The Garden

Mr. Tenzang sat serenely in his garden drinking clear tea from his favorite porcelain cup. The garden dripped moisture all around him and breathed rhythmically in unison with his soul. He had captured, tamed and cultivated a precious patch of paradise amid the dry choking, polluted desolate decay that surrounded his desert home, and he was determined that no one, no freak of natural circumstance, and no community ordinance or by-law would invade the tranquility of his symbiotic relationship.

The front door signal sent its pan-flute notes softly searching for him. Mr. Tenzang pushed the tiny button on his cellular hand monitor that lay beside him on the limestone bench beside the fountain. The distorted masked face of the water meter enforcement officer stared back at him from the tiny handheld screen. The fountain trickled naturally across huge slabs of sandstone creating a reverberation beneath the final underlying rock overhanging the aquatic garden pool. The sounds of water and wavering foliage combined like a symphony with the repeated bars of the pan flute.

For two months he had avoided responding to the door and specifically the water control enforcement authority. He had trashed all the e-mail without any replies and he had recycled the paper edicts that were stuffed through the mailbox. Today was another scorching 115 degrees and he wondered how the bloated-faced water cop could stand out on the searing pavement all day ringing doorbells, breathing in the noxious fumes of a dying mismanaged land. For two years now the terra-formed piece of paradise that comprised the community of Loca Verde had been fading into brown, bleaching itself out into pale yellow, and was in the process of waiting to die, staving off the inevitable like a rotting cancer patient. But Mr. Tenzang was above all that. He had priorities and didn't need too much in order to live. However one priority was crucial and that was water and it made all the difference, especially to the Loca Verde Water Control Authority, the LVWCA.

The pan flutes ceased and the garden continued with its own lyrical composition. Mr. Tenzang let out a deep-chested, inaudible sigh of relief. Two months of harassment was becoming more than he could bear even though in his rational moments he knew the LVWCA would come after him once they detected an oddity with his water consumption and an imbalance on their input/output monitors. After all he was forced into doing something since the edict was only going to allow him a few flushes a day, sponge bath water and a meager portion for drinking. He couldn't let them die, not after he had raised them all from babies at the micro-cellular level. He had invented them, nurtured them, catalytically enhanced their evolution and built their nursery, his garden, a world beyond and above the law.

Mr. Tenzang's house was your standard upper level subdivision home high up in the hills within the pricier range and no different from its neighboring houses except that the front of the home served as the facing barrier for privacy, and from its sides and back Mr. Tenzang had constructed a continuous ten foot stone wall enclosing the garden and effectively creating a bastion against intruders. He house he had inherited along with a substantial fortune from his mother. She had worked hard all her life, sometimes at three jobs, while creating other forms of income through entrepreneurial ventures. She had worked so hard that unlike Mr. Tenzang she had had no time to appreciate her environment, let alone create a pleasing one. Mr. Tenzang had inherited a brick building and a patch of parched domestic grass and with the other assets he'd felt secure enough to quit the biological research center and retire to create his own brand of paradise.

The gritty sound of small pebbles sandwiched between the sidewalk pavement beside the house and shoe leather interrupted the natural music surrounding him. He had purposely neglected to construct a gate into the garden so that the only entrance was through the house from the front door to the outside sliders at the back. He pictured in his mind the silence now, as the water cop stood still in shock at finding himself facing the formidable barrier of the stone wall.

Mr. Tenzang chuckled to himself and whispered to his babied. " You're safe, my little darlings."

A breeze blew a few of the ferns into a response and the variegated light shifted the reflections in the pond. Mr. Tenzang listened for the gritty scrape of frustrated retreating feet but he only perceived silence. Then he couldn't believe his ears. There was the sound of scrambling, hands on bare stone, clothing moving across coarse mortar, shoes scraping. He listened in shock, growing furious with each effort toward the invasion.

" How could this water cop have the audacity to invade my privacy, my home, my garden," he thought, growing frantic at the injustice of it. His father's ornamental curved sword hung in its scabbard above the mantle piece. Mr. Tenzang saw its image before his eyes as the first hand of the intruder came into view at the top of the wall.

