A macabre tale from the suburbs of the 21st century. 

 

On a sunny Sunday, in the languid hours of the afternoon, 

I cut my neighbour’s head from his shoulders. 

 

A deep sense of incomprehensibility has clung to me my entire life. A sense that not only could I not understand everything going on around me, I never would. That the universe was simply too large and I was simply too small. 

As the century stumbles towards the end of its adolescent years, I thought perhaps we would gain some sort of clarity or consensus about our purpose on this floating rock. And yet, here we are, here 

I am, utterly bewildered. I have tried every vice, every hobby, every relationship to try and claw 

some meaning from my life. 

They have failed to fill that void. 

All but one, one hobby, one obsession of mine… 

Gardening.

 

Through gardening, I am able to subjugate the universe. No longer is it this gigantic mass of endless complexities and possibilities, it is now a square of 20 by 20 meters. And it is mine. 

It is as I sculpt it to be. I am the benevolent ruler, who grants and shapes life. 

And make no mistake you have to be a ruler. 

It’s about discipline. 

It’s about being ruthlessly precise in your considerations of placement, colour, combination, shape, and smell. These are the ingredients from which to craft your masterpiece. 

 

Unless you were my neighbour, Dave 

Dave represented the antithesis of everything I had been trying to cultivate through gardening. 

His gardening had no discipline, no planning or thought, everything was willy-nilly, here and there. 

 

Every day he would pop his head over the hedge separating our gardens, watching me work with that perpetual Ned Flanders-like smile. 

  “That new flower bed looks good, I’m sure those seeds are going to spread their wings soon.” 

I would try to get the conversations over as quickly as I could. 

But the truth was, Dave wasn’t the only one who would peep his head over the hedge. I would too, he just wouldn’t know about it. 

I would constantly check up on his garden.

His immaculate, exquisite garden. 

Yes, you read that correctly. 

As ill-disciplined, ill-informed and mentally ill that pseudo-hippy Dave’s gardening methods appeared to me, what resulted was nothing short of magic. 

His garden was an unbelievably beautiful collage of colour and shape, with a sense of naturalistic depth and breadth that the world’s greatest landscapers could only dream of. 

Everyday, I peep my head over, watching closely as he and his greasy family teetered around the ever-changing space. I had read every manual, every book, every course and he fit none of it. 

Then one day,

Dave’s head rolled off his shoulder blades. 

 

My giant shears slashed along the top of the hedge, leaving flailing tendrils of green in their wake. 

Whack! 

I would slam them shut with one big swoop, clasping as much hedge as I could before moving my ladder along the green wall. Soon, I was chopping with my eyes closed, the hedge offering little resistance. Until, very suddenly, it did. I felt something soft snap between my blades. I opened my eyes. Didn’t see anything so I shrugged and carried on. 

But as I continued my work, something started to nip and pinch at the back of my neck. There was a distinct sickly feeling right at the blurry edge of consciousness. 

So I decided to look over the hedge. 

And as I did, I was overwhelmed by panic, a deafening, sickening, sinking feeling in my stomach. 

My heart froze, shattered. 

Dave’s torso lay at the bottom of the fence. His head lay detached from its perch and had rolled a couple of meters into a small divot. His goofy smile was still plastered to his face. 

 

He must have stuck himself right up between my blades. 

 

His gangly labrador had begun licking his neck. 

I tried to shoo it off with muted whistles and my waving arms. 

I quickly turned my attention to the house. It appeared empty, ghostly and silent, the blinds still up. Heart in my mouth,I leaped over into his garden, grabbing his mobile. I unlocked it with his thumb, 

“Hey, I am going to be away for work for a few days.” 

I pocketed the phone and proceeded to grab his torso. I carried him up his ladder and dumped the body over the hedge into my garden.

I quickly grabbed the head and did the same. As I turned around to assess the scene, I noticed the bloody imprint where he had previously lain. 

I reached for some pots, rearranging them to cover the marks. I was sure his family would not notice a little rearrangement like that. 

I then hopped back into my garden. I checked the time. 

Shit. 

 

My wife would be home from work any time now. 

 

I looked around, for anywhere to hide the body. 

My eyes saw it before I did, that striking, sickening joke. 

My flower bed appeared almost exactly like a coffin. 

I dug like a madman, my spade ripping down into the soil. Finally, it was deep enough and I dropped his body in its place of rest, I was stung by a haunting sense of finality. 

There was no going back now. 

“Hey, honey!” 

I screamed in muted terror, piling the soil over the body. 

As my wife slid closed the door to the house, I leaped toward Dave’s head. I grabbed it, holding it nervously behind my back. 

She had now stepped into the garden. 

“It all looks great.” 

 

I smiled back, blinded by sweat, his head feeling endlessly heavy in my arms. She started towards me. 

“Can I come and see what your working on?” 

I screamed out “No!” 

We both almost leaped back at the piercing cry. I tried to regather the sanity of the moment. 

“I uh want it to be a surprise when its finished.” 

