RIP

Why? Just explain to me why and how and I promise I will shut up and move on - like I do with everything and anything that hits me. Growing up is a sobering experience to say the least - you just learn to turn the other cheek and wait for the next slap life will dish out to you - on a silver platter, of course.

To those of you who know me, you will recognise my fetish for cactus. I don't do anything to the buggers, but I love having them around me. Like me, they are low maintenance, sturdy and only poke you when you interfere with their personal space. And unlike me, someone able to adapt to any situation, and takes it personally when I let anyone down, one of my spiky friends called it a day. There was no official burial ceremony and it is now wrapped up in a plastic bag, awaiting its doom as I drop it into the garbage chute at the end of the hallway. And it deserves this and more for dying on me - just as I was thinking of what it's destiny would be when I pack up and leave to Bahrain.

I swear I have the capacity to jinx things just by thinking about them. Now, that is power. Sitting on my sofa, musing at my cactus collection (picture above), I was actually thinking what will happen when I leave to Bahrain. What will happen to my sturdy plants? Will I give them to a friend and blackmail her/him into taking care of them when I return to civilisation and resume a normal existence straight out of a catalogue book of surreal silliness, or is there a way to take them back with me? Why blackmail? Because that is what I do best. Whenever I leave on my trips/holidays, I leave my plants in the care of my room mate and ask him to look after them -- and should anything happen to them while I am away -- to consider that as a breach of trust and possibly a chance to reassess our entire relation. I mean, if a man cannot be trusted to care for cactus, should I trust him with my life?

And then .. after all this fuss, one of those spiky monsters caves in .. and dies. Just like that, and for no reason. I mean I hardly water them, I talk to them, they are in the sun and they have Froggy the frog for company. What more did they expect me to do? Pat their spikes?

Now one is dead and the monster with the orangish flower is sick. The rest are fine. But I am not sure I can trust them anymore. You see, in life, there is no 80% trust. No 90% trust. Just 100% trust. And they have let me down. One died. The other is sick. What will the rest do to me?

And my rosemary. It died too. I mean it is dry and withered and I haven't done anything to it either. But I don't care much for it. It is the cactus that have hurt me - mainly because I looked up to them and they have let me down.

My options now? I don't know. Perhaps a little kitty or a puppy? Don't know. It is a difficult choice to make.