The Perfect Flower

The Perfect Flower
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

The datura is both poisonous and hallucinogenic, so naturally it is one of the world's most beautiful flowers. A tropical plant, it also gives off a glorious smell on hot summer nights. Here it grows alongside the railing of the stairway that links the vast acreage of Plotnik World Headquarters with the pulsating, electronic nerve center of the Meatball Kitchen.

Plotnik grew the datura from a slip he got from his neighbor Charles. Charles knows everything there is to know about gardening in Saint Plotniko. He told Plotnik to plant the datura slip in the shade, keep the snails off it for a year, then get out of the way and let it take off, which it has.

On the other side of the Plotnik World Headquarters Yacht Basin and Barbecue Center is a night blooming jasmine, which gives off perhaps the sweetest, most intoxicating smell in the floral kingdom. Sitting in the Barbecue Center on a hot summer's eve, between the sweet jasmine and the equally intoxicating (if fainter) datura, is perhaps the headiest of all natural aromatherapy centers, or it would be, if Saint Plotniko during the summer wasn't usually as cold as the ice cream freezer in the Nome, Alaska Buy-Rite.

However, on those rare, glorious, warm summer evenings, if you want an early hint of what heaven will smell like, (for the ten minutes you get there before your OOPH -- Your Own Personal Hell, central tenet of the Plotnikkie Religion -- sets in), you should come over some time next April. Or Maybe one night in September. October? It could happen.