Cactus. It was a proud cactus that weathered the storms of the desert. It held it’s head very high. But couldn’t move and was not stronger than the birds that dug their nests into its side.
david
A plant when eaten will give one the ability to cackle. It does not give one magical powers, only the ability to sound like a witch.
Samantha
Cactus are prickly. Standing errect, towering over, protective of us. Green. Forkish. Small plants,succulant. Desert. Absorbant of water and all worries.
cactuses, NOPE. CACTI AS IT HAPPENS. cacti are full of water and that is helpful in desserts because you’re thirsty. NOPE. DESERTS. the desert is full of mysteriously spelled words. and poisonous animals.
zack
the other night I watched a special on food network where someone had to use cactus in her meal, and she turned it into sorbet, and apparently, it was the best thing the judges tasted. I wonder what it tasted like, because it was really brightly colored, so it must have had strong flavor.
Cactus’s are thorny and dry plants. They only need to be watered every once in awhile. I do not like cactus’s because of their thorns, and they are very pretty. Those that bloom flowers are nice to look at though. How I would rather have lilies than any old cactus. I just do not see what the purpose of a cactus is, however, some people find them pretty. I think that out of plants they are by far the ugliest.
Gidget
Prickly, he was. Incredibly hard to take. Bumping into him in the hallways was nearly fatal, his stabbing glances always causing her distress. And he seemed to thrive in the worse, most inhospitable situations. Yet something about him pulled her in because despite his callous, destructive exterior, his magnificent ideas always managed to bear fruit.
Elise P.
There once was a cactus.. so wild and free. And I loved it until the day it left me. Into a new home it went, into a new care it was spent. Poor cactus. They killed you. Now you are mush :(
Belinda
Cacti are spiny little creatures, aren’t they? Although many of them are humongous, in my part of the world we usually only see the small ones, lined up in pots at the garden center or at the flower shop at the supermarket, looking like alien beings among the leafy plants and blooming flowers.
spitzer grüner mann mit hut tut keinen gut. sitz dich nicht drauf sonst fährst du auf mit einem schrei. o wei.
Nana
Cactus is one of my favorite plants for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons I like cactus is because it doesn’t require a lot of water. I like a plant that won’t die because I neglected to water it for the day. Most plants die on my clock because I truly don’t have a green thumb. I also like cactus because they have unique shapes and sometimes the colors are so vibrant. From what I understand, you can eat cactus and drink unique beverages created from cacti.
chris clementi
In a dry desert town, there once was a lone cactus standing with purpose. As if it was placed on that desert to accomplish a mission. If it had one thing to do before it perished, it was to complete that mission.
But he knew it was impossible…for he was just a lonely cactus.
imcompres
Cactus is a unique plant that can survive with little water. I don’t have a green thumb so I really like cactus because they don’t die on my clock. I love cactus be
chris clementi
There was something about the place that made it feel unsafe. No. No, everything about the place made it feel unsafe. I knew I needed to get away. Everything from the stink of alcohol and cigarette, to the prickly green plant on the window sill. I wasn’t safe. No one was safe here. I had to get out. And more importantly I had to get him out.
The bright sunset shown down on the dry desert landscape. the only plants sprouting upwards towards the sky were the tall cactus plants along the desert lands. they rose up and were spread along the hills and valleys and looked like little people with their hands raised to the sky and the sun in prayer.
j.renee
The space ship landed in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was high noon and no human was around for miles. The landing ramp emerged from the portal on tne saucer’s underside. The cactus people from Aridor Prime were about to make first contact with their Terran counterparts, who were unfortunately drunk on Tequila and not very sentient.
the cactus is pretty in a window but can sting you if youre not careful. therefore place it in a good spot.
robin
The cactus is essentially the strangest plant.
With its life in an almost unlivable environment and its painful but effective defense mechanism and its storage of water behind the points.
The cactus is essentially a boss.
The air smelt like pine-sol and cactus juice, sharp and beautiful with the sun’s last rays. This wouldn’t be the last summer in the world, now would it?
If anyone thinks I’m going to stick a piece of cactus in my mouth they can shoot me now – and shoot my horse too! That barkeep back at Sasparilla Flats don’t know dick about how to make a drink. Just give me a whiskey. Now.
Nancy
She was wrong to think of it as barren, for even in the dust and dryness she found that life chose to thrive. She would call her son Saguaro, after the cactus, to pay homage to his will to survive.
