The Very Dead Plant

I live in Ghent. I study. Furthermore, I share a hallway with three friends on the 4th floor. Room 401 is one of the biggest rooms. In that room there’s a plant. It’s probably very dead. It likes water.

My friend Ann is the plant owner. Here room is full of flowers, as she believes that the photosynthesis really affects her study energy. Normal people would drink a Red Bull, but she just wants her plants.

She did everything she could to save the plant. She gave it an enormous amount of water. I thought it drowned, but fortunately it didn’t. What a relief it was.

After this, we went to the shop to buy some vitamins. We bought a lot of it. Actually, we’ve spent more money than we could, because our salary was running low.

“What are you doing?” said the shopkeeper. He had a funny name, we read on his badge.

“Just buying some vitamins for our almost-dead-plant.”

“Almost dead? How so?”

“Well, he’s barely alive, so I think this means he’s probably dead,” An explained. She was clearly a bit irritated, I noticed, so I made sure we paid the shitload of money the shopkeeper Barry asked for.

So we walked out of the store, feeling like everybody in the street was watching me. Strangely enough, this seemed to confirm the f*ckton of money I’ve spent. We walked back to the dorm. We could have used the tram, but I don’t like trams. I never did. Trains however are –

“Dude, you’re thinking out loud again!” said Ann. She was clearly exhausted of walking this stupid hill, which seemed to be a mountain. Suddenly, she fell face-first on the ground. I was surprised. It wasn’t the first time she did this. She really is the attention whore of this sad town. I really thought she had lost all her teeth this time, but she didn’t. She scrambled back up.

“Should I help you?” I asked, rather surprised.

“Just get the damn vitamins, Alex. There isn’t any time left.” She had still a little dirt between her huge, proportionally disfigured teeth.

We climbed up to the dorm. Actually, that’s a lie, because we were too lazy to take the stairs. We took the elevator. We gave our very dead plant the damn vitamins. We drowned it again, called Ann’s grandmother, and waited for some days. I played chess with my roommate Étienne. He won, or at least he thinks he did. Ann fell again. Nothing serious happened, though, so don’t worry. Just when I was enjoying my meal and sipping my tea, I heard screaming out of the Ann’s room: “GOD BLESS THIS DAMN PLANT! IT’S ALIVE AGAIN!”

‘Why can’t anyone give me one f*cking moment for myself?’ I whispered, while I was still sipping my tea.

“Alex, look, It’s a-“

CLANG

Oh gosh, there it was, laying on the ground, our very dead plant.