Plastic Plants Can’t Vote

Christopher Brim jerked his king-of-pop white prosthetic hand sharply across his throat and silenced his five yes men. By way of conciliation, Brim (city planner, power-broker, and frightful douchebag) informed the five that he would indeed like to hear all about the latest celebrity expose on the E!, but only after the motion was passed. It would pass; the powers that be (who, as far as the public knew, did not be) had paid and pressured every living board member, himself and the five lucky yessirs, to drive a government-issued spike through the failing heart of the forest. The board had been well padded for their rubberstamping amiability, and they all knew resisting the juggernaut would be special interest suicide. Proctor wouldn’t bow, and his empty seat had been replaced with a drooping plant in a copper pot.

Eager Beaver read the minutes. Brim couldn’t remember his real name, and didn’t care. He imagined a bloodsplattered Proctor rising up behind him, but Brim’s Xanax shield was too strong, and the feeling dissolved into committee. He cleared his throat and his palate, “Let’s proceed to the vote.” Beaver recovered quickly for a tier three MBA. “All in favor of local 255, proposal to develop Constitution forest - I mean, the forest legally renamed ‘Offal Woods’ by this board to redirect the public’s misguided energies - into the sawdust furniture museum and paintball park, please vote now by raising your hands.” Five hands and one prosthesis reached for the ceiling tiles.

“All - those - opposed…”
Brim started, and Beaver incredulously echoed those three words. The plant occupying Proctor’s space stretched its stems higher than Brim, closer to Proctor’s own span, shaking its smaller leaves with furious Proctor-like stubbornness. Brim could see him now, his colleague second, and friend first, the man with whom he had risen through the ranks so many years ago, promising to always do what was right and look out for one another, from the beginning until the bitter end when he sat in the back of a sedan and watched the powers that be strangle Proctor in the bowels of the Offal woods. Brim rose and said “no” repeatedly until the yes men completed the session, saved the forest, and fled in fear, and then it was only him and the plant called Proctor until the powers that be would come again.