Latest Tech

            It was my own fault really.  I should have paid more attention to the instructions.  The manual had been very clear on one point: do not overfeed.

            But hey, I'm just not that sort of guy.  I'm more the sort who dumps a couple of tablespoons of whitish-yellow powder into half a cup of water, stirs, pours, heads out the door for a night on the town.

            And so I came home to the silhouette of a house, lumpy and out of shape; to the curling of vines and buds along the outline of my roof, stark against the ever-blue-purple of a city night sky.  And to the sound of my neighbor: shrill, furious: “The roots are running all through my garden!  You're going to replace that fence!”

            My house was overgrown, a beautiful mass of feral vegetation.  Lovely, rampant, impractical flora.  Kinda cool in its own way.

            Not that Mrs Carnarvon seemed to agree.

            My state-of-the-art new HousePlant was sated on formula, ten times the recommended amount; and had blossomed into security mode.  Branches had insinuated themselves into the walls, bursting through the cracks, bobbing with the weight of oversized red-and-green flowers.

            What to do...?

            And Mrs Carnarvon: “You'd better fix this right now, Mister!”

            But wasn't it at least spectacular?  The very latest tech: microscopic grafting of plant onto machine, fibers mixed with hair-thin wires, metals and plastics with living plant matter.  And functional...  “Yes of course, I'll get right onto that...”

            No problem... This was still my house, I headed for the front door.  As I reached for the keypad, two flower-heads floated towards me, hovering, opening their petals to reveal needle-thin knives and a crackling electrical charge.  The latest titanium alloy glistening through chlorophyll and clear sap.

            I backed away quickly - “Sorry, Mrs Carnarvon,” - to the shelter of a nearby bus stop.  The manual would be on my phone, somewhere...,

How long until the hibernation cycle kicks in...?

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work