Playing God

Suz and I were saying our last goodbyes to summer on the weekend when we made an unfortunate discovery. We were busy packing our patio furniture away and raking leaves in the balmy weather when we had to say goodbye to something else as well - our Trumpet vine.

Our neighbour had a massive trumpet vine growing up a trellis last summer and it climbed over the fence to our side. We loved it, and enjoyed its massive amount privacy for the summer. When summer ended, so did our neighbour's love affair with the pretty plant. She decided it had to go.

Our neighbour is very generous. From her we have received bottles of wine, mini-bar bottles of Vodka, pumpkin pie, and many a plant.

When she dug up her trumpet vine, she offered part of it to us. We loved it, so we accepted the small bit of root. She asked us not to plant it near her trellis, and we agreed. We planted it at the back of our yard, against our fence.

For the rest of the summer, the little trumpet vine grew and grew. We were happy. One day it would grow as big as tree, and our yard would fill with the happiest hummingbirds , elves and wood sprites. We would trap them, and sell their taxidermied carcasses on eBay.

But it was not to be. Our neighbour, ripping out a dump truck's worth of dead Morning Glory growing on our shared fence, came into our yard to finish her work. She spotted the trumpet vine at the back of our yard, and with a quick snip, snip, stole the life of the plant she gave to us.

The trumpet vine was dead. And I couldn't even yell at my neighbour, because she was the one who gave that plant to us. And because I feared her power. And because I'm not entirely sure the trumpet vine is dead. We'll find out next summer.