Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

What would you do when you accidentally spill a loved one’s blood in your garden, only for it to birth a mind-blogging, horrific creature of sorts the next day?

For Thomas, he does what his dying wife wants. He takes more of her blood and sprinkles it over their garden — the one she dreamed of so he worked hard to turn into reality — and the next day, her wish comes true. She does this again and again, and it gets more ghastly the more she loses herself in this “miraculous” ability of hers that could give her what she has always, truly wanted: her deceased baby back to life and proper parents to care for the child.

In essence, this short story is hair-raising. It’s so creepy, so odd that imagining it brings shivers down my spine. Sadly, the juvenile execution does this short story no justice.

Cabbage suffers from writing with a flow akin to endless stumbling. It switches between moments of smoothness and moments when the imagery sticks out like a sore thumb. For instance, the usage of “thick, purple life” for blood coming out of a human’s veins makes it feel alien/sci-fi but it’s not? And, the phrase “his leaking wife” should sound scary but brings incontinence to mind instead of what’s actually intended.

Moreover, both Thomas and Rosemary aren’t fleshed out enough, even for a short story. Thomas feels too caricaturish. Rosemary has stronger wants, needs and desires but is relegated to side character status. Neither make me want to root for them even though I understand where they’re coming from. Nevertheless, I do think Cabbage would’ve worked better in Rosemary’s POV because of those aforesaid wants, needs and desires. There’s a lot of potential for it to have a stronger horror/gothic atmosphere too.

Also, this might just be me, but the playlist, poems and quotes were unnecessary. Sure, they’re cool but I believe that when doing this, they should be there to add to the short story. Instead, they appear as distractions here because they don’t really bring value or depth and rather, act more like an attempt to cover up the aspects that were lacking.

Everything considered, Cabbage could’ve been a haunting tale but ultimately fell short.