Can we make it up as we go?

The suffering of Gregory Oswald.

"How gay it is to be out here," Harriet said admiringly. She had traipsed all the way from Little Totten- a magical place that made the best cherry pies in the entire universe- just to sit on this very bench. However, when she had started her journey, she had been terribly certain of finding company alongside this bench.
She did not.
The sun had watched her as it rose high into the sky, sitting alone and forlorn on the bowing, thick planks, sometimes muttering to herself, other times singing softly or calling out to various insects for attention. Once or twice she had even attempted conversation with the cat as it rolled around on the sunny concrete, but they had been rare occasions, after which she had sank back into her pot instantly, afraid that it would leap up and nibble on her chilli pods.
The sun had watched and smiled to itself, interested in such a way that only those with an infinity of entertainment options can be.
Then Gregory had arrived.
He had trudged up, leapt up, sprang forth, into Harriet's world of frosty midnight conversations with sluggishly slow snails about star signs and wellingtons, sweltering hot days consisting of edging her way around under the umbrella to gain maximum sun while sobbing drearily in mourning for her harvested children, and mindless drooling at the big tree standing tall and leafy just outside the green fence. How handsome that tree was! She had no idea whatsoever as to what it could be or if it had a name, but it looked considerably male- what with all that lusciously masculine, peeling bark and glossed sturdy branches reaching up to the heavens!- and Harriet had been entranced since the day she set eyes upon it.
"Say, what's so fascinatingly gay about that tree then, eh?" came a voice to her left and Harriet started out of her impossible, possibly naive, fantasy which boasted lavish weddings that included church bells and cake made to look like flowers with bees on, and she turned to clap eyes on a cactus.
"What?" she said hastily, "I wasn't oogling."
The cactus smiled as it looked at the tree. "Well now, there's nothing wrong with an oogle."
"You're male!" Harriet accused in an accusatory voice. "You're the spitting image!"
"You could be slightly off..."
"I am never off!" Harriet said the words like a jab and raised her leaves and branches and red chillies as high as she could.
"Ahhh, the Thai Chilli," said the cactus pleasantly and in the faraway tone of one in deep thought, "what a pleasure it is to meet one at last."
Harriet looked down at the cactus plant in disgust, "I beg your-"
"Halt! Aaaaand, needles into the air, switch!" the cactus yelled suddenly.
"Oh!" Harriet cried.
"Do excuse me, TC, I was in the army," he said promptly, and Harriet said: "The army!" as if he had just told her he never shed his dead leaves.
"Seven years, just. Broke my old Mam's heart, but I said 'Sweetpea (she is a sweetpea, actually, from her aunt's cousin side, he told Harriet later, and Harriet had unsuccessfully replied, suuuuure she is, have you noticed everyone foreign or made up into the family tree is always from the aunt's side?, due to the cactus talking over her in a brisk manner), you don't have to worry about me, I will be back before the little ones start shelling' but I wasn't and she died a tragic death that is still unclear to this very day."
Harried looked appalled. "Gosh! What a tragedy you have suffered!"
The cactus nodded, still staring straight ahead as if his call to attention was still in motion, and Harriet gazed appreciatively at his straight posture. His short, green, spiky stems were just resplendent in all their silken little glory. How she would like to touch one.
"I have suffered such a tragedy," the cactus continued, unaware or just accepting of her fixated nature. "But I have kept an optimistic view and it is this, this! above all else, lady, that has kept me going throughout the days."
"Are you telling me that your mother is named after her own design?" Harriet demanded.
The cactus turned finally. "Am I saying which to?"
Harriet rustled her leaves impatiently. She may have leaned down closer, or it may have just been the breeze, but, certainly, there was movement and it was hers. "Are you spouting off stories about your mum called Sweetpea-"
"If you will kindly shut it, you will come to the furry notion that I have said no such thing."
The cactus gave her a level stare. He was trying to remember if he had, actually, told this fine excuse for a chilli plant his parental background and after two electric seconds he decided, no, he had not.
"I'm psychic," one of Harriet's leaves waved in front of his face with a swish and she swayed in the sun with authentic agility. "One of my many gifts. Now, tell me about your mother."
"Hold up there! Prove it!"
"Yes- what?" Harriet stopped being agile to show authentic confusion. Her leaves fluttered slowly and her head drooped a little.
The cactus smiled in a satisfied, cactus-kind-of-way: tight-lipped and without much movement. "Answer me this question correctly and I will forever be in confidence of all your decisions!" he cleared his throat as if he did this at every hour of every day and rumbled: "What is my name?"
The cactus was smug on the inside. He was almost bursting with the knowledge that she would say his name was 'cactus', and then he would burst out with laughter, right in her face, because she would be wrong and he loved seeing people so unsure about what they were so sure about.
Harriet gave a short shriek of laughter that made a bird take flight from the grass. It was probably meant to be a snort, it was so short and not at all very high-pitched, but it worked also as a shriek and it sounded better when she described it to her own ears. How maddeningly childish this cactus was! It was a pleasure to have him entertain in such an earnest manner. She should ask him to stay.
The cactus's demeanor faltered. "Yes?"
"Your name is Gregory Oswald and your mother is a sweetpea and she's called a sweetpea and it's all from your aunt's cousin's side- which is awfully tragic in itself, there being a cousin from your aunt and so on- and it's all set in stone so I don't even have to ask you because I know you will say yes, so welcome, Gregory, to The Bench!"
Gregory watched her many stems spread out wide in a welcoming gesture. He thought about sitting beside this psychic for all eternity, knitting and singing and wearing snail-shell hats and looking through acorn binoculars at that damn (yet stunning) tree and swapping steamy mugs of FertilizeThis! while listening to clams debate from the ocean-side on wireless radio. Had it come to this already?
"I- I am- oh!" he suddenly remembered, "You're Harriet the Psychic!"
"Yes!" she beamed.
He laughed and she did not care for the loud, hooting, caw that she heard. "I was always under the assumption- that is, I heard on the wireless, not that the base had it often, nor did we indulge when we could!- but I remember it being 'Harriet the Sidekick' and I wondered, rightly as I must have, where the hero was."
Harriet stared. She was insulted. Not only was she now stuck alongside a cactus who thought she was second best in some radio drama, there was absolutely no way she would be able to 'accidentally' knock his terrifying, corded spike-straightener off the bench into a bucket of innocently maneuvered rainwater.

(--____0)v