Cacti or Bust

by Gina Perry

My cactus went missing from my doorstep (I thought there it'd be safe, of all places there). I put up posters around town, I had no photo so sketched an artist's impression, I pasted them to lampposts, put them in shop windows, I even handed them out at festivals. Weeks passed, summer went, the cactus should have been brought in from the cold nights, the bare spot on the doorstep became the bare spot on my table. Winter: still no word. Then one day the doorbell rang: on the doormat a cactus in a blue porcelain pot, with the same pendulous branches and near identical purple flowers, it had returned. But that night as we settled down in front of the telly, it somehow felt like it would never be the same again.

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Gina Perry is a writer and storyteller in Manchester, England. She likes to entertain herself in pubs/bars/cafes/parks by asking strangers to tell her stories, true or otherwise. She loves her cactus (things have settled down now). Her next writing project is an ode to her Gary Fisher bike.