Frank and Ted stared at each other over their half-pints of beer. Frank had insisted, not too much booze, as they had a job to do tonight.
“Priceless, you say?” said Ted.
“That’s right – Ming – ancient. A million years, or something like that.”
“But surely something like that is going to be looked after, isn’t it?”
“Nah – this is the thing, right? It’s New Year’s Eve – I’ve got it on very good authority, someone who knows someone, if you get my drift, that for a quarter of an hour tonight, the security guards will be upstairs joining in the celebrations. They’re of the opinion that no one would be callous enough to break in at such a time of festivity…”
“Little do they know, eh?”
“Little indeed, my friend” and they chuckled to each other in a gravelly, smoker-induced half-coughlaugh. “Time to go.”
Half an hour later, at 11.30, they were in a blue van parked at the end of the alleyway they would be carefully negotiating in a few minutes’ time. They watched as the lights went out on the ground floor, and the stairwell lights came on. The guards had evidently decided to leave a little earlier. This was too good to be true. Talk of new beginnings – a priceless ming vase would certainly bring that for old Frank and Ted. Two decades of ‘jobs’ had brought them a miserable income, muted success as valuable artefacts had been undersold to private buyers, their own misunderstanding of the markets to blame, and naiivety for the good word of bad men.
Almost blindly, they m,ade their way down the pitch black alleyway. No light crept in from the surrounding streets, and with cameras watching the alleyway, they couldn’t afford to light even a cigarette. They had heard about new light-sensitive cameras that could trigger an alarm at the very sight of the unusual.
They didn’t know, however, about the infrared cameras that were also installed. These tapes would later come to light in the footage presented at court just three days later, when Frank and Ted would receive a sentence from both the judge, and from the media, the former a fairly light one, and the latter a fairly harsh one, mainly for their stupidity.
Frank reached the end of the alleyway first, and almost immediately yelped as he groped against something sharp, and painful.
“What the hell is that!” he cried.
“Shut up!” hissed Ted. Briefly, they were silent again, Frank clutching his hand in an invisible agony and Ted rummaging his way amongst old cardboard boxes and dustbins.
A raucous laugh emanated from the upstairs floor of the building, which covered a brief clatter as Ted send a dustbin lid clanging to the ground. Their teeth were on edge. They hadn’t done anything illegal – yet – but this wasn’t helping. The laughter died down, and quiet resumed in the alleyway.
“Is this the door?” asked Ted.
“Yes” replied Frank, “But be careful of the…”
Too late, Ted, reaching forward, yelped as loudly as Frank had and jumped back clutching his forearm. Again, there was laughter from upstairs which they were glad had drowned their own noisemaking.
“I told you…”
“Shut up! What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s bloody painful.”
“We’ll need to shift it to get inside.” Ted reached into his jacket, and pulled out a cheap lighter, and under the shade of his hand, rolled the flint.
Before them, was the mother of all pot plants – a six foot cactus, as thick as your waist, and probably as heavy as a man. Carefully, Ted leant through the spikes, and prodded it. It was as solid as a tree.
“This is not going to be easy. Is the door locked as well?” Frank replied that it was, and the two stood in puzzled, flamelit silence until the lighter scorched Ted’s hand. For a moment, all was dark.
“We have got our lock picks, haven’t we?”
More silence.
“I’ve got it!”
“Not so loud!” whispered Frank.
“Sorry. No, I’ve got it – we could use one of the spikes as a lockpick.”
All was still silent upstairs. With the lighter as his guide, Frank picked out the choicest two spikes he could find, broke them off with an audible snap, and in the gap that remained, tried to fiddle the lock open with one of them. It broke off, unfortunately leaving the rest of the spike in the lock itself.
“Well, that didn’t work. I thought you said this would be easy? You didn’t say nothing about some daft plant guarding the place.”
More puzzlement in the dark starlight. Time was pressing on, and only ten minutes remained for them to complete their evening’s task.
“You ever heard of a bed of nails?” asked Ted.
“Yeah – something thos fellas in India do, isn’t it?” replied Frank, wondering quite where this conversation was going. It seemed a random point to bring up.
“Well, I got an idea. We could use this cactus – if we could both lift it, the pressure, dispersed like, we could use it as a battering ram. It’s solid, just feel.”
“Lift it? Are you insane? That thing’s bloody painful.” snapped Frank.
“Yeah, but if you disperse the pressure, like a bed of nails, it doesn’t pierce your skin. Like those fellas in India.”