" Don't come any further!" Mr. Tenzang found himself commanding as an alternative to the images of the sword in his hand.

A second hand and the beaked nose of the water cop appeared above the wall.

" Ah, so you are home, Mr. Tenzang. We've been trying to reach you for months. Problems with your meter, you know, water consumption and all that. Thought we'd just take a look for ourselves, seeing as you weren't ever home."

" Don't come any higher; you're trespassing on private property right now as it is," warned Mr. Tenzang.

" The Water Control Authority has the right to come in here and read your meter; it's the law."

" Law or not, come no further," commanded Mr. Tenzang, becoming visibly shaken by the arrogance of the man.

The water cop was up and over, down and in the midst of trampling the foliage beneath the wall before Mr. Tenzang could utter another breath. Wide-eyed in paralytic shock Mr. Tenzang stared at the crushed leaves and broken stems of many of his nurtured babies.

" Okay, Tenzang where is it?" The water cop had dropped the polite customer service tone, along with the 'Mr.' now that his feet were firmly planted inside the impregnable fortress that he and his comrades had laid siege to for the last two months.

"Where's what? Asked Mr. Tenzang, his mind racing toward a new strategy.

" The meter, you dumb shit!" All pretense of official register was gone from the water cop's address.

Mr. Tenzang stood with his feet firmly planted in an athletic stance, like a shortstop waiting for a line drive or a tennis player receiving the first serve. A sense of impatience hung in the air. The water cop squinted his eyes into narrow slits and surveyed the lush luxuriance of Mr. Tenzang's garden. He turned toward Mr. Tenzang, took two steps forward and brushed the older man aside like a cobweb across a doorway. He entered the house leaving Mr. Tenzang, a crumpled heap among his plants.

When he returned, he had read the meter and had a triumphant beaming smile.

" We've got ya, Tenzang. Violation of city ordinance, meter tampering. The meter reads zero, yet you've got lots of water. That's not allowed, Mr. Tenzang, and we can prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, which means, no water and foreclosure on this property."

The water cop was just bursting with exuberance. He could have been Elliot Ness finally closing the door on Big Al Capone.

Mr. Tenzang stood in the middle of the garden, hands behind his back saying nothing. An unusual calm had come over him, the calm of decisiveness. The water cop in full audacious arrogance approached him while pulling his cellular communicator from his belt.

" Central command; Roberts here; finally nabbed 4980.... aagh."

The last three digits of the identification number were truncated, as was his body. Mr. Tenzang let the sword that he had grabbed from the mantle while the water cop had been reading the meter, sweep through the air like a fern frond in the wind. The blade didn't hesitate as it swept across the neck, through skin, arteries and bone, sending the head slightly off-center on impact toppling to the ground among Mr. Tenzang's little babies. The body no longer officially arrogant and full of ego stood momentarily pumping its life out across the garden, before it collapsed in crumpled heap at Mr. Tenzang's feet.

Mr. Tenzang shook uncontrollably with the raw adrenaline rush of his actions. He was such a peaceful man and this atrocity of survival seemed so antithetical to his soul. He slumped down beside the headless body and wept. In fact he wept through the rest of the afternoon and into the long shadows of the evening.

When Mr. Tenzang returned to a rational moment, he noticed that the garden had changed. The plants he had created were designed to seize opportunities along their evolutionary path, in order to ensure survival under harsh conditions. Today had been a marker event for them. The roots, fibers, tendrils, fronds, shoots, stems, leaves and the blades of ornamental grasses had grown rapidly seeking the sustenance of the body and the severed head so that all that remained was a parasitic matrix of organic matter feeding itself on the remains of the corpse.

Mr. Tenzang shuttered and ran into the house like a man chased by a tiger. Once inside he locked the sliding patio doors, placed the bloodstained sword in its scabbard above the mantle piece and locked himself in his bedroom.

