vampire roommates, or, basil

sometimes, you go to the grocery store and they have the most beautiful basil plant you have ever seen. and so you buy it and and you bring it home, and you are so excited to have a real life plant that replenishes itself. you are excited because you don't have to keep buying more, but mostly you are excited because it is green and alive. so you bring it home, and you find the sunniest spot in the house. sometimes this is hard because you live in the basement, and your upstairs roommates think they are vampires and refuse to let any light in to the house. finally, though, you find a shelf in the corner that is next to a window with blinds that you can open. so you give the plant some water, and you open the blinds, and you welcome it home. there is even talk of naming the plant. and then a couple of days go by, and the plant looks just ok. then one day you realize that whenever you open the blinds, someone keeps closing them. the nameless but beautiful basil plant starts to lunge itself toward the minuscule amount of uv rays breaking through the window. you tell the plant to hang in there, because in just a week it will be warm enough to relocate the plant to a sunny outdoor location. this doesn't help, though, and a few days later you come home to find out that one of your vampire roommates has also been watering your basil, so you feel the soil, and it is like water. your basil is drowning in the dark. so you bring it to your room, and you bring it outside for visiting hours when it is warm and sunny enough, and you try and try to help it live. then one day, you wake up and it is sixty five degrees and sunny, and you just know this is the day it will live. so you check the soil and you set it outside while you go to work for free. as you walk home, you are so excited about your plant slash food source that replenishes itself, and you know that the few remaining limbs and leaves will be thriving in the sunlight. they just have to be. and then you find it dead. and you are pissed.