Life told through a cactus 🌵

Hello Friends! I am Cabaro, a cactus. Did you know that a cactus is also a plant…unlike what most of you think.

About a 100 years ago, an association called United Plants Association was formed. The purpose of this association was to solve and share the problems of supreme plants. Yes! you heard me right- only supreme plants. Cacti, wild plants and grass were not invited in the association. However things have changed since then and I decided to go to the UPA and share my story.

This story is about my life and how I changed the destiny of other cacti. I do not exactly know but I was told that I moved away from my family as small seed because of a process called seed dispersal. As a sapling when I opened my eyes I saw five shadows around me with tiny spikes. We grew up together and had lot of fun. With us, lived a cactus who said he was 110 years old. I believed him because it is true cacti can live up to 150 years.

He used to tell us some amazing stories. He was the one who told me about UPA and how UPA helped plants from becoming extinct.

One day as cactus uncle telling us a story, an enormous beast with a big hump came and chomped on one of my eldest brothers. Uncle said he ate us because he was thirsty. It was then I realized that cacti store water to survive in the desert like habitat. I noticed that all around me I could only see sad and a very few cacti far off. My uncle said, ” that until a few years back there were many of us. Humans had wiped us out.” This and my brother’s death made me determined to go to UPA.

Our plan was simple- go to the city, find UPA and present our case. Soon after we left, we had our first fight. We realized this was not going to be easy. Our first consisted of 3 thirsty camels. We could not have run because camels were faster than us, so we decided to act dead. It was risky,but we did not have any other option. When the first camel came, he easily got fooled and went away. The second had a bit of a doubt but he too went away. The third camel was smarter and he sniffed all of us. I had been running low on water so he passed me. It seems two of my brothers were running low too but my fourth brother was not as lucky. The camel realized he was alive and munched him off. From then on we had to move carefully. I had already lost my brother just as we began our journey, and I just knew there was more to come. As we moved ahead on our journey we saw pot, flower pots. I told my brothers to jump in. It wasn’t very comforting but it was surely walking barefoot. There was a cart in front of us carrying supreme plants. We managed to sneak in. The supreme plants tried to raise an alarm but the humans thought we were an exotic plant too! In no time, we reached the city and jumped out. We found the UPA office in no time.

The UPA office was heavily guarded and they had no ordinary weapons but scissors. Scissor is to us as a gun is to human. Getting inside seemed very difficult but surprisingly they let us in when they heard the reason of our visit. The head of UPA was a very old money plant. She shouted in anger and with hatred “How did you and your stupid impure friends come here?” I stopped my tears, calmed my anger and began,” You see Ma’am we are also plants and we are dying. How would you feel if you were left out in the wild to survive on your own? Helpless, isn’t it? Today humans are cutting down trees to make buildings.They are cutting cacti from the desert to sell as decorative plants or for medicinal purposes. We need UPA to help us. Is it not why your great great grandfather built the UPA?”

The money plant stood from her chair and said ,” Thank You for reminding me. We will work together.”