The Writers' Circle

Brenda Dubbins lived a quit sedentary life in a small unremarkable town. She was a woman of simple needs. She looked after the house, did the shopping, and occasionally knitted the odd thing for her grandchildren. If she had a passion, it was for flowers. She would spend hours pottering about in the garden pulling weeds from the flower beds and tidying things up. She grew plants from seed, and also from cuttings. Her greatest desire, was to one day win first prize at the annual flower show. Over the years her displays of flowers had steadily climbed the rankings, finally reaching the giddy heights of 3rd place a few years ago.

The next flower show was due to be held in less than 2 months time, and this year Brenda thought that she had a good chance of winning the best in show prize. This was due to a hybrid flower that she had been working on. At the moment, it was no more than a small green shoot, with the flower barely visible, but she could see that this little plant had the potential to become something special. She lavished attention on it, and over the next week or so the flower began to bloom.

It is difficult to express in words the magnificence of Brenda's flower. It had an elegant vivid green stem, and it's lush petals were a veritable kaleidoscope of colour from soft pale pinks, through sky blue to deep scarlet reds. Every colour and shade of the spectrum was to be found in Brenda's creation. It was like tasting champagne with your eyes.
Brenda went to find her husband Ted, in order to show him what she had produced.
Mr Dubbins had been gently dozing in front of the television when his wife shook him by the shoulder and woke him up. He put his slippers on, and shuffled along behind her to the potting shed in order to see what she was so worked up about. When they arrived, he saw a small wooden table in the center of the floor. Upon the table was something about the size of a can of soda with a cloth covering it. Brenda stood before it, her eyes shining, her face flushed and her chest heaving up and down. Ted had not seen her so excited since that evening last year when he had found the jar of honey in the bedside cabinet after they had finished off the bottle of sherry that next door had given them for Christmas.
Brenda took the cloth by her thumb and forefinger, and with a loud cry of "Da-Dah" whipped away the cloth to reveal the flower.
"What do you think" She said.
Ted Dubbins stood and looked at the stunningly beautiful multi-coloured plant before him.
"It's wonderful" He said.
He took two steps towards it, and bent down to sniff its perfume.

The scent hit him in much the same way that a howitzer shell hits a dog kennel. The small beautiful little plant in front of him gave off the rank odour of a badly decomposed badger. It was like having a dozen angry hornets shoved up your nose! Ted Dubbins staggered back as though he had been hit with a baseball bat.
"My God! That stinks to high heaven" He exclaimed.
Brenda looked shocked. She had noticed the smell before, but had thought that it was the drains, or that next door's tom cat had got in again. She put the cloth back over the flower, and went to make her husband a cup of tea.

Over the next few days, Brenda thought about what she could do regarding the horrible stench that emanated from the flower. She decided to plant it in the garden where hopefully, with more air around it, the thing would not be so pungent. Unfortunately, as the flower grew, the smell from it became worse and worse.
Brenda then found an old fish tank in the loft, and placed it upside down over the flower. The decomposing badger smell still wafted out from time to time, but it improved things a little.
A week later Brenda invited Mrs. Frobisher, the president of the local gardening society around on the pretence of wanting to give her some newly knitted baby clothes for her niece.
Brenda made sure that when Mrs. Frobisher arrived, she was served tea and cake by the window that overlooked the garden. In the course of the conversation, she casually mentioned that she was thinking of entering a new type of flower into the forthcoming flower show, and pointed out the inverted fish tank to her guest.
Even at some distance, Mrs. Frobisher was visibly impressed by what she saw through Brenda's window, and asked to go outside to examine the plant more closely. Brenda only just prevented her from entering the garden by saying that Ted was in the habit of sunbathing nude round about this time, and it would be embarrassing if they stumbled across him.

The problem with covering the flower with a fish tank, was that within the warm rarefied atmosphere, the flower thrived, and grew at a prestigious rate. Brenda was soon forced to replace the tank with a bigger one. While she was changing them over, she was forced to wear a snorkelling mask, and wrap a sock around her mouth.

The flower continued to grow, and as it did so it lifted the bigger tank off the ground with the result that overflying birds fell out of the sky. Ted was sent down to the garden centre to purchase a greenhouse to erect around the offending growth.

The problem of the smell was finally solved by a relatively simple cure. During a visit to Mrs. Frobisher's house for cocktails one night, Brenda noticed that Mrs. Frobisher kept a box of matches and an ashtray in her toilet. Knowing that Mrs. Frobisher didn't smoke, this seemed to be a curious thing, and she mentioned it to her husband when they got home.
Ted, who knew more things than he normally let on to, explained to his wife that the reason for the matches, was that after completing one's toiletry needs, the lighting of a match would burn off any noxious gasses, leaving the way clear for the next user.
This was the smartest thing that Brenda had ever heard her husband say in nearly forty years of marriage. If the lighting of a match could clear the smell from Mrs. Frobisher's toilet, then the same principle could be applied to the greenhouse in the garden.
The following morning, Ted Dubbins dressed in a diving suit was despatched with a large candle and a new box of matches to the greenhouse. The flower with it's brilliant array of colours and hues was now nearly eight feet high, and he viewed it through the glass with a mixture of awe and hatred in roughly equal measure. Prudently he decided to light the candle before entering. However, upon opening the door, within the space of a few seconds, the greenhouse gasses ignited, with the result that Ted was blown onto his back, and all the panes of glass in the windmill shattered. Fortunately He managed to keep hold of the candle, and when he looked at it, saw that it was burning like a blowtorch. The theory worked!

Brenda was delighted. She could now display her flower at the show without people throwing up or fainting whenever they got within 10 yards of it. She would surely win first prize. After all her years of hard work victory would be hers.
After attending to her husband's wounds, she sent him down to the garden centre to buy a six foot wide plant pot, a box of candles and a portable greenhouse.