“Ohhh yeeeahhhh….” Frank said aloud to himself, the concept of using a cactus as a battering ram slowly becoming a valid one in his mind.
“Let’s get to it” said Ted, and in the darkness to which their eyes were gradually becoming accustomed, they arranged themselves to pick up this enormous pot plant by one tipping it over, and the other supporting it on the way down.
It was a painful business, despite Ted’s promises, and by the time they were arranged, several spikes were protruding deeply into both their arms. Just think of the money, Frank had said. New beginnings they could have.
More laughter came from the upstairs rooms, and at this point, they both made a charge for the door, instantly aware of the cover it would provide for the noise they were about to make. They had given themselves a good run up, and the laughter grew as they ran up to the door.
Three days later, the judge passed down to them a relatively light eight weeks suspended prison sentence. The two men were looking worse for wear – their faces and hands covered in pockmarks of needles, and in Frank, two needles were still stuck fast in his flesh. They would have to work their own way out, the doctor had said. They were just lucky if they didn’t come down with an infection given the number of wounds.
It transpired that they were not aware of two important things. First of all, that their ‘tip-off’ had been a fake. The guards in the building knew of Frank and Ted’s reputation, and had managed to pass on a ‘secret’ about the guards leaving the post. There was no Ming Vase. In fact, it wasn’t a place with anything of any value to them at all – it was simply a storehouse for plants. And at that time, it had been filled in the downstairs basement with desert plants, in particular, large cacti. And for good measure, the guards had stacked them close up to the door.
Second, when Frank and Ted came to charge the door, they did not actually bother to check beforehand, whether the door was actually open. Since it was open, when they came to charge it, it only took a mild push for it to be flung open and they carried on charging right into the wall of upright giant cacti in front of them.
It was an ugly sight, but all, for their misfortune, caught on the infra-red cameras in the alleyway, which were, as it happened, monitored from the upstairs room. The guards knew of Frank and Ted’s rashness when it came to radical solutions to problems, and had invited a lot of their friends around to the uilding to enjoy the anticipated practical joke on film as it happened. Frank and Ted had not failed to please the crowd, their laughter inadvertently helping to keep the joke moving along.
They avoided jail, but they hadn’t avoided the teasing by the media. Now, with their faces well known to the public and security guards everywhere in London, there was little chance of any further jobs for a long time to come. On the upside, the internet video of their escapades was viewed four million times. So they were famous. But not for the reasons they hoped for, nor with the wealth to accompany it.
Frank had a narrow escape from an early grave after his cac tus-induced wounds turned septic, and determined to make a new go of things, he found work as an apprentice carpenter.
Ted, in a move with no small sense of irony, opened a gardening nursery.
it lives in the desert. it is a pointy plant. it doesn’t need a lot of water. it hurts when u touch it.
DoodiZ
A cactus is spikey, green, is naturally in the desert, can be used as a house plant, is prone to poking people if they attempt to touch it, its spikes are supposed to defend against predators however some animals still manage to drink out of it.
Paige
Cackling the cactus beat in this freezing heat, she expresses her scorn.
Prickly, she stood tall. Any one who dared to brush past her, or touch her would be cut. She liked that. Until one day, a man came along, and cut her down. He didn’t use his hands, so he never felt a thing.
the cactus once stood tall, strong as the arms of my father but was now turning brown, there wasn’t enough rain this summer to even keep this barren plant alive. i wandered by slowly, reaching out to pull a spike off the body of the cactus
eloise
It was one of those well known supposed survival facts that cacti had plenty of water in them. Cath eyed the cactus, the layer upon layer of impassable needles, and swallowed fruitlessly. She didn’t know exactly how long it had been since she had drank anything, but she was at the point of faintness. She could’ve come prepared, everyone she knew would have come better prepared than she had; a slow sinking feeling overcame her as she realised, the longer she peered at the cactus, that it was this or nothing.
She scrabbled desperately around in her pockets, came across a key. She knelt down before the cactus, scratching forward with the key, trying to use her elbow to find a route in that avoided the spikes. And with a satisfying popping sound, she pierced the flesh with the tip of the key, licking her trembling lips as she did so…
“Ms Watson? Would you like to come… erm, through?”