By morning Mr. Tenzang after a restless sleep awoke wondering if the events of the day before had been part of a bad dream. The garden awaited his inspection as he peered out from the safety on the inside of the sliding glass doors. The slider squawked open and the garden responded with a series of skittering sounds, a rustling of ground cover. Mr. Tenzang warily stepped across the patio stones toward the deeper foliage where the water cop's body had fallen. He parted the mass of leaves and tendrils that had grown up over the body parts. He stepped back quickly, his heart thumping, and his eyes wide in disbelief. The remains were almost totally consumed. Only thin threads of bone remained and the head was a dusty skull that had been carved and gnawed into cobwebs of attached bone like a crude Chinese ivory ball. Mr. Tenzang stepped back onto the patio and sat down on its stone steps to catch his breath. Slowly he began to chuckle hysterically.

" No need to bury anything," he thought. Mr. Tenzang waited quietly surveying his beautiful garden. He let all the gruesome events wash away from his mind and then finally got up, went to the kitchen for a cup of tea, returned with his favorite porcelain cup and sat down in his lawn chair near the fountain to enjoy another day. His garden had drunk from the all night sprinklers and the other things and now the air enclosed in the wall hung rich in cool pure oxygen. Mr. Tenzang breathed deeply and smiled at his creation, his peaceful piece of paradise. But peace was not going to be a part of Mr. Tenzang's day. The cycle started once again. The telephone started ringing in the kitchen. Mr. Tenzang let it plead with him to answer. It rang and stopped and rang again and again until in frustration it fell silent. Then the pan flutes started searching for him once again. Mr., Tenzang pressed the monitor button for the front door. The tiny screen in his palm showed the distorted faces of two Loca Verde water cops. Mr. Tenzang smiled.

" Can't take me down with one, head to head you up the ante and try to tag team me," he thought.

" Should I let them stand around, get frustrated, either go away or climb my wall or should I invite them into the parlor?" he asked speaking not only to himself but also to the garden. The garden rustled back at him, daring him to open the front door. Mr. Tenzang hesitated at the front door. The first had been emotional, full of raw provoked action; this would be deliberate and coldly calculated.

The door swung open.

"Yes," asked Mr. Tenzang.

"We've come to read the meter, Mr. Tenzang. Can we just step in for a few moments?" The taller of the Loca Verde water cops spoke officiously in an overly friendly tone. Mr. Tenzang was wary. Surely they'd know the other guy had been here yesterday and was missing.

"Sure, come on in; it's at the foot of the lower stairs on the left," he heard himself saying just as politely.

The taller water cop descended the stairs and his partner proceeded to move around the kitchen and the living room as if looking for clues. Mr. Tenzang thought he'd take a chance at establishing his story.

" I don't know why you're here today; one of your men was here yesterday to read the meter; Roberts, I think he said was his name. Nice fellow; took the reading and was on his way."

"Hey Bill, Mr. Tenzang says Roberts was here yesterday," the partner shouted down the basement stairs.

" Is that so. That's it. I think I've got all I need here."

Mr. Tenzang heard the footsteps ascending the basement stairs. He opened the slider and stepped out into the garden. He felt like a spider crawling carefully across his web. The partner followed him into the garden. Bill came up the stairs and he too stepped out onto the patio. Both men gasped in astonishment at the verdant beauty, the lush deep green hues, the water trickling into the water garden. They sniffed the air and physically felt its vitality surge through their bodies.

"So this is what it's all about, Mr. Tenzang. Water piracy while the rest of us are dying from the dry heat and the heavy air we can not breathe."

Mr. Tenzang stood close to the taller ferns where he'd stuck the sword into the ground before he'd initially opened the front door. He squinted his eyes together letting the filament of his eyelashes screen the sun into tiny wispy lines. He saw the two figures differently, not as men with jobs to do, and families to provide for, but as alien predators, advanced scouts chronicling details for a future invasion. The trailing tendrils of the garden foliage were watching too, moving slowly and in unison toward the two water cops.

