ElleMX

As a witch, I am of course an expert in herbs and plants, and it amused me greatly the other day when a certain man - desirous of my affection - reached spontaneously for a flower as we wandered the Camí de Ronda; I accepted it graciously, without mentioning that he had in fact picked me one of the most beautiful deadly poisons in the Mediterranean world: Oleander. Known in Latin as Nerium oleander, it was catalogued in antiquity by Pliny the Elder, who warned that even honey made near it could be dangerous, and its reputation only deepened over time. Roman soldiers were said to have died after roasting meat on oleander skewers, and in later centuries it cropped up repeatedly in cases of quiet, botanical murder, its leaves and sap containing cardiac glycosides capable of stopping a heart with unnerving elegance. Witches, naturally, knew this long before botanists did: dried, infused, or smoked, oleander was never a clumsy poison but a patient one, working first on the stomach, then the rhythm of the heart, and finally on fate itself. I do hope this admirer continues with his slavish devotion, It would be unfortunate to have to return the flower to him today in a different form. (ملاحظة إلى نفسي: يا يسوع المسيح، لقد قلتِ إنك لن تحاولي إخافة الناس في هذه المدوّنة — تذكّري أن تتوقفي عن كونكِ مخيفة إلى هذا الحد، أيتها الغريبة.)

Whenever I enter a party, I am not drawn to the dazzling, charismatic individual surrounded by fashionable companions and influencers; I always find my gaze going to the person who’s sitting on their own. Yes, I know — I’m such a stereotypical goth. Anyway… curiously, this seems to extend to the natural world. Every time I walk past the local supermarket in the summer there’s a whole bunch of ducks hanging out there. Today, however, all the ducks had moved on to the park opposite, while one lone duck had decided to continue hanging out. I paused and pondered this mysterious mallard. Firstly, you may be wondering why the ducks are hanging around the supermarket in the first place. That, at least, is no mystery. Ducks are hanging around the supermarket rather than a local pond for the same reason you are hanging out at the supermarket and not a local pond: resources. Ducks want bread. Supermarkets are full of bread. Customers have just bought bread. Customers like ducks, because who doesn’t like a duck. Customers like giving their bread to the ducks and how many ducks don't love  a free lunch... zero! As for the lone duck, I concluded there was no great mystery here either. According to a readily available chat bot, unlike certain other birds such as geese, the ducks have a far more independent slant, and sometimes a duck simply decides not to follow the group. His motives could have been many: perhaps he’d already eaten, perhaps the park didn’t appeal, perhaps he was enjoying a moment of quiet autonomy. Or perhaps, like me, he was just a stereotypical goth — cosplaying at being alone and miserable, while actually being perfectly happy that way.    

ME: "It's on my mobile, between my toes, in my crack, down my back, even round the rim of the bloody can. Sand everywhere." HIM: "Sand... mmmm... did you know that surprisingly, sand doesn't come from sea. I know that seems to defy everything we know and love about sand, but it mostly comes from rivers." ME: "What!?!" HIM: "Yeah. Most sand begins its life inland, locked inside mountains and cliffs. Rain, frost, time ... breaks rock apart. Then rivers take over, dragging those fragments kilometre after kilometre, smashing them together again and again until they’re ground down to grains so small they can’t actually be broken down any further.  It's like literally impossible. Anyway... that's when they reach the sea." And then... the ocean doesn’t so much create sand as finish it off by washing it back and forth, sorting it by size, and piling it up where land meets water." NAZ: “But I don’t see any rivers around here.” HIM: "That’s because you’re looking now, not then. On some beaches, sand was carried by rivers that still exist,  others by rivers that have shifted course, and some by rivers that disappeared thousands or even millions of years ago. Coastlines move. River mouths wander. Landscapes forget their own history. So  you don’t need a river next to every beach. You just need a planet that’s had rivers for a very long time. If you've ever wondered why Mars is full of sand..." ME:... "I haven't, but now you mention it... Don't bloody tell me it's because there used to be loads of rivers there." HIM LOOKING SMUG: "Exactly," ME LOOKING SMUGLY  AT NAZ: "Exactly." and what I'm basically saying is "See... I told you he was H.A.F"