Not Quite Eden
He’s mowing again. Again! That’s three times in two weeks and he’s been going at it for more than an hour this morning. How can his grass grow so quick? Stacey reckons he’s feeding it steroids. I picture the blades of his grass with razor edges, venus flytraps with steel spring jaws.
I imagine the garden that he’s tried to slash into submission now rising up against him. A stick trips him, a vine’s tendril curls about his ankle, tender for a moment before it forms a stricture. Roses raise their thorny limbs, he never spared them at pruning time. A eucalypt cracks above him, holds for a moment the weight of it pausing on time’s edge as he pushes his bellyaching machine to the spot below it. Cracks and crashes, the mower is silent.
Not even the willow weeps.
Comments
This is superb! Reminds me a little of the kind of everyday horror shorts written by Christopher Fowler. Good stuff indeed!
Lovely piece of writing. I particularly enjoyed this line:
‘I picture the blades of his grass with razor edges, venus flytraps with steel spring jaws.’
Great imagery.
Quibbles: This following line is a little clumsy and doesn’t really fit with the pace of the whole:
‘A eucalypt cracks above him, holds for a moment the weight of it pausing on time’s edge as he pushes his bellyaching machine to the spot below it’
It’s such a good piece overall that if you looked at re-working this line it’d be worth it.
As always, just MHO.
Many thanks, Peter, for your thoughtful workshopping. That line didn’t quite work, did it? I love it when people take the time to comment on my work and I really feel great about the wonderful comments I’ve had here.
– Amanda le Bas de Plumetot
Perfect ending to a fascinating story. The drama of normalcy. Very nice.
ooh, i like the way you set this scene. so dark and sharp and clean. that last line is glorious.