Gardener

These are some tumbleweeds that I've been growing for a long while now.

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They didn't start out like this. When I first planted them, they grew well, were lush and green, and people were impressed with their vitality. 'What great plants!' they cried. 'Let's have some more of them.' So I grew some more, and then some more - they couldn't get enough of them.

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For a long time my plants thrived, grew stronger, and life was good.

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I can't remember when people stopped admiring my plants - it didn't happen overnight - and I didn't understand because as far as I could see they were still the fresh, green, good stuff that they had always been.

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But little by little people stopped noticing how good and green they were.

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Some of the people even started growing their own plants - they weren't as strong or as vigorous as mine, but they were green and they were new, and most importantly they belonged to them, not me, which made them better in their dull eyes.

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There came a day that I noticed that my plants had started to brown. They'd begun to sicken and die. I fed them and tried to keep them green but they continued to wither - it was the poison around them I think.

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They are almost dead now. They can't live here.

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What little life left in them is ebbing fast.

Soon they'll be brittle and dry and the the wind will pick them up and carry them away. They'll roll across the desert, over and over, tumbling as tumbleweeds do until they come to a stop somewhere good where the sun shines and light rain falls, they'll be revived, grow green once more, put down roots and blossom - and when this happens I'll catch their sweet fragrance on the breeze.