By: Raven Merz
I come here to disconnect.
From the world. From my thoughts. From stress. It's different. No one knows I'm here. I can just sit here until I'm finished. Hours, days, years. No one will notice.
"Hello."
I jump, looking up to see a quizzical face looking back at me, framed by gray hair that seemed to cascade down into a large beard. After taking in his presence, my eyes immediately flick to his.
Bright.
That's the first word that comes to my mind.
There's a glow that comes across his face when he looks at me. He's jovial, happy for no reason at all.
"S-sorry," I stammer. "I didn't know anyone else was here."
It's true. No one is ever here. That's why I like coming. I close the notebook I'd been writing in and start to get up, feeling suddenly that I was intruding on his space somehow.
"For what?" he replies. "I'm glad to see you here."
I pause, startled again. He's glad to see me? Do I know him? I look back into his eyes, again struck by their brightness, and trace the rest of his face for a sign of reminiscence. The color of his beard reminds me of my grandfather, but he's too tall, and happy, to be him.
"I'm sorry," I say again after the silence had been too long, "Do we know each other?"
"Not yet," he answers, his smile causing the corners of his eyes to wrinkle. "It's not common that we get visitors in the garden, and I'm glad to see someone here."
I'm taken a little aback by that statement. I've never heard someone say that before, that they were just glad someone was there. And that person has certainly never been me. I feel a warmth growing in my chest, though. I can see in his eyes that he means it.
He kneels down to the flower bed closest to him, the peonies, and starts pulling up weeds, gingerly tossing them into a pile next to him.
I find myself watching his movements back and forth, back and forth. I watch his tired, strong hands pull up green stems and ugly bushels of weeds, but I wince a little bit when I see him thoughtlessly pull a bright yellow dandelion out of the ground. It looks almost wistful, hanging limp between his fingers before being dropped into the pile. I've become so focused on the weeding that I jump when he speaks.
"This is my favorite part," he says, smiling down at the now weedless flower bed. He looks at the pile of leaves and then up at me. "You have to get rid of the trouble makers so everything else can grow."
I feel a tightness in my chest and a twinge of indignation thinking of the dandelion flower he's just cast to the side.
"Well, I don't know," I reply, trying to remain polite. "I thought the dandelion was pretty."
He's started gathering up the weeds, and he picks up the dandelion, wrapping the weak stem around his pointer finger.
"Oh, they're pretty alright," he acquiesces. "But they choke up on the other flowers just the same as the other weeds. You gotta get rid of 'em if you want a pretty flower bed."
I press my lips together, remembering the number of times my mom had said, "It's a weed," when I picked her a dandelion. I guess he was right. If it was a weed, it made it harder for other flowers to grow.
Amidst my reflection, I notice his bright eyes watching me once again. This time, they were focused. I shifted a little bit, wondering what they were perceiving.
The smile on his face returns after a moment, and in a gentle voice, he says,
"Come on, I want to show you something."
His eyes flicker, the sincereness of his request washing a wave of calm over me. Warring with a thread of inner apprehension, I can't but feel compelled to follow as he turns and starts leading me to a back corner of the garden. I look around as we walk, realizing that we're surrounded by fruit trees. Oranges, apples, berries, all growing ripe and making my mouth water.
I look forward at him and think,
How have I never noticed all of these trees? And how does he get them to grow?
After a few more minutes of my marveling at the bounty of fruit, we approach a remote corner of the garden, and we stop. My heart starts to pick up its pace, and I try to fight thoughts of how this situation could turn awry. After taking a few breaths, I look forward and process a pile of sticks, weeds, and other kindling. I notice a few dandelions, too.
A burn pile? I think to myself. Why did he bring me back here to show me this?
Without a word, he tosses the bunch of weeds onto the pile. He looks at it admirably for a moment, then explains,
"I collect weeds and other things that are good for making fire throughout the day, and every few weeks, I come back here and burn it. Do you know why I might do that?"
He asks the question kindly, and I can tell he really wants my answer.
"To get rid of them?" I venture, thinking how happy he seemed to get rid of the weeds.
He chuckles a little and answers,
"Not just to get rid of them. What happens when you burn things?"
I search my brain for things associated with fire, wondering how I got into this conversation about weeds and burn piles.
Smoke? Ash? Heat?
"Well, the area gets really hot, and there's smoke and ashes."
He nods.
"Exactly, ashes."
He pulls out a pack of matches, taking one out of the box.
"Ashes are good for fertilizer," he continues, lighting a match. "So, when you burn the weeds..." he tosses the match onto the pile, the small flame landing in its center and igniting a few stems and twigs around it. Then, the leaves next to those stems and twigs catch fire, then more weeds, and the dandelions. They all turn red and black, the fire blazing. I cough a little from the smoke that's accumulated in the air as the fire consumes the entire pile, beginning to burn it.
"They turn into something that can help the other things grow. Something better than what they could have ever been before."
Better than they've ever been before...
That statement sticks in my head. I think of the peonies, the ones I've gazed at and even wrote poems about and drawn. I picture him sprinkling ashes over them and them growing full and their sweet smell perfuming the entire garden.
I can't tell if it's the heat or the smell of the smoke, but a tear rolls down my cheek as I watch the fire begin to die down.
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