it had been slowly declining when we received it (yesterday) from its previous, neglectful owner
1,000
1.00Mr. Basil is fighting strong. May he live a long, fulfilling, and happy life. But today, my friends, today he is still far from his former glory... and once he returns, a new market will spring to life to confirm, through the invisible hand of the market, his plentiful life ahead.
@VAPOR The lore is this: our friend JX received Mr Basil from his girlfriend during the summer 2023. We know little about Mr Basil provenance or childhood, beyond that it must have been able to build in himself a constitution seldom seen in basil plants. For a few weeks in late summer, JX asked me to look after Mr Basil while he was gone on a trip. Mr Basil and I grew close. He was relatively healthy at the time and irradiated an aura of confidence and strength.
Moving forward a couple months to late December, said friend moves to Singapore, and sublets his apartment to my brother @Bayesian and I. Mr Basil is left to us, still alive but in dire need of care; he is in a horrid state. In extremis, my brother decides to create this market, and has been fighting for Mr Basil since. A religious cleansing of pores and soil, kindly watering, and even unconvential methods such as prayer and ritualized chanting,.. anything was tried to improve the odds of Mr Basil seeing another day. Nothing seemed to work. Mr Basil was still rapidly deteriorating.
I had lost hope. My brother hadn't.
In the coward's way, I managed to profit from his blatant bias. It was obvious by late January that Mr Basil would not survive the Winter, and only @Bayesian's struggle led to Mr Basil violating this unhappy prior. Still, in the cruelest twist of reverse-karma, money flowed from Bayesian's account to mine, the Universe's final middle finger to all that is fair and sacred, and I now find myself M$1000 richer than I once was.
@Bayesian deserves this money. Without him, Mr Basil would have long since been reduced to a mere an idea in our collective brains, his constituant atoms spread about who-knows-where.
Only time will tell whether Mr Basil will see his first birthday, or whether only his memory will live on in all of us. Will he ever enjoy a Spring's breeze, meet his fellow kin, contribute to the propagation of his species, or experience a Mrs Basil's touch?
@shankypanky I’ll give a photo update later, but 2 new small leaves are growing but pretty little has changed. Im considering creating a poll or asking a few trusted ppl whether they consider the plant more healthy than at the start, but largely it is stable and growing very slowly (and the leaves at the back are getting hidden by the leaves growing in the front :()
@Eliza not even close! nothing has moved, except like 2 tiny leaves at the front which are starting to hide the leaves at the back. it's like it wants to lengthen forever, in a cycle that leaves it just as plentiful (the leaves at the front replacing the dying leaves at the back). it'll reach the moon before it divides!
@Bayesian I've only read like 25% of the comment section. Did you try producing new basil from cutting the existing ones?
@Eliza I've been planning to, but it appears like the current and final strand is not big enough for splitting yet