Letter to a suicidal houseplant

With Vivaldi’s Four Seasons floating in the background of Mums kitchen, I notice her houseplant is dying. Some sort of fern she bought from the local nursery. It’s sad, withering leaves have been taken over by a brownness that oozes melancholy, a mirror of his own depression. No Vivaldi allegro can lift his spirits nor bring the seemingly good-as-dead houseplant back from the edge.

Please don’t die. There must be something around me that can show me how to live in a world that is not suffocating in a thick darkness that doesn’t end because at sunrise the darkness is still there, it just changes colour.

If I can save this plant I can save myself.  

 

                                        TO:

Houseplant number three

                                    ADDRESS:

                                                    Bronze pot

                                                                                          Cement plinth in the lounge room

                                               Australia

 

Image courtesy of Page Foster

 

Suicide doesn’t end the pain. It just passes it on to those left behind.

 

 

 

Dear houseplant that lives on the cement plinth in the lounge room,

You have just discovered that you are a relatively conscious being in a relatively unconscious world. You woke up one day figuratively and literally. You opened your leaves to greet the new day and you didn’t like what you saw. After a nice morning bout of photosynthesis, enjoyed from your expensive potting mix, your world as you understood it turned to mud.

It all started when the humans took you home. They ripped you from your brethren and from that moment on you smelled the smells of a human world, which predominantly smelt like bacon. It’s a good thing you were adopted by a carnivorous family as you are safer than if you were residing with a vegan family. They could get extra hungry and make a mistake one day. No bacon eating family is going to eat the houseplant by mistake. Unless they smoked another kind of plant and got confused.

You heard the noises of the human world, Dr Pill at 12, classical music at 4, and the screaming grandson most mornings. You tasted the air of a human world which was dictated by the gas heating or the airconditioner, depending on the season and the mood of the female human. And somewhere along the way you got confused as to what species you belonged to. You were deep in a human world, all it had to offer you which was mostly water and the more than occasional cat poo. Suddenly you noticed that your feet, which were in fact not actually feet, were rooted into a pile of dirt, not the plush carpet that surrounded your potted world. At least you are not a mushroom.

It was a sad day and the sadness has enveloped you like a haze of cigarette smoke from a 1920s movie. It will not, cannot leave you and with your small understanding of consciousness, you feel that you want to die.

But stay put (like you have a choice) my little fronded friend and hear what I have to say. There are still reasons to carry on and you can carry on despite the fact you need to re-equate with yourself. Transgender people do it all the time and not only do they survive, but they look damn good whilst doing it.

You have comfort. You are indoors. Don’t be a princess, or a prince or both at the same time. There is no pea under your pot and you are untouched by the elements, all warm and cozy or light and airy whilst your tougher counterparts are outside where plants actually belong. And they are generally better at being plants than you are.

You have provisions made for you. Everything you need is provided for you. Water, the occasional bought of Bachs soothing music, pun totally intended and you get to watch Dr Phil every weekday. Perhaps this is the real reason behind your depression. You don’t have to join in the embarrassingly coordinated rain dance with the other plants if the drought persists. Your water comes from a silver container with a spout on the end of it. Since your humans prefer the American Dr Phil over the American Ellen, you probably don’t know how to dance anyway.

You are safe. You have already lived through your involuntary transition from the nursery to the blue doored house in Dean Street. And despite the three year old grandson not being capable of keeping his mittens off you, you are safe.

You must think of others. You exist on a planet shared with other beings so your existence cannot be solitary in attitude. You must exist for the pleasures of others. And your primary reason for existing at the moment is to serve as the cats preferred litter box. There is no more a noble creature to serve. Also your humans paid good money to welcome you into their family so be grateful. 

Logistics. Have you actually thought about how a houseplant might kill themselves? I highly doubt you could hang yourself from the rafters, assuming your house has exposed beams. And that’s just the start of the problems with that scenario. You are an instinctual creature, void of any real reasoning powers so I doubt you could starve yourself to death even if you wanted to.

There is no more help for a suicidal houseplant other than this letter. There is no therapy available, there is no pill you can pop that will solve all your problems. The choice to live or die is entirely your own. But the consequences of your choice rests with those around you.

Make good choices,

Boy with too much time.