Cath jumped away from the cactus, letting out a yelp of surprise as a spike caught her, and looked up quickly at the waiting receptionist, becoming aware of others flitting through the lobby. She tried to fight the crimson rushing up her cheeks, before commenting calmly “Of course”, taking a moment to reach down to grab a hunk of the cactus.
a big, spiky, green plant found pretty much any where in the world, though more common in desserts/hot climates. They’re spiky and if you touch them they’ll pretty much make your hands bleed. :P
Steph
Prickly giant poking holes in the sky until it can no longer hold back and the silver gray sieve yields with a slight shutter and shake. A fleeting rainbow brightens the desert.
tfalcone
Spikey palnt that should never be sat on, even in the nude. Oh and it has water in it and is commonly found in the desert. My sister had one and it poked me. Several times. They have flowers too sometimes and animals can carve holes and live in them. Only some animals. not humans.
Becca
I’ve never seen big cactus, just the little ones you can buy in a store. I’ve never been to Arizona but would love to go west. See big cactus, see deserts, see the rest of the world outside of Georgia.
Jennifer
Robin came home with the new tree. He had spent four hours, driving round town, but like Joseph and Mary, he found nothing. Wherever he arrived, they had just sold the last one.
He had had to rationalise – Christmas trees were six feet high, spikey, and shed needles. You needed to be able to hang decorations from them, and stick an angel on the top.
Robin had never been the most artistic of people, not the most creative. But as he drove into the final Homes and Gardens Store, he would have to get something, anything, to keep the children happy.
And so it was that the family celebrated unwrapping their Christmas presents under the watchful gaze of a giant seven foot Saguaro cactus from Mexico. Decorating was both easier, and more painful than before. Decorations could simply be pinned to it, with care, until complete with tinsel, it had the appearance of a debutante coming out at a royal flower show. The angel on the top clearly had the most painful experience of all, something mirrored by the dog who was considerably less reluctant to take the risk of weeing against its side after a first abortive attempt.
And at least the needles did, for the most part, stay on. Except for four of them – at least, Robin had discovered the fourth while walking barefoot across the carpet later in July the following year.
The only problem remained that of removing the decorations – not at all easy, since in the warmth of the fireside place it held, the slow-growing cactus had experienced a spurt, so now the decorations were protected by an additional inch of spines, something Robin tried to turn to a positive by emphasising that the children could now enjoy Christmas every day, or at the very least, be less interested in it the next year so they might save on having to make so much of an effort next time.
The Saguaro Christmas never took off as a fashion elsewhere, though it did make the local news, when it was discovered this bizarre family was celebrating Christmas in August, with a giant cactus.
In September, returning from work to an empty house, Robin found a window smashed as he approached the front door, which was also ajar.
He rushed in, fearing the worst. Strangely, nothing was missing. He ran through the house, his worry palpable, but eventually, he relaxed. nothing was gone.
Except the cactus. In its place, was a note from the Mexican Society for the Liberation of Desert Trees – not a particularly well-staffed operation – who had burgled his tree to free it back into the wild. And shame on him for capturing the cactus in the first place.
The children were heartbroken, it felt like a family member had gone, the remaining memory of its time with them being occasional clutches of pain as they retrieved yet another fallen spine as they walked barefoot across the carpet before bed.
There was nothing friendly about it, it was hard, prickly, green. But it fitted in perfectly. There was nothing friendly about him. There was nothing friendly about this entire house. I knew I had to get away. Who had cacti rahter than flowers? Seriously. And that wasn’t the only thing that made me feel unsafe
Josie
Cactus
I thought this word was a repeat since I wrote about cactus yesterday. But yesterday’s word was desert!
NOW what do I write about cactus?
I remember a someone being disappointed when I pointed out that the little cactus in a pot that a friend had brought them from a recent trip, wasn’t real at all. The main cactus part was real, but all the little flowers on it were glued on.
Sometimes I should probably be less observant.
Noisy Quiet
A cactus grows one inch per year so a 60 inch cactus is 60 years old. Cool
Dale
I never owned a cactus, well, maybe once years ago, but I’ve known my share of prickly people. You have to decide if it’s worth getting closer to them because there’s an element of danger about them–is there a softer inside that is precious.
Robin
It is one of those plants that I do not care much about. The mere appearance of the cactus plant in my gallery, cause me to wish that I had say no to my neighbor’s request to keep it until she return from her visit overseas.
victor walkes
Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve just written, but about a cactus? Where’d my imagination go?
In the desert water runs and runs but it doesn’t let itself be seen, this plant’s roots are like the eyes of the desert they see water when it isn’t there it is the realisation of mirages and the storer of greatness and life, life in adversity. Achievement is overcoming and overcoming factors is evolution and evolution is progress. Life.