" Mr. Tenzang, we've read the meter; we have the documented proof; I've phoned it in and as of right now this is all coming to an end, Your water has been cut off.  Charges will be laid. Payments will be calculated. It's all over, Mr. Tenzang."

For Mr. Tenzang it seemed that he had stepped across the line into another world. The arc of the sword slid though the air, gleaming in the bright sunshine, slicing through the top of Bill's head. The cut was clean and forceful but the sweep slowed in its motion through the bone of the skull. The shorter partner stood stunned and immobile. The tendrils and vines of the garden rushed out toward him and wrapped him tightly around the ankles and waist. The second blow cut swiftly downward from his neck to his torso, felling him to the ground as a slab of severed meat. Mr. Tenzang stepped back wiping droplets of sprayed blood from his forehead. The garden turned wild and active with each one of his nurtured baby plants sending out fingers of foliage to partake in the feast that lay bleeding and dying on the soil.

Mr. Tenzang had saved his garden once again. He sat down in the chair beside the pond, after placing the sword among the ferns. The fountain gurgled and burbled and the garden sang sweet songs to him. After a time Mr. Tenzang retired feeling satiated and calm. The garden was still working in its consumption and he felt himself to be the good provider, the creator, and the god in harmony in his universe.

In the morning reality arrived. The toilet had only one flush, and there was no water flowing in the taps for brushing his teeth or making tea. They had cut him off. He rushed to the back sliders and could immediately tell that the sprinklers had not come on for the over night as they usually did. The garden looked a little hostile without its nightly dose of water. He felt he didn't need to inspect the bodies; he knew they would be consumed. The garden had taken control over the night, spreading out over the patio, climbing up the stone wall enclosure and the sides of the house. The pond was a mass of plants sucking up the available moisture. The paradise had disappeared and along with its transformation entered jungle darkness and fear. Mr. Tenzang was now afraid. He slid the kitchen window open a few inches and immediately the vegetation moved up the wall and onto the screen. One tendril pushed through like a fist and shot quickly into the air above the counter. Mr. Tenzang leaped back in shock, then impulsively sprang forward and slammed the sliding window across. The vine resisted then retracted back through the hole in the screen leaving its scraped outer skin hanging on the edges of the aluminum window frame. Mr. Tenzang leaned back against the refrigerator, energy draining from his body. His calm aloof composure now lay scattered before him.

The sound of breaking glass raised his heart rate and sent more adrenaline surging through his circulatory system.

"The basement window!" he thought. He rushed down the stairs, saw the water heater and the idea struck him just as the first of the vines made their way down the concrete block wall in the storage area. He slammed the door, enclosing them, and then searched about the utility room containing the water heater for the length of garden hose he'd used to water the yard with before the sprinkler system was installed. And there it was, wrapped around its coil on the wall. Quickly Mr. Tenzang wheeled the hose out and attached it to the outlet at the bottom of the water heater. He could hear the vines filling the storage room, slithering across the power-trowelled concrete floor, pushing up against the hinges of the door. He had containers in his lab along with a water cooler and a food cooler and he used these to decant the hot water from the heater. He hauled these up to the kitchen and closed the door on the basement. Without a lock he suspected it wouldn't hold, so Mr. Tenzang hammered three strips of two by four across the frame, top, middle and bottom. Then he filled the kettle, boiled the water and made a cup of tea which he proceeded to drink while sitting on a dining room chair in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by the water containers. He faced the front door of the house with his back to the writhing mass of vegetation that now blocked the light from entering the kitchen through the window and the sliding door.

Through many pots of tea Mr. Tenzang waited patiently in stoic silence, unaware of daylight or the closing in of night, unresponsive to the rising sun and the lengthening of the shadows.

Deputy Clemens of the Loca Verde Sheriff's Department rang the pan flutes at the front door. He was a young kid just out of high school. His uncle, the sheriff, stood behind him. Both were sweating beneath the state issue air-filtration masks. Behind them on the road four other officers leaned in combat position against two cruisers. Deputy Clemens continued to press the front door signal with no response. He looked over at his uncle who nodded and signaled with his hand back to the officers at the cruisers. The megaphone crackled.