She had rolled her eyes. “You’re not an island you know that?” 

“I know” 

“You can let others into your life a little…even if it's just your wife. That’s kind of how marriage works.”  

I could feel my smile starting to fade.  

“I’ll come join you inside in a minute.”  

She continued to examine me, until finally turning away, defeated. 

“I’ll make coffee.” 

As that door slid closed, a gigantic breath burst from my lungs. I heaved in relief, dumping the head in a pot and covering it with soil. 

The next few days were infused with a crushing, paranoid sense of claustrophobia. 

I remained too afraid to leave my bed for fear that, should I stand, the world may come crashing down around me. 

I kept a watchful eye on Dave’s phone, each ping of a notification tearing into my chest. Shakily, I would assume my position as Dave, replying to all the messages, calming any suspicions about his disappearance. 

After what felt like years, I had finally mustered the strength to peer out of my window. Slowly, I formed a tiny slit in the blinds, peeping into my garden. Immediately, my jaw dropped. 

Dave’s coffin, that once dark, empty bed of dirt and seed, was now exploding with colour and life.

The seeds had burst into colourful flowers, spreading their kaleidoscopic limbs into the air. I had never ever seen growth like this before. After only days? It was quite simply, a miracle. I looked over at the pot containing Dave’s head, where a rose, garnishing a magnificent red coat had sprouted proudly into the air. It reminded me of the wonder I had felt hearing the tale of Jack and The Giant Beanstalk as a child. 

Only there were no magical beans here, only my slowly decomposing neighbour. 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

I had dashed for my covers.

I knew the time would come, when the wolves were finally at my door. 

 

Perhaps if I stayed still long enough they would leave.  

They did not. 

And the knocking persisted. 

Finally, I crept towards the door, slithering it open. 

 

“Hello Pete, I’m so sorry to bother you.” 

I stared at the intruder. My brain collapsing beneath my skull.

“No problem.” I squeaked. Her smile grew and grew. 

“Dave is away at work for a few days and while he said to let the garden take care of itself, I would hate to see anything happen to it while he’s away. He’s always saying how great of a gardener you are, so I was wondering if you could look after it for a bit, while he’s away.” 

I could only stare in shock. 

“I would look after it myself, but wouldn’t have the slightest clue what I’m doing.” 

 

My mouth remained open, fixed to the floor. 

Slowly, as if uncontrollably, I nodded. She watched me, waiting for me to say something more. Finally, she smiled awkwardly, 

“Okay great, thank you. Just knock anytime.” 

I nodded again and she skipped off back to her house. 

I slammed the door shut, slumping to the ground, head in arms, heaving. 

And then I was there, spade in hand, at Dave’s front door. 

 

I had to see it. I had to see how he did it. 

Ever so softly, I knocked on the door, my knuckles gently stroking the wood. I had knocked again, even softer this time, my fist barely grazing the wood. 

I shook my head, turning around  

“Hey Pete!”  

I looked back at the house. His wife’s smiling face greeted me at the door. 

“Hey, I’m here to check out Dave’s garden.”

“Wow great, thank you so much, he’s going to be so grateful I just know it.” 

Seeing his garden was one thing, being in it, was a whole other experience. 

 

It was perfect. 

All of it. 

The vines that snaked their way up every wall. The pebbled paths lined with colourful shrubs. The patches of fragmented sunlight that cascaded through the thick, draping leaves of the willow trees. 

Standing with my spade, I couldn’t help but feel I was a doctor sent in to heal someone in perfect health. There was only one aspect that felt out of place to me, that was the pots I had moved to cover my crime scene.  

I tried to ignore it. 

 

I made my way into his shed. Save for a couple of rakes and spades, the man had nothing. Had he only ever used his hands for gardening? And where was his soil? 

I looked curiously at his charts, wondering what secrets they revealed. 

I could only wince in confusion. 

“What are the plants trying to tell me?” 

I continued to look at his notes.  

“Not sure what the garden is gonna think of winter, let’s hope she’s a friend this year.” 

 

There were a bunch of pictures of his children playing in the yard. 

As well as a bunch of photos of locusts and other critters. Dave had titled the pictures “The other characters who enjoy the garden.” 

But they are pests I thought to myself. How could he just let everything run wild like this? He didn’t even know what he was doing! 

I noticed a group of weeds sitting at the edge of a flower bed. Immediately, I pounced at them, ready to rip them right from their sockets. 

My hand froze, gripped around their stem. 

 

I took a moment to admire the icy blue flowers. Chicory, despite being a weed, was undoubtedly a beautiful plant. 

Slowly, I released my hand from the stem. 

I couldn’t help but feel Dave would have let it stay in his garden. 

 

I could never understand Dave’s garden. Perhaps all its secrets lay buried under my flower bed. 

But perhaps they didn’t. 

Perhaps even Dave did not understand how his garden worked. 

He let it surprise him and revelled in his confusion, in its obscure beauty. 

Perhaps he had felt the same way about life.