ready for them if they come for me.
It’s started!
They tried to ambush me as I was leaving the room. I felt one of those tendrils curling round my ankle which made me lose my balance and fall sprawling to the floor. I can’t get away.
They’re looming in over me.
It’s the crisis. Maybe, finally, I really do have to face up to what I really am ….
If I can just make them understand I’m one of them …. then surely they’ll let me go.
But if not - well, I’ve still got that piece of cutlery in one hand ….