A Gardener in a Graveyard of Birds

Despite the cool autumn wind, and the familiar crunch of foliage underfoot, the gardener’s pockets were weightless. The leathery fingers awkwardly buried themselves in voids dusted with breadcrumbs, his neck bent as he scuffled along, swaying and then regaining his footing. The pills he took that morning, entirely harmless, are said to put one in a state of deep, resplendent slumber, by inspiring dreams so vivid, he sometimes couldn’t tell sleep from wakefulness. If he was ever asleep, or dead. Sometimes he was filled with conviction, in a state of palpable dreaming, that this was it, that his subconscious finally merged with his soul, deserting his body. Discovering that he was very much alive, he took them again this morning, finding them scattered on the gritty countertop. The aftertaste was bitter, and he always felt like it was lodged in his throat whenever he swallowed. Sticking his leathery fingers as far as they could go behind his bruised throat, he could never find them. No matter how far he pushed with his hands and thrashed with his throat, nothing could stop him from going there. The pharmacist increased his subscription with each visit, along with something for his sore throat, to smooth his deep, scratchy voice. It is not uncommon to grow to hate the things you need, he needed to go there and thus he hated it. Some call it a loss of control, some a lack of meaning, and others say it’s a lack of God. Perhaps it was because space was concentrated, and all light collapsed on itself, and the dust irritated his eyes and colored his teeth. Whatever the reason, he would never see it, and if it blinded him, he would believe he was only dreaming in oblivion.

The peg-like mountains held the world in both corners like an embroidered sheet, rippling and textile. The greenfield, the grey homes huddled together along faded asphalt lines, the red of a woman’s sweater, and her rippling hair in the midst of rippling grass. Overgrown with time and more time. How much time exactly, the gardener didn’t know. A hundred years could have passed, and perhaps because his soul escaped so often, it stretched his life thin like a branch that becomes scraggly in the high canopies. He squinted his eyes at the red and scratched his head. He approached steadily, each step thunderous in his ears. The red sweater was thick knitted with sleeves limp on either side, and the hair burnished silver, so long and thick it reached her knees. In his dreamlike state, the gardener wanted to snip off enough to bury, to see if something from her youth would return, something filled with vigor and recklessness. He would shove it deep down his throat and wouldn’t make an effort to retrieve it, hoping the seeds, silvery as moonlight, would break within him as well. He reached longingly with his leathery fingers, to skim the surface like a spider across the water. The head turned, “What are you doing?” The voice was soft and barely audible, and the eyes pools swirling like paint in water, dark and shadowy. He stumbled back, blinking, “Am I dreaming?” She tilted her head at him incredulously. He croaked, failing to mask the longing, “If I am dreaming, could I have your hair?”

“I don’t know, am I dreaming? What if my hair is really gone once, I wake up?” She asked in a half-whisper, twiddling with a strand. The gardener became fixated on that finger, smooth and slender, the nail packed with dirt. He watched the hair coil and unwound and fray until he no longer had the heart to ask her. She must love it, he thought. Her mouth was thin and blanched with pronounced, wrinkled corners. It gave her a solemn, lifeless look. If not for her eyes, constantly shifting and swirling. The corners of her mouth softened slightly as she turned her back to the gardener and continued to watch the galahs hopping on the grass. He considered returning to where the trees are, and kick his way back home through the piles, but her smooth fingers tugged at her sleeves and her shoulders were relaxed, almost inviting. “Do you have a name?” He inquired, edging closer, watching her twist her sole deep into the soft earth. “I was the gravedigger’s wife,” she whispered, her attention rooted on the pink, frisky birds. “That’s what they called me, before…” She stopped and he understood, glancing at a flickering streetlamp. “I was a gardener, before,” he said, attempting to ease the tension causing her shoulders to rise toward her ears. They dropped shortly, and she sighed, her foot digging and digging. “You grow things?” She asked, almost indifferently. The gardener’s jacket flapped with the rippling grass and the rippling flowers, vast and untamed in wind. Overgrown with time and more time. “Not anymore,” he murmured. The gravedigger’s wife nodded, she understood too. He replaced the rippling with mowed grass, trim flower beds, and an elderly couple walking arm in arm. He was young when things were orderly, with limbs sinewy and sprite. The elderly would groan as they rose from their beds, go out for their daily walk, and return for an easy microwaved meal. And the young would dance and make things neat. The world has changed since, and he withered. Before made him age quicker than he was supposed to.

“I’m not gloomy,” she said, after a prolonged silence, “It is only my face and wrinkles that make it seem so. I am happier in this place. I am happy when I’m there, or here you would say. I know for sure this time, where I am. No real man would blatantly ask for my hair, unless in a dream, so I am happy.” He wondered what is real, what is real, what is real. Was she an image he invented, or perhaps it was her soul he was meeting in a spiritual realm, or was it truly flesh, hair, and sweater? For the first time since before he wished he wasn’t dreaming. “You do have beautiful hair,” he stated as matter of fact, an attempt to silence the voices. “I’ve been growing it for a long time,” she replied, twirling it again, “It’s the one thing about me that remains if no one snips it of course. Could I tell you something?” He nodded. She coughed into her sleeve, “I had the most peculiar dream yesterday; I was in my room and the wallpaper was peeling. I know it was a dream because I don’t have wallpaper, only grey cement bricks. There was a knock on my door, one so resounding I felt it in my head. I opened the door and discovered a box, a brown paper box with a string tied around it. I tore it open and found a baby bird. It was the ugliest creature I ever beheld, but my heart opened so wide. A white cat brushed against my leg, and commanded, “Give it to me.” I refused him and scooped the bird’s frail, scratchy body in my hands. The cat told me it would find the bird one way or another, that it would play with it, and give it a slow ending. Cats never lie, you know, they look you straight in the eye when they tell you things. "So, I snapped the baby bird's neck, to save it. But then." She paused, clenching her fingers, "Grey walls. And now I see you, how peculiar." The gravedigger’s wife sighed and turned to him, eyes swirling. They reminded him of a room he once visited. It was a blue, semi-dark room filled with spider webs he couldn’t help entangling himself with, thin and sticky, “How did you feel when you snapped its neck?” She pondered, the swirls beginning to color the water, and she spoke softly, “Relieved.” He felt the same at that moment, and if she had said anything else, if she was appalled or sickened by the blood on her hands, the cat would have retained some control. The gardener reached for the bird closest to him and snapped its neck with his leathery fingers. It crumbled limply on the grass, its friends unbothered and hopping. He looked at her, all rippling and silvery.

“You can have my hair,” she whispered, smiling.