For those who don’t follow me on Instagram or Twitter, this is our agave flower spike. It’s fixing to bloom any day now. Really spectacular!
Some of my friends find this monster spike unsettling and alien. More than one has compared it to the flesh-eating, massively growing plant in Little Shop of Horrors.
I can see their (okay, pretty melodramatic) point. But there was something about that manipulative plant, whose hunger for human flesh could never be sated, that sticks in our heads and still gives us the creeps.
We could say it’s that atavistic and animal instinct to avoid the predator. I’d go a step further and say that stories of this type warn us of another great peril of being human: the overweening ego. That’s our topic this week, asking each other “How Do You Keep It Humble?” aka “Great Cautionary Tales: the Enormous Ego Edition.” Come on over to the SFF Seven for my tips on how NOT to have this happen to you.