The Artificial Gardener

Here's an assignment that I wrote for English class.  I like it.  Enjoy!
Love,
Jozi

The Artificial Gardener

One of the odd activities I continually find myself partaking in is peeling the leaves off of artificial plants.  I take simple joy in the action.  Yet, I hardly believe that the word “fulfilling” is the correct term to describe the emotion caused by pruning a plastic plant, but rather the word “satisfying.”  Since, “fulfillment” comes from the feeling of having accomplished something, while, “satisfying” never has had such a connotation.  Therefore you are allowed to peel the leaves off of artificial plants for your own “satisfaction.”  “Satisfaction” being the word since no good is ever done to the plant.  The plant is usually left naked and marred, a victim to my sinister plots to inhibit its ability to perform polyester photosynthesis.

Thus, many artificial plants become the injured party to my “satisfaction.”  I feel it my duty to alleviate fake plants of their industrious mass-produced leaf-like burdens.  I have become quite beaver in my efforts to deforest my many polyurethane friends.  It’s a kind of schadenfreude that keeps me paring down such plants.  But when all is said and done, I look at my many victims, and have compassion on them.  They, unlike their less fictional cousins, are unable to grow back their tender foliage.  They are left tarnished, a martyr to my self-indulgence, and a monument of the many irreversible misdeeds of my life.    I am the gambler, playing an unwinnable game.  I am the addict, picking his poison.  I am the doctor, left to face his monster. I am the artificial gardener, whose harvest is nothing but regret and short-lived pleasure.