Cactus. It was a proud cactus that weathered the storms of the desert. It held it’s head very high. But couldn’t move and was not stronger than the birds that dug their nests into its side.
A plant when eaten will give one the ability to cackle. It does not give one magical powers, only the ability to sound like a witch.
Cactus are prickly. Standing errect, towering over, protective of us. Green. Forkish. Small plants,succulant. Desert. Absorbant of water and all worries.
cactuses, NOPE. CACTI AS IT HAPPENS. cacti are full of water and that is helpful in desserts because you’re thirsty. NOPE. DESERTS. the desert is full of mysteriously spelled words. and poisonous animals.
the other night I watched a special on food network where someone had to use cactus in her meal, and she turned it into sorbet, and apparently, it was the best thing the judges tasted. I wonder what it tasted like, because it was really brightly colored, so it must have had strong flavor.
Cactus’s are thorny and dry plants. They only need to be watered every once in awhile. I do not like cactus’s because of their thorns, and they are very pretty. Those that bloom flowers are nice to look at though. How I would rather have lilies than any old cactus. I just do not see what the purpose of a cactus is, however, some people find them pretty. I think that out of plants they are by far the ugliest.
Prickly, he was. Incredibly hard to take. Bumping into him in the hallways was nearly fatal, his stabbing glances always causing her distress. And he seemed to thrive in the worse, most inhospitable situations. Yet something about him pulled her in because despite his callous, destructive exterior, his magnificent ideas always managed to bear fruit.
There once was a cactus.. so wild and free. And I loved it until the day it left me. Into a new home it went, into a new care it was spent. Poor cactus. They killed you. Now you are mush :(
Cacti are spiny little creatures, aren’t they? Although many of them are humongous, in my part of the world we usually only see the small ones, lined up in pots at the garden center or at the flower shop at the supermarket, looking like alien beings among the leafy plants and blooming flowers.
spitzer grüner mann mit hut tut keinen gut. sitz dich nicht drauf sonst fährst du auf mit einem schrei. o wei.
Cactus is one of my favorite plants for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons I like cactus is because it doesn’t require a lot of water. I like a plant that won’t die because I neglected to water it for the day. Most plants die on my clock because I truly don’t have a green thumb. I also like cactus because they have unique shapes and sometimes the colors are so vibrant. From what I understand, you can eat cactus and drink unique beverages created from cacti.
In a dry desert town, there once was a lone cactus standing with purpose. As if it was placed on that desert to accomplish a mission. If it had one thing to do before it perished, it was to complete that mission.
But he knew it was impossible…for he was just a lonely cactus.
Cactus is a unique plant that can survive with little water. I don’t have a green thumb so I really like cactus because they don’t die on my clock. I love cactus be
There was something about the place that made it feel unsafe. No. No, everything about the place made it feel unsafe. I knew I needed to get away. Everything from the stink of alcohol and cigarette, to the prickly green plant on the window sill. I wasn’t safe. No one was safe here. I had to get out. And more importantly I had to get him out.
The bright sunset shown down on the dry desert landscape. the only plants sprouting upwards towards the sky were the tall cactus plants along the desert lands. they rose up and were spread along the hills and valleys and looked like little people with their hands raised to the sky and the sun in prayer.
The space ship landed in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was high noon and no human was around for miles. The landing ramp emerged from the portal on tne saucer’s underside. The cactus people from Aridor Prime were about to make first contact with their Terran counterparts, who were unfortunately drunk on Tequila and not very sentient.
the cactus is pretty in a window but can sting you if youre not careful. therefore place it in a good spot.
The cactus is essentially the strangest plant.
With its life in an almost unlivable environment and its painful but effective defense mechanism and its storage of water behind the points.
The cactus is essentially a boss.
“Will you remember this, when I leave?”
“No, probably not.”
“I will.”
“Oh. Well. Maybe I will.”
The air smelt like pine-sol and cactus juice, sharp and beautiful with the sun’s last rays. This wouldn’t be the last summer in the world, now would it?
If anyone thinks I’m going to stick a piece of cactus in my mouth they can shoot me now – and shoot my horse too! That barkeep back at Sasparilla Flats don’t know dick about how to make a drink. Just give me a whiskey. Now.
She was wrong to think of it as barren, for even in the dust and dryness she found that life chose to thrive. She would call her son Saguaro, after the cactus, to pay homage to his will to survive.
