Jason & Demarara #6

On one springtime Saturday, when mild sunshine had lured men into shorts and sunglasses, these men had roused their lawnmowers, hauled them from their garages and sheds and dragged them into the mild sunlight. For these machines, hibernation was over. The well-prepared owners of petrol mowers had long ago changed their oil, and had no reason to worry about the degraded remnants of fuel from September, nor did they have the need to prise away last summer’s grass detritus from the blades with screwdrivers. They had already oiled their mowers’ blades and had jerry cans of the requisite petrol to fuel their machines. They were soon on their way, vibrating the air with their motors, filling it with a pleasant tang of green leaf volatiles and petrol emissions. The electric boys were already mowing, but in a more nasal manner — even the well-spoken, cordless ones were all treble, no bass. Meghan Trainor hated them.

Of the unprepared would-be mower folks, several could not get a tune from their machines. A few of these sighed huffily and went about making the necessary reparations. Two men broke the drawcord and abandoned the day’s mowing.

Jason and Demarara owned neither a petrol nor an electric mower. Being several feet above the earth, their first-floor flat was sans jardin, and a surly and somewhat unapproachable young man in their landlord’s employ tended their building’s communal lawn. They thought was called Jake. Perhaps.

Perhaps Jake mowed its tenth of an acre unceremoniously every fortnight, once the mowing season begun. As we know, it had indeed begun. Jason was looking down at Jake, a foot back from the open window, wondering if the young gardener had seen him. Could see him. The sun and its high wattage light, throwing itself against the angles of their building, cast cold shadows that Jason couldn’t work out were illuminating him or draping him in angular, daytime darkness. The dim light of the front room lamp and the big tv made the equation harder still to work out. Of the two, Demerara was the more pragmatic and academic, it had been noted, while he was the gun-for-hire, freelancing, career-shape-shifting wildcard. She would understand the angles and light and all rather better than he could be bothered to work through. His guess was that should Perhaps Jake look up at his way, his surliness would preclude him from making it clear if he had or hadn’t seen his observer.

There was no way he would be asking Demarara. Instead, he carried on watching Perhaps Jake mow, trying to remember who thought he was called Jake (perhaps).

Demerara watched the big TV—a Saturday cookery show, set in a colour scheme that was 98.7% brick—and enjoyed the scents of spring. She was looking forward to tending to her Alchemilla means as spring unwound, and was going to get right out into their little patch of the communal flowerbed as soon as Perhaps Jake went away.

A screaming tore from the communal garden, followed a microsecond later by a crack. Jason flopped back, screaming a little himself. Demarara gasped.

“The hell was that?!” she shouted.

“Think he got a stone in the blades.”

“What, and it hit us from down here? Is that even possible?” Demerara asked.

Ah, thought Jason, smiling to himself. You tell me.

As well as penning the Jason & Demarara series of shorts, JS Harding is a . . .Novelist! (writing as LJ Denholm) - Under Rand Farm - available in paperback via Amazon and *FREE* via Kindle Unlimited!

Short story writer! - Mr. Threadbare, Farmer Young, the Backtraps et al

Humour writer!- NewsThump, BBC Comedy.

Kids' writer! - TBC!