Saturday's Storyteller: The Botanist
The Botanist by Belinda Roddie No one knows exactly how he died. Everyone blames a plant he tended to, though. Perhaps the crowds of oleander that he studied in his backyard. Or the gorgeous foxgloves he put in vases all around his greenhouse. Or the amaryllis. Or the hemlock. He loved plants that flowered. "Socrates died from drinking hemlock," he explained to his date one night in a small Italian restaurant, where everyone could hear him. "He didn't have to. The cup was placed in his hands. He could have dumped it. Had death forced upon him. But he didn't." The botanist died seven years ago. And hemlock grows all over his grave. But the autopsy found no trace of the plant in his bloodstream. We wonder what he truly chose. This week's prompt was provided by Arden Roddie.