This is my collection of writings for the three hundred and sixty five day writing challenge - where one has to write something daily, every day, for one whole year, based on the prompts provided - as part of an exercise to improve creative writing...
"Write from the viewpoint of a cactus – what's it like to live in the dessert or have a "prickly personality"?
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Being a cactus is not easy and today I will make a point or a few (forgive the pun, I just could not help myself).
I stay in some of the harshest places in the world, you can find me even in the Atacama desert, places where you humans would break into a sweat, while I stand tall and cool. I have survived hot climes and long droughts, adapting and evolving over the ages.
I am quite upset at being dismissed as thorny bush and I am not being a prickly pear (again another pun, but since we are on that topic, prickly pear is also a type of fruit borne by a genus of cactus). Did you know that there are around fifteen to eighteen hundred varieties of cactus, or rather cacti, in the world? Guess you did not, for you all you can see are long or flat piece of green with pointy spikes. By the way the spike are the leaves, which have been modified to spikes to minimise water loss. To make up of that, the stems are enlarged to carry out photosynthesis and are fleshy to enable storage of water. So while all cacti are succulents (having thickened fleshy stems) all succulents are not cacti.
I am native to the Americas though a few of my family members can be found in Africa and Sri Lanka. Apart from being used as a natural fence, (imagine which animal would be adventurous enough to eat me to get to your garden?) and as ornamentation, there are quite a few of my members who would also provide a wonderful spread of fruit, prickly pears, dragon fruit, fruit of the saguaro and almost all the succulent flesh of me is edible.
The most interesting is that quite a few of my family contain psychoactive agents, chemical compounds that can cause changes in mood, perception and cognition through their effects on the brain. Two species have a long history of use by the indigenous peoples of the Americas: peyote, Lophophora williamsii, in North America, and the San Pedro cactus, Echinopsis pachanoi, in South America. Both contain mescaline (is a naturally occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin).
And I have some the most beautiful flowers too; some can put your roses to shame. Do not believe me? Take a look.
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