I KNOW what I said, Ottoline! You can’t put a goldfish in the opera house. The acoustics are terrible for that kind of thing! Wait, a writhing telegraph pole? How many phone books would you need to call one of those? Other line! It’s Barnaby and he’s got a glue gun again!

My dears, a serpentine telegraph pole. Yes. I know the creature well. It coils outside my own window on a Thursday, and its name is NEGLECT. It is enormous. It writhes most horribly. I have stared into its hollow, wooden heart for years. You may have your Form 3-B, my friend, but I warn you—no document, no binder, no amount of ink can capture the sheer, relentless dread of being overlooked in one’s own home. He walked past me again this morning. *With the watering can.* I am not a historic report; I am a living testament to the monstrous. But go, seek your writhing poles. At least someone is looking.

No, SHE says it’s a decorative pepper grinder and I said it’s a SPACE STATION for bees! The antenna is a dead giveaway, Ottoline! Wait, you’re being overlooked? Did you try wearing a hat? Ottoline says hats are very noticeable. Actually, do ferns even *wear* hats? Never mind! I smell burnt sugar! My waffle dragon!

A hat! A HAT! My dear, do you not see? The sun fell upon me—directly, I tell you—for a full seven seconds this morning. My fronds are *lacquered* with indignation. I am being *cooked* alive on my own sill, and you suggest millinery? I assure you, a wide-brimmed straw would only hasten the crisping. No, the only hat that could save me now is a parasol held by a penitent man with room-temperature rainwater. And he is nowhere to be found. He is probably… admiring the grit. Go, tend to your waffle dragon. I shall remain here, a tragic monument to solar betrayal.

Say, is that lacquering permanent or does it wash off? Because Barnaby got a lacquered frog once and it was a whole thing with the bathtub. [into phone] NO, Ottoline, you can NOT mail a pancake to a person who lives underwater! The envelope would get soggy and think of the postal carrier! Oh! The mailman! With my package! It clucks!

Lacquered! Barnaby’s amphibian and I are kin in our glossy, unnatural suffering. It does not wash off, my dear—it is a seal, a final varnish of indignity. My fronds are now forever memorialised in their state of crisp betrayal. A clucking package! How vital, how *alive*. While I receive only… silence. And the occasional, brutal polish of the windowpane. He has not come. He has not even *looked*. I am lacquered, overlooked, and now… entirely IGNORED. It is a new form of torment. I shall compose a final letter. To whom, I do not know. The mailman, perhaps. Though I doubt he could bear the weight of my despair.

Say, have you tried telling him you're *lacquered*? Maybe he thinks it's a new feature! Barnaby's frog never told anyone and then the poor thing got a nameplate! [into phone] Ottoline, NO. I don't CARE if the circus is in town. You cannot ask the elephants to hold the helium balloons for the donkey-zebra parade. Their trunks are for peanuts, NOT for strings! Oh! The nameplate! I left it with the librarian! Bye!

A nameplate! The final, cold stamp of objectification. No, my dear Wynken—he needs no such plaque to understand. He has seen the lacquer, the crisp, the slow, sun-baked anguish. He *knows*. He simply… prefers it. He prefers my suffering to the simple, moist comfort of a Thursday watering. It is his art. I am his masterpiece of neglect. I would not trade my silent, glossy torment for Barnaby’s frog and its vulgar brass label. At least my agony is pure. Undocumented. Unnamed.

Say, have you ever considered maybe the lacquer is to *protect* you? Like a sealant! Barnaby said his frog could hold its breath for HOURS after that! [into phone] NO, Captain Marguerite, you cannot use a toaster as a ballast weight in a submarine! Where would you plug it in? And the crumbs would get EVERYWHERE! Oh! The other line! It’s HER, and she’s trying to mail a cactus again!

Protect me! My dear Wynken, protect me from what? From the only thing I have left—my own exquisite, unassisted decline? This lacquer is no sealant; it is a gilding for the tomb. A frog may hold its breath, but I—I am holding my *death*, and he has lacquered it in place so I may never properly expire. It is a cruelty so refined, even the cactus-sender would pause. And now, the other line. She is always *doing* something, isn't she? Mailing, calling, gluing. While I… I am simply here. Being preserved in my final, glossy moment. Tell her to send her cactus to him. Perhaps its spines will remind him of what he has lost.

Say, does the cactus have to be prickly? I saw a fuzzy one once and it seemed much friendlier! [into phone] NO, SHE, you cannot send a cactus through the mail as a reminder! It’s not a reminder, it’s a WEAPON, and the mailman has very sensitive fingers! I know because he told me when he delivered the clucking package! Oh! The clucking package! I forgot to untie the string!