Post by rwinte82 on Aug 17, 2009 15:19:47 GMT -8
Elko: A Cautionary Tale
Prelude
Venus’s-flytrap
plant
Main
(species Dionaea muscipula), flowering perennial plant of the sundew family (Droseraceae), notable for its unusual habit of catching and digesting insects and other small animals. The only member of its genus, the plant is native to a small region of North and South Carolina, where it is common in damp, mossy areas.
The plant, which grows from a bulblike rootstock, bears a group of small white flowers at the tip of an erect stem 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12 inches) tall. The leaves are 8 to 15 cm (3 to 6 inches) long and have blades that are hinged along the midline so that the two nearly circular lobes, with spiny teeth along their margins, can fold together and enclose an insect alighting on them. This action is triggered by pressure on six sensitive hairs, three on each lobe. In normal daytime temperatures the lobes, when stimulated by prey, snap shut in about half a second. Glands on the leaf surface then secrete a red sap that digests the insect’s body and gives the entire leaf a red, flowerlike appearance. About 10 days are required for digestion, after which the leaf reopens. The trap dies after capturing three or four insects. Source: Encyclopedia Brittannica
:-* Also known as residents of Nevada. :-*
I
My husband and I were traveling
in our purple clunker Camaro
through Northern Nevada on our
way home to Mesa Arizona.
We stopped for the night in Elko.
A bleak town of nondescript hills and
uniform conformity. My husband
wanted to check the oil
so, we stopped at the only
place of civilization ~ Wal-Mart.
The fellow who checked our oil
was from Arizona. He said,
“I wish I could go back to Arizona.”
I replied, “If we had room in the car,
we would take you.” He replied,
“I can’t go back, I am trapped here.
This is my story:”
II
Five years ago he had a job in Prescott
working for a stone cutting firm
located in Prescott and making good money.
He had a nice house. There was just
one obstacle to his happiness ~ he was lonely.
No girl of his own.
One night he met this beautiful temptress.
She had luminous eyes that seemed to
beckon him ~ a lot like the Medusa.
Little did he know he was captured.
Caught in a Venus Flytrap.
She had lured him in.
They were married and moved in together.
For the first six months he thought
everything is perfect! If she seemed sad
occasionally, he barely noticed it.
“I’m lonely,” she said. “I am a stranger
here and you are my only companion.”
It began that way ~ as she prepared her trap.
At first she said it only once in a while,
but eventually it was the same refrain
every single solitary day.
“My dearest love, what can I do
to make you happy?” he asked.
“Take me to Elko, “ she pleaded.
This went on for months as she
gradually wore down his reserves.
Weakening his defenses so he would
fall into her flytrap. Finally,
to make her happy ~ he yielded.
He gave up his job in Prescott.
He sold his house and move they did.
To Elko. He was firmly caught and secured
in her Venus Flytrap.
III
When he arrived in Elko, there were no
good-paying jobs with benefits like the one he had
in Prescott. The only job he could get was
working at Wal-Mart. In exchange for low pay, long hours
and no benefits. Couldn’t even afford to rent a house
let alone be able to buy one ~ her gambling habit
made that impossible. They lived in his very cramped camper shell.
She was on her own for hours as he struggled to make ends meet
and pay bills working at Wal-Mart.
She spent her time at the casino gambling away his money
and luring other men into her deadly trap with her siren’s calls.
Many men answered her call and went to their doom.
Just for her gambling money.
While he, poor man, slaving away at Wal-Mart
to satisfy her pleasures ~ was unaware of her betrayal.
He became more miserable every day
as she constantly nagged him for more money,
pawned his jewelry or other unpleasantries.
She showed little or no sympathy when he asked her
if she would mind moving back to Prescott.
“I am home,” she said. “And here
we will stay forever, my dear!”
One day he came home from work
and she was gone ~ not even a note ~ just a recording
on his answering machine. He was so stunned and heartbroken
at her perfidy he couldn’t even cry.
In a cruel and sarcastic tone of voice
she told him that she had found a man
who was not a dead-beat like him and who
could provide for all of her needs
~ both financial and sexual~
unlike him who used Viagra. She told him that she
hoped that he rotted in hell when he died.
A couple of years later,
he read an article in the local newspaper.
That she and her new husband had been
killed in a car crash in Nevada.
The paper also stated that she had been
married three times before.
It took him several weeks to get over
the shock of her betrayal. He felt
like someone who had been
punched in the gut by a 2 by 4.
At last he felt a little better. He could
think clearly and he began to
evaluate the reality of his state of affairs.
IV
He had always hated the town,
the duplicitous people, the shady characters,
the sense of being in a police state, his job,
his residence and most of all …
his being deserted by his unfaithful wife.
She was the one who had ensnared him with her Venus Flytrap
into living and enduring this shit-hole.
He tried to call his old job in Prescott.
The plant had shut down.
His wife had emptied
out his bank account.
Leaving him in debt and broke.
So the Venus Flytrap
that is Nevada
had struck again. He was completely trapped!
He would never be able to leave
because no matter how hard
he tried to free himself ~ his dead end job
and being broke kept him there.
Sometimes at night he thought he heard
her malicious laughter and sometimes he saw
her ride by on her broomstick.
thingy ! ---> Last line edited for content
