Kudzu

Photo courtesy of Kevin and No Theme Thursday

When happiness
has been declared a right
those not in custody
are deemed obvious failures.
And deserve to be punished.

She wasted day after sorrowful day sitting in the window seat watching the tentacles of the invasive kudzu vine expand their reach. With each passing day the encroaching weed came that much closer to swallowing the live oak whole.

And in that, she took her life’s only pleasure.

For she had struck up a bargain with the kudzu. She had agreed to continue living this charade she called a life only until the kudzu had successfully choked the life from the live oak. At which time, she herself would be free to shed the earthen vessel in which she found herself entrapped- and exit this muddled gray existence.

The oak however, having struck no such bargain with the kudzu, fought rigorously- refusing to die under the weight of the all-invasive vine. Choosing instead to cast tendrils of the kudzu into the rose garden below in hopes of redirecting the kudzu’s efforts and in so doing, spare its own life.

The kudzu, having the heart and mind of a carnal weed, and caring not that it deviated from the original bargain it had struck, followed the gentle nudge of the live oak and descended upon the crimson blooms of the rose garden with much voracity. Soon the brittle green leaves of the rose bushes were cloaked in the succulent verdant of the kudzu. And the blooms turned black as blood.

Having struck no bargain with the kudzu contingent on the life of the rose bushes and fearing that such deviation of its efforts would only prolong the time in which she was required to remain dangling from this tattered thread that masqueraded as a life, she took shears in hand and attacked the reneging vine.

She hacked blindly into the kudzu, scissors flailing. So fervent was her desire to redirect the efforts of the vine back to the live oak on whose life- her own hung in the balance- that not even the piercing of her tender flesh by angry thistles, was enough to dissuade her.

In the days that followed, she watched diligently over the rose garden, her scissors poised to snip the untrustworthy kudzu into upholding its part of the bargain. However, what began as a vigil soon became an inquisitiveness about the flourish of the rose bushes themselves. Her shears veering off now and again to clip a withered bloom or prune a crackled leaf.

Before she knew it, the watering can was accompanying her on her treks to the rose garden and precious blooms were returning with her back into the house.

Many days hence, as she passed the empty window seat on her way out to the rose garden, the ludicrousness of the bargain she had struck with the kudzu- struck her.

In that same moment, she realized the shears with which she had armed herself were dually capable of excising the kudzu from the whole of the live oak- and she became willing to do everything within her power to preserve the life of the same live oak- that she had come this close to sacrificing- so she could free herself of what she had once considered her earthy entanglement.

In penance
we sow the seed
of seemingly unattainable
happiness
upon the sour soil
of not to go unpunished
hearts
then lament
the weeds that flourish

This post is inspired by one of Kevin’s delightful AI creations that he makes available to us every Thursday on his blog, The Beginning At Last. The Challenge is called, No Theme Thursdays.

50 thoughts on “Kudzu”

  3. Very interesting story, Violet. Lots of well-penned metaphors in your ink. Nice!

    PS – Off topic, if I may ask a question. How did you get your purple background? I got instructions from WP; they responded with the obvious route which didn’t work. I asked another blogging friend how she got her colored background. She gave me the same instructions as WP which I tried just for the hell of hit. They did not work. How did you get your background? I’m using Block Editor on my MacBook. Thanks. Feel free to ignore these pleas as the rantings of a madwoman! LOL!

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  16. I emember kudzu (I believe from a time when I lived in Indiana)… as distructive as invasive bamboo. Grows amazingly fast and efforts to curtail either… seem impossible.

    I like the turn the story took. I had a relative who was very good with roses. Though they take too much work for me. Then again a weed is anything growing where you don’t want it.

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  18. Pingback: NTT Showcase: 1/16/25 Edition – The Beginning At Last ~

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