The Gardner and his Wife

[Guest guest]

There was a gardner who kept yard and house hold maintainence items in a

shed. One day, he spilled a small amount of road salt into his fertilizer bag

accidentally. Later, than handful of poisoned fertilizer was spread by his

hand in a certain flower bed in the garden.

 

Those flowers then died. This left a hole in the landscape by appearance. So

the bees changed their mood about that spot a bit, and went elsewhere more so

than previously. The plants surrounding this new hole there were not cross

polinated as fully, and produced less seed that year.

 

The following year the landscape was therefore a little more baren around

that spot, so in a sense the barren spot was expanding. So the gardner

unknowingly gave a little less attention there with the water hose. So things

dried up a bit that year. This caused an unseen small organism in the soil to

die off, which affected the worms there. They then retreated to better

pastures nearby, and that area then had less soil worm-caused irrigation.

This led to a drying up of that area a little more. The water would just run

off a little more than before. So the area dried up a little more.

 

The following years, seeing that the area was increasingly empty of life, the

dog began to sit there to sun himself, as it was now a kindof "clearing".

This caused the grass to get somewhat packed down, and it began to die off.

As the ground dried and cleared, the son in the family found this place to be

good for playing with friends, and they began to dig in the ground there.

Pretty soon the area became a kind of sand pit for boys dirt games, and all

plant life vanished.

 

As the boy grew, he tended to use this spot for working on his bike in the

summer time, as it was a clear peaceful spot in the yard now, and the dog

could sit by him there, and it was a nice clear place to work in the peace of

the backyard. The father had no problem with this gradual change in the

appearance of that area of the yard, as it was a new cozy place for the

growing boy to work on his bike and so on.

 

Eventually the boy got a motorcycle, and started repairing it there as well.

This was also alright with the father, as it made his son happy to work on

his motorcycle in that clear spot in the backyard garden. He was happy that

his growing son was happy, and as his likings changed to motorcycles, that

just seemed like a natural progression, and so it was accepted.

 

One day the son spilled an oil can completely onto the ground there. It was

an accident. The father could not get too angry, after all, it was easily

kindof covered over by spreading some sawdust there, and that made the area

kindof look good anyway, so it ended up ok after all.

 

The son grew to manhood and moved out. He politely asked if he could keep his

old motorcycle there for a year until he found a bigger house, and the father

agreed. They put it under a tarp, and it just stood there, in that off to the

side now kindof ignored section of the yard.

 

One day the gardner noticed that area. He stared at it for awhile. He thought

about all that happened there over the years and how it all began with one

little problem that could have been fixed, but wasn't, and how that led to so

many things, and ultimately the old dead motorcycle standing there under that

plastic tarp.

 

But then he thought of his wife. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple years

earlier. She was at the hospital at this moment, having one of her usual

check ups. Then the door opened and she came into the house.

 

She seemed very serious. A tear formed in both their eyes. They both knew

what was going to be discussed. They knew it was coming.

 

If only her problem with depression had been cured years ago. Perhaps then

she wouldn't have smoked. After she smoked for a few years, her self image

changed such that she kindof retreated a bit. Being home more and with less

interactions with friends, she drank more and more over time. The lung cancer

and liver disease, diabetes, and all that stuff that eventually came, it was

just unavoidable as the pain just unfolded itself. They always felt hopeless

as her problems deepened.

 

Now it was over. It was too late.

 

Eventually after she died, he moved out, and the new owner tossed the

motorcycle, and replanted that area.

 

The new owner didn't use fertilizers, but rather kept the ground full of

organic nutrients in a sortof wholistic way that he worked the Earths rhythms

in the yard. He didn't keep road salt because when it was icy he skated to

the store instead of driving. He and his wife finished their lives in that

home. When the next owners moved in, they didn't notice the extremelly

healthy garden beds, and instead shopped at the local store for dried and

canned foods that kept easily on the shelf. The yard grew over abundantly

with weeds, and the bugs in the yard started bug folk lore about having found

heaven. They weren't disturbed there for 40 years, and after that amount of

time, the bugs living there then could not ever remember not being in heaven,

and they considered it normal.

 

For Esther and Jennifer, neither of whom should have died so young. May what

killed them be understood, and not repeated.

 

 

das goravani