Short Story: Life of a Cactus

‘People trample over flowers, yet only to embrace a cactus’

Sitting on the window I saw the kids are playing in the hall, their mother asked the not to go closer to me as I have thorns. Well… those are good kids and I am not sad that she asked them to stay away from me, but the only fact which makes me sad is how did she forget that I have flowers too?

There was a girl in my school, whom nobody talked. They looked at her with disinterested eyes. As if they would never want to come around her. She did not have many friends and she was not too social. Everybody thought she was mean and never helped anyone. She was closed in her own world, never interacted with anyone, never asked or told anything to anyone.

In the chemistry sessions, nobody wanted to sit with her. I was one of them. Even I never wanted to be around her. But, my fate, the professor asked me to sit with her and work on the assignment. I rebelled to change my partner, but he told me one thing, ‘Never judge a book by its cover’. Reluctant to listen to what he said, I walked out of the door and slammed the door behind me.

I called her every day to ask how we should start the assignment and to know the status of her part! But she never picked my call neither she ever called me back. Just a left a message saying, ‘I have done my bit. Now it is your turn. I am busy.’

I was so irritated by the way she behaved. Everyone was! She was rude and sometimes made fun of people around, never said good words to anyone. It seemed as if she is in a war with the whole world. Everyone thought she was a bad influence and I was no different!

One day, while I was walking down the street, I saw that there was puppy hit by a car and the driver just drove the car upon the dog. I had to meet her for the assignment we were working on. She came running from behind yelling at the driver. She picked up the dog in her hand and ran back to her home.

There I saw that she has a small clinic at the back side of her house. She laid down the dog on the bed and cleaned its wound. She took care of him till the time he recovered fully and was ready to go back to his home.

I never thought she would care about anyone or anything. In fact, everybody thought she was a stinky bee who never cared about anyone. But, at that moment the words of my professor were echoing in my head, ‘Never judge a book by its cover’.



Written by Ashna Garg
Ashna grew up in a jazzy town (where she felt she can never fit in), did graduation in economics (where she didn’t fit either) and she writes (where she finally started to feel like she fits in)