Frank and Ted stared at each other over their half-pints of beer. Frank had insisted, not too much booze, as they had a job to do tonight.
“Priceless, you say?” said Ted.
“That’s right – Ming – ancient. A million years, or something like that.”
“But surely something like that is going to be looked after, isn’t it?”
“Nah – this is the thing, right? It’s New Year’s Eve – I’ve got it on very good authority, someone who knows someone, if you get my drift, that for a quarter of an hour tonight, the security guards will be upstairs joining in the celebrations. They’re of the opinion that no one would be callous enough to break in at such a time of festivity…”
“Little do they know, eh?”
“Little indeed, my friend” and they chuckled to each other in a gravelly, smoker-induced half-coughlaugh. “Time to go.”
Half an hour later, at 11.30, they were in a blue van parked at the end of the alleyway they would be carefully negotiating in a few minutes’ time. They watched as the lights went out on the ground floor, and the stairwell lights came on. The guards had evidently decided to leave a little earlier. This was too good to be true. Talk of new beginnings – a priceless ming vase would certainly bring that for old Frank and Ted. Two decades of ‘jobs’ had brought them a miserable income, muted success as valuable artefacts had been undersold to private buyers, their own misunderstanding of the markets to blame, and naiivety for the good word of bad men.
Almost blindly, they m,ade their way down the pitch black alleyway. No light crept in from the surrounding streets, and with cameras watching the alleyway, they couldn’t afford to light even a cigarette. They had heard about new light-sensitive cameras that could trigger an alarm at the very sight of the unusual.
They didn’t know, however, about the infrared cameras that were also installed. These tapes would later come to light in the footage presented at court just three days later, when Frank and Ted would receive a sentence from both the judge, and from the media, the former a fairly light one, and the latter a fairly harsh one, mainly for their stupidity.
Frank reached the end of the alleyway first, and almost immediately yelped as he groped against something sharp, and painful.
“What the hell is that!” he cried.
“Shut up!” hissed Ted. Briefly, they were silent again, Frank clutching his hand in an invisible agony and Ted rummaging his way amongst old cardboard boxes and dustbins.
A raucous laugh emanated from the upstairs floor of the building, which covered a brief clatter as Ted send a dustbin lid clanging to the ground. Their teeth were on edge. They hadn’t done anything illegal – yet – but this wasn’t helping. The laughter died down, and quiet resumed in the alleyway.
“Is this the door?” asked Ted.
“Yes” replied Frank, “But be careful of the…”
Too late, Ted, reaching forward, yelped as loudly as Frank had and jumped back clutching his forearm. Again, there was laughter from upstairs which they were glad had drowned their own noisemaking.
“I told you…”
“Shut up! What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s bloody painful.”
“We’ll need to shift it to get inside.” Ted reached into his jacket, and pulled out a cheap lighter, and under the shade of his hand, rolled the flint.
Before them, was the mother of all pot plants – a six foot cactus, as thick as your waist, and probably as heavy as a man. Carefully, Ted leant through the spikes, and prodded it. It was as solid as a tree.
“This is not going to be easy. Is the door locked as well?” Frank replied that it was, and the two stood in puzzled, flamelit silence until the lighter scorched Ted’s hand. For a moment, all was dark.
“We have got our lock picks, haven’t we?”
More silence.
“I’ve got it!”
“Not so loud!” whispered Frank.
“Sorry. No, I’ve got it – we could use one of the spikes as a lockpick.”
All was still silent upstairs. With the lighter as his guide, Frank picked out the choicest two spikes he could find, broke them off with an audible snap, and in the gap that remained, tried to fiddle the lock open with one of them. It broke off, unfortunately leaving the rest of the spike in the lock itself.
“Well, that didn’t work. I thought you said this would be easy? You didn’t say nothing about some daft plant guarding the place.”
More puzzlement in the dark starlight. Time was pressing on, and only ten minutes remained for them to complete their evening’s task.
“You ever heard of a bed of nails?” asked Ted.
“Yeah – something thos fellas in India do, isn’t it?” replied Frank, wondering quite where this conversation was going. It seemed a random point to bring up.
“Well, I got an idea. We could use this cactus – if we could both lift it, the pressure, dispersed like, we could use it as a battering ram. It’s solid, just feel.”
“Lift it? Are you insane? That thing’s bloody painful.” snapped Frank.
