Melodramatic email to Mrs Vine

In which a subeditor writes an email to the garden writer, and then decides to make a blog entry of it.

Dear Mrs Vine,

I write to blame you.

I returned from holiday on Thursday a mighty and refreshed subediting warrior, fair blew back into the editorial floor like the breath of sweet fresh air that I am, and all the journalists cried with delight, "Here she is! Welcome back!" and I replied heartily, as if from the depths of a booming
warrior beard, "God, it's good to be home!" and twinkled at my favourites, and we all held hands and danced in a merry circle, and all was well in the hamlet of Oddity.

Such was the thrill of my return to the newspaper, and so fierce my desire to break the fast of commas, to quench my thirst for participles, to strike blood-red ink through the hearts of sentences, at first I did not notice the lilies. That was only when I rose to head for dinner, which as you will
know requires a stroll past reception.

I became aware of the lilies long before reception, however; it was more like at the photocopiers about 20m away.

Gillian, Mrs Vine, I frequently compare my life to horror movies, and in particular to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) as directed by Francis Ford Coppola, regarding which I usually identify with most characters in the course of most days but especially the titular romantic monster.

When I share the same breathing space as lilies, I am like Lucy Westenra as played by Sadie Frost, when she is in the early stages of vampirism and is assailed by garlic. "Garlic!" she howls and begins to flail in her bedsheets. "Lilies!" I howl and begin to flail, bedsheets or no.

I can smell lilies before I see them; no, it is inaccurate to describe the sensation as smelling. Before I see them, their mist needles my throat, causes my sinuses to seize, causes the air to seem thick as wool and I become mildly panicky - a relatively high state of panic for such a phlegmatic creature as myself - and will turn to whoever is at my side and say dramatically, "Are there lilies present?"

Invariably, there are, and when they are found my smugness at accurate detection is quickly quelled by that mild panic and flailing.

On Friday night, this reaction got the better of me. I flailed into reception and took the offending vase and its murky cargo and exiled the vessel out into the foyer and shut the door. This was like being the father in Poltergeist (1982) when he puts the television out because the poltergeist that
has plagued his family originated in the television set.

Please see the accompanying photograph, which shows the lilies in exile through reception glass, darkly. This is how lilies are to me; they are not the bright and brilliant things seen in your Friday gardening column, which can be found here, www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/home-garden/195714/be-lily-
queen-or-king and which notes the lily show that is on this weekend for anyone who does not dread the blooms.

It also includes instructions for creating hybrid lilies, which I found very interesting but am doomed to enjoy in a vicarious way only.

While reading your article in the cafeteria on Friday, hunched and tatty-feeling, afflicted by the lily air, I concluded it must have been you who introduced the flowers to the workplace. I salute you!

No plant is my enemy. But I do blame you too, Mrs Vine.

Still, you have given me something to write about, and for that I am grateful. I was in a rut, or maybe was just on holiday: not the bright lights and bratwurst of Nelson nor a sober karaoke bender in Wellington could inspire me to blog this past week. I had, in the end, to suffer lilies for my art.

Thank you, Mrs Vine.

Yours in journalistic comradeship,

AC