"Mr. Tenzang, we know you are in there. You are under arrest. You cannot resist forever, so come on out peacefully."

They waited in the sweltering dry polluted heat, each wishing he could be back inside his climate-controlled environment. The megaphone boomed again on the sheriff's signal.

"You have five minutes, Mr. Tenzang; five minutes to come out and surrender yourself to us. Otherwise there will be no more alternatives; we'll be coming in. Believe me, Mr. Tenzang, you'll get hurt."

The house was silent for the duration of the five minutes. Deputy Clemens looked at his uncle. The sheriff signaled the four officers to proceed to the back to scale the wall. They moved quickly and furtively along the outside of the house. The sheriff aimed his shotgun at the lock of the front door but he didn't need to pull the trigger. The doorknob turned and the door swung inward. A rush of cool moist clean air pushed out around their ankles and rose up in front of them. The sheriff stepped into the hall and Deputy Clemens hung back at the door with his firearm drawn.

The house was dark as if all the windows had been boarded up or draped in heavy curtains. Down the hall toward the kitchen the sheriff could see a latticework of light penetrating through the rear sliders. Everywhere looked like a tangle of ropes and leaves. The air smelled of his childhood, playing in the fields beside the river that now existed as a buried pipe with only a trickle of water flowing through it. The sheriff watched the four officers descend and appear as huge black shapes against the latticework of light on the kitchen slider. Everything else in front of him was darkness and gray, silent shadows. He listened carefully, trying to sense Mr. Tenzang's breathing, a slight movement of a foot, or an odor of fear, but nothing happened. He signaled his nephew to remain guarding the door and then proceeded down the hall toward the Kitchen. Suddenly there was movement; the black shapes, his officers started moving irrationally. They were leaping in the air, moving from side to side with their arms and legs flailing about and then they were slamming themselves violently down onto the ground. The sheriff froze midway down the hall, suddenly aware that he wasn't totally alone and he wasn't thinking about Mr. Tenzang. The black shapes moved up and down, and across his line of vision like dark puppets. The latticework of vegetation disappeared to feast as the last of the puppets dropped to the ground. Light flooded the kitchen revealing Mr. Tenzang sitting patiently on a dining room chair. Behind him, the sliding doors were smashed and the garden was thriving everywhere. The basement door lay flat across the floor and the vines of the garden poured out through the opening. Mr. Tenzang's hand moved slowly as he raised his favorite porcelain cup full of the remnants of his water. All around him was his garden, dripping moisture and breathing with him rhythmically. Tendrils wrapped his limbs and rooted themselves into his flesh. Others curled in among his orifices searching for areas in which to symbiotically share his moisture and give him breath. He was captured, tamed and cultivated within his precious patch of paradise. Now fearful the sheriff backed slowly down the hall. He thought he saw a thin tranquil smile appear on Mr. Tenzang's lips when he lowered his porcelain cup, but he didn't wait too long to make sure as he pushed his nephew out the front and slammed the door.

" Four officers down and the water man gone," he thought.

" I'll let the troopers or the FBI torch this baby; I want to get home for supper." He looked back at the door as they walked to the cruiser and he could smell in his mind the sweet moist breaths of air from a childhood place for which he would always long.

Previously published in The Muse Apprentice Guild

David Fraser

David likes to balance his life among a variety of activities in the areas of writing, education and sports. When he is not formally working as an educator, he is either writing and researching or involved in one of the following sports: alpine skiing, ski teaching as a full time professional ski instructor at Mt. Washington, BC http://www.mtwashington.bc.ca/winter/default.cfm , windsurfing, tennis, golf, cycling, hiking. In addition he likes to garden, listen to the blues, and search for his way through Taoism. He has built his second water garden which has become his new daily sanctuary. His is learning and refining his Spanish fluency and will travel back to Central and South America in the near future. He lives among the flora and fauna of the British Columbia West Coast. David is the editor of Ascent Magazine - Aspirations for Artists (established 1997).

Email: David Fraser

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