I wanted to nurture the plants.

Only a few aloes were able to resist my lethal kindness.

THOSE PEOPLE! BY WEIYU DU 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 86

My mother had a balcony of aloe, cape jasmines, and Chinese asparagus. I killed all of them except the aloe but with good intentions. I wanted to nurture the plants.

Mom nurtured me by forcing me to eat two chopsticks of nauseatingly sweet carrots. “Vitamins are important,” she said. So I mixed up pineapple pieces, bread with jam for carbs, salted fish for protein, yoghurt for calcium, potassium and zinc, and I drizzled this nutritious goo on the balcony plants. They died from the salt and sugar. Only a few aloes were able to resist my lethal kindness.

One of my childhood memories was watching mom changing the plant’s pots. They had outgrown their pots, she said, like you outgrew last year’s clothes.

She would dig the plants out carefully with a garden trowel, preserving as much root as she could. It was a mess, undoubtedly, and we lived in a small apartment, so everything h…