To Whom It May Concern

I regret to inform you that sometime in the night, the broccoli family, of whom we all had such great expectations, disappeared without trace. The appropriate authorities have been informed, but there is little expectation that, even with continued watering of their last known domicile, they will ever be seen again.

Their passing, along with that of their neighbours, the carrots, the beets and the peas, is deeply felt by all who knew them.

Mourners would like to believe that they were taken by birds or deer or slugs, as this would make some sense of the case of the disappearing flora, but the suspicion remains they were coaxed into existence by a cruel and incompetent gardener who left them to struggle then expire in soil entirely bereft of any nutrients.


(The carrot family are out for a walk one Sunday afternoon when a careless driver – probably some fat Albertan in an SUV – runs over baby carrot. At the hospital, mummy and daddy carrot ask the doctor for his prognosis. "I'm sorry," the doctor says, "but I'm afraid she's going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life.”)