“Yeah, but if you disperse the pressure, like a bed of nails, it doesn’t pierce your skin. Like those fellas in India.”
“Ohhh yeeeahhhh….” Frank said aloud to himself, the concept of using a cactus as a battering ram slowly becoming a valid one in his mind.
“Let’s get to it” said Ted, and in the darkness to which their eyes were gradually becoming accustomed, they arranged themselves to pick up this enormous pot plant by one tipping it over, and the other supporting it on the way down.
It was a painful business, despite Ted’s promises, and by the time they were arranged, several spikes were protruding deeply into both their arms. Just think of the money, Frank had said. New beginnings they could have.
More laughter came from the upstairs rooms, and at this point, they both made a charge for the door, instantly aware of the cover it would provide for the noise they were about to make. They had given themselves a good run up, and the laughter grew as they ran up to the door.
Three days later, the judge passed down to them a relatively light eight weeks suspended prison sentence. The two men were looking worse for wear – their faces and hands covered in pockmarks of needles, and in Frank, two needles were still stuck fast in his flesh. They would have to work their own way out, the doctor had said. They were just lucky if they didn’t come down with an infection given the number of wounds.
It transpired that they were not aware of two important things. First of all, that their ‘tip-off’ had been a fake. The guards in the building knew of Frank and Ted’s reputation, and had managed to pass on a ‘secret’ about the guards leaving the post. There was no Ming Vase. In fact, it wasn’t a place with anything of any value to them at all – it was simply a storehouse for plants. And at that time, it had been filled in the downstairs basement with desert plants, in particular, large cacti. And for good measure, the guards had stacked them close up to the door.
Second, when Frank and Ted came to charge the door, they did not actually bother to check beforehand, whether the door was actually open. Since it was open, when they came to charge it, it only took a mild push for it to be flung open and they carried on charging right into the wall of upright giant cacti in front of them.
It was an ugly sight, but all, for their misfortune, caught on the infra-red cameras in the alleyway, which were, as it happened, monitored from the upstairs room. The guards knew of Frank and Ted’s rashness when it came to radical solutions to problems, and had invited a lot of their friends around to the uilding to enjoy the anticipated practical joke on film as it happened. Frank and Ted had not failed to please the crowd, their laughter inadvertently helping to keep the joke moving along.
They avoided jail, but they hadn’t avoided the teasing by the media. Now, with their faces well known to the public and security guards everywhere in London, there was little chance of any further jobs for a long time to come. On the upside, the internet video of their escapades was viewed four million times. So they were famous. But not for the reasons they hoped for, nor with the wealth to accompany it.
Frank had a narrow escape from an early grave after his cac tus-induced wounds turned septic, and determined to make a new go of things, he found work as an apprentice carpenter.
Ted, in a move with no small sense of irony, opened a gardening nursery.
it lives in the desert. it is a pointy plant. it doesn’t need a lot of water. it hurts when u touch it.
A cactus is spikey, green, is naturally in the desert, can be used as a house plant, is prone to poking people if they attempt to touch it, its spikes are supposed to defend against predators however some animals still manage to drink out of it.
Cackling the cactus beat in this freezing heat, she expresses her scorn.
Prickly, she stood tall. Any one who dared to brush past her, or touch her would be cut. She liked that. Until one day, a man came along, and cut her down. He didn’t use his hands, so he never felt a thing.
the cactus once stood tall, strong as the arms of my father but was now turning brown, there wasn’t enough rain this summer to even keep this barren plant alive. i wandered by slowly, reaching out to pull a spike off the body of the cactus
It was one of those well known supposed survival facts that cacti had plenty of water in them. Cath eyed the cactus, the layer upon layer of impassable needles, and swallowed fruitlessly. She didn’t know exactly how long it had been since she had drank anything, but she was at the point of faintness. She could’ve come prepared, everyone she knew would have come better prepared than she had; a slow sinking feeling overcame her as she realised, the longer she peered at the cactus, that it was this or nothing.
She scrabbled desperately around in her pockets, came across a key. She knelt down before the cactus, scratching forward with the key, trying to use her elbow to find a route in that avoided the spikes. And with a satisfying popping sound, she pierced the flesh with the tip of the key, licking her trembling lips as she did so…
“Ms Watson? Would you like to come… erm, through?”
