LIFE ON EARTH

Death

came and I spent the weekend in drawn blind mourning. After a short illness my fly trap 'Stephanie' is dead. She just sort of gave up. The intense heat of summer's first blast wilted her stems, then discolored her lovely green traps into a kind of horrible sickly yellow. I knew she was in trouble and I watered her like hell, but it was no use. I came home early from work on Friday [2.15 p.m.] but it was too late, she had gone.

Denial.

Exactly what are you supposed to do with a dead fly trap? Flush it down the toilet like a past tense gold fish. No! You can't bury it since it used to live its pathetic life stuck in dirt, and anyway, burying seems like an extreme sort of denial. I just can't actually believe she's dead Maybe if I keep watering her one of her seeds will take root, and there be a son of 'Stephanie' in a few weeks… Ah I'm kidding myself, I know it.

Depression

I miss her so much. The way she stood there waiting for me to water her. She always seemed so grateful for a drink, shuddering a little - like she was straining to say thanks. I really think our relationship was beginning to reach a higher plane, more tolerant of each others faults and habits, more… 'Understanding'. Oh 'Stephanie' I miss you so.

Acceptance

She's not coming back. I watered her dried-up fungus-ridden husk every 30 minutes all weekend. If she was not dead already, then I surely drowned her. Goodbye 'Stephanie', you've gone to the great florist in the sky.

Anger

Well I don't care! The fact is she was starting to annoy me anyway. During our six week affair she just stood there in her pot, not doing anything. Always so demanding. Wanting water and light, sprouting those stupid green leaf trap things without any nice petals or flowers. I didn't buy a weed, I bought a 'FREAKING' fly trap [never even looked like catching a fly, in fact I think she was actually scared of them, poor pathetic timid thing]. And now she's dead…BASTARD! And she used her last breath to grow some sort of fungus, which blew spores all over the place, which brought on a dreadful case of hay fever, causing me to express my grief in a rather unseemly medium of streams of tears and flying snot. The funeral I was deprived of, as the fungus consumed her all and there was nothing left to bury. BITCH!

Kmart

Bought a new fly trap - it's a boy, [I checked under his traps] whom I have named 'Stephen'. I've told him all about 'Stephanie', and he seems willing to cautiously proceed with a new plant/man relationship, on the clear understanding that my first love will always be television. But I promised him that he won't have to watch the pruning scenes on Burkes Backyard.