It isn’t really a hobby, thumbing off the flower heads of annual potted plants in my neighbourhood. It’s more of a habit, borderline ideological. You know, like plucking your eyebrows or hiding your nipples. It’s just that they sit there all summer long, these flowers, without any roots to look forward to, useless when they aren’t being looked at by someone who can use them like a mirror. 

When I first moved into this neighbourhood, about eight months ago, I would walk delicately through these cozy idyllic pockets of urban life. I figured I had nothing to ask of the neighbourhood, nor it of me, and I had this nagging suspicion it liked it that way. Well, fine, works for me. I can rent a few square feet of it while having no impact on anything except my smoke alarm, who howls a joyful greeting to my toaster each morning. 

It took four months of this truly unimpactful kind of living before my pores started leaking resentment. And in a basement apartment you really do have to watch out for that sort of thing. I’ve always had a fear of mold—I just hate things that grow in secret—so I bought a dehumidifier and emptied it down the bathtub drain every morning. 

At first, in the fifth month, my games were totally unobtrusive. I would stay in my own head, surreptitiously sizing up the humans around me through innocent games like, “Renter or Homeowner?”, “Cheater or Cheated?”, and sometimes “Least Likely to Murder Cat.” These games were great, like vegan ice cream or porn, technically getting me there while leaving a dissatisfaction I couldn’t quite name.

And, remember, all of this was against a scenic backdrop of overpriced flowerpots eking out a few months of dutiful colour while their roots curled listlessly against prison walls. 

I dislike most people, okay, sure, I just honestly had never thought much about their lawns. But then last month I witnessed my mentor, a dopey chocolate lab called Erica—it was our first and only encounter—defecate stubbornly on a private patch of well-kept grass, the mess exacerbated by her Lulu-clad owner desperately dragging her across the lawn while the 19^th century cottage-core single-family home above them rose to the occasion. You know the kind I’m talking about? All storybook bricks with hidden security cameras in the English ivy? It’s that personality type who would…well, just imagine a crossing guard on the first day of school, a father whose daughter might be in danger, or a werewolf at the full moon. Right? Called to action. So, of course, when Erica’s butt started fertilizing away, I could almost immediately hear sound waves shredding the screen of the south-facing third-floor window: 

FARRR DE HARRRRK you son of a nittlewat wal me dar, your endless throopamore when I get JUST WAIT just ROT ANIMAL SCUM gimme just just nefarious barbarious noplace noplace rifteraminous ROADKILL WAITING TO oh yes we would, decidedly, YES deservedly, oh DESERVEDLY DESERVEDLY!!!!!!!!!

I made eye contact with Erica while the sound waves wafted over our bodies, delicious pinpricks of osmotic sensation. Erica sat staring out across the street while her human got out a performatively apologetic number of bags. She had a majestically unaffected stare. Sometimes, while navigating a 5pm grocery store or editing my dating app profile, I try to breathe in that stare. Breathe in Erica, two, three, four and out—well, you know what? When I do that, I am not sure what exactly I am breathing out. Which, now that I think about it, might be exactly what Erica was teaching me. 

The fragile purple petals didn’t put up much of a fight in late August, not that they ever did. If they had fought, they would have earned my respect. I would have known they had something to fight for. I might have wanted to be neighbours with them. I might not have wanted to go hunting through garbage bins for those telltale green baggies and I might not have been compelled to smear their contents everywhere. I might not have gotten such a kick out of the canine-ecstasy and homo sapien-devastation that tore through our block the next morning, ripping apart the careful balance we take for granted. But the thing is, I’ll want to do it again because it’s just those damn petals, you know? Their limp acquiescence tells me everything. They don’t want to be here, having their bodies usurped, offering the pretense of an ecosystem to the peppy green stubble surrounding them. 

So I behead them, like we are on the same side.

Does that answer your question?

Morgan Brie Johnson (she/her) is an award-winning playwright, performer, researcher, and theatre creator. She lives in Tkaronto where she is co-artistic leader of Animacy Theatre Collective, a physical theatre collective dedicated to strange, ecological, and feminist storytelling (www.animacytheatrecollective.com). She holds a PhD and Masters from York University and her short fiction can be found in several literary magazines, most recently Citron Review and Maudlin House.