Withered, Useless Vine

Most of the passionfruit vine was dead: broken, dried and withered. Joel hadn't torn it down yet, because it always seemed to have enough green leaves, shoots or unripe fruit to give him hope of a better future.

Getting rid of it would be quite a job anyway, so he was happy to have just cause to procrastinate. Besides, he wondered, wasn't a withered, useless vine to be preferred over no vine at all?

Planting a new vine and tending it to maturity would be far too much work entirely. He was too old for that now, anyway.

Joel stood and watered the vine a little longer, and laughed aloud when it occurred to him that some of his friendships had become very much like his passionfruit vine. When he had finished laughing, he cried a little too.