Cath jumped away from the cactus, letting out a yelp of surprise as a spike caught her, and looked up quickly at the waiting receptionist, becoming aware of others flitting through the lobby. She tried to fight the crimson rushing up her cheeks, before commenting calmly “Of course”, taking a moment to reach down to grab a hunk of the cactus.
a big, spiky, green plant found pretty much any where in the world, though more common in desserts/hot climates. They’re spiky and if you touch them they’ll pretty much make your hands bleed. :P
Prickly giant poking holes in the sky until it can no longer hold back and the silver gray sieve yields with a slight shutter and shake. A fleeting rainbow brightens the desert.
Spikey palnt that should never be sat on, even in the nude. Oh and it has water in it and is commonly found in the desert. My sister had one and it poked me. Several times. They have flowers too sometimes and animals can carve holes and live in them. Only some animals. not humans.
I’ve never seen big cactus, just the little ones you can buy in a store. I’ve never been to Arizona but would love to go west. See big cactus, see deserts, see the rest of the world outside of Georgia.
Robin came home with the new tree. He had spent four hours, driving round town, but like Joseph and Mary, he found nothing. Wherever he arrived, they had just sold the last one.
He had had to rationalise – Christmas trees were six feet high, spikey, and shed needles. You needed to be able to hang decorations from them, and stick an angel on the top.
Robin had never been the most artistic of people, not the most creative. But as he drove into the final Homes and Gardens Store, he would have to get something, anything, to keep the children happy.
And so it was that the family celebrated unwrapping their Christmas presents under the watchful gaze of a giant seven foot Saguaro cactus from Mexico. Decorating was both easier, and more painful than before. Decorations could simply be pinned to it, with care, until complete with tinsel, it had the appearance of a debutante coming out at a royal flower show. The angel on the top clearly had the most painful experience of all, something mirrored by the dog who was considerably less reluctant to take the risk of weeing against its side after a first abortive attempt.
And at least the needles did, for the most part, stay on. Except for four of them – at least, Robin had discovered the fourth while walking barefoot across the carpet later in July the following year.
The only problem remained that of removing the decorations – not at all easy, since in the warmth of the fireside place it held, the slow-growing cactus had experienced a spurt, so now the decorations were protected by an additional inch of spines, something Robin tried to turn to a positive by emphasising that the children could now enjoy Christmas every day, or at the very least, be less interested in it the next year so they might save on having to make so much of an effort next time.
The Saguaro Christmas never took off as a fashion elsewhere, though it did make the local news, when it was discovered this bizarre family was celebrating Christmas in August, with a giant cactus.
In September, returning from work to an empty house, Robin found a window smashed as he approached the front door, which was also ajar.
He rushed in, fearing the worst. Strangely, nothing was missing. He ran through the house, his worry palpable, but eventually, he relaxed. nothing was gone.
Except the cactus. In its place, was a note from the Mexican Society for the Liberation of Desert Trees – not a particularly well-staffed operation – who had burgled his tree to free it back into the wild. And shame on him for capturing the cactus in the first place.
The children were heartbroken, it felt like a family member had gone, the remaining memory of its time with them being occasional clutches of pain as they retrieved yet another fallen spine as they walked barefoot across the carpet before bed.
There was nothing friendly about it, it was hard, prickly, green. But it fitted in perfectly. There was nothing friendly about him. There was nothing friendly about this entire house. I knew I had to get away. Who had cacti rahter than flowers? Seriously. And that wasn’t the only thing that made me feel unsafe
Cactus
I thought this word was a repeat since I wrote about cactus yesterday. But yesterday’s word was desert!
NOW what do I write about cactus?
I remember a someone being disappointed when I pointed out that the little cactus in a pot that a friend had brought them from a recent trip, wasn’t real at all. The main cactus part was real, but all the little flowers on it were glued on.
Sometimes I should probably be less observant.
A cactus grows one inch per year so a 60 inch cactus is 60 years old. Cool
I never owned a cactus, well, maybe once years ago, but I’ve known my share of prickly people. You have to decide if it’s worth getting closer to them because there’s an element of danger about them–is there a softer inside that is precious.
It is one of those plants that I do not care much about. The mere appearance of the cactus plant in my gallery, cause me to wish that I had say no to my neighbor’s request to keep it until she return from her visit overseas.
Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve just written, but about a cactus? Where’d my imagination go?
In the desert water runs and runs but it doesn’t let itself be seen, this plant’s roots are like the eyes of the desert they see water when it isn’t there it is the realisation of mirages and the storer of greatness and life, life in adversity. Achievement is overcoming and overcoming factors is evolution and evolution is progress. Life.