The Garden......

The Garden, Part I

The Garden, Part II

The Garden, Part III

So the lil' gardening plants gardened the forbidden tree. The one with the strong stalks said, "Me like tree!" and the one with the tender lil' tendrils and beautiful flowers replied, "Me like, me like too!"

As they gardened they took in some of the tree into their plant recycling system. The one with strong stalks looked over and saw some brown going up the stalks of the one with slender stalks. Then he looked down at his own leaves and they seemed wilted, just a little. The one with tender tendrils looked at him and said, "Me no like!" as one of her tendrils drooped down. They looked at each other again. Then he replied, "Me hide now." So they both went to a corner of the garden and hid behind a plant. They did not like the brown pollution inside them and it was not so fun to garden the tree anymore.

The next day the father came down from his back porch and looked at the polluted tree and saw that it had been gardened. Then he saw a little trail of yellowish brown where the lil' gardening plants had walked, their roots leaving a pollution all through the fine black humus of his garden. Already there were other plants that it had gotten into. Some of them drooped and wilted with brown trailing up their stems, others of them seemed to grow thorns, while some tendrils pushed at each other and leaves grew larger as they struggled against each to take the light first. He saw the spirit of his uncreative neighbor in it all.

He and his neighbor used to be partners and had even created a garden together. Then they had a falling out and the neighbor moved out to be on his own. It was because of their different ways of creating that they began to differ. His neighbor wanted to eat too much and create too little.

The father looked and saw the little trail of brown leading to two lil' gardening plants, quivering and hiding. He heard one whisper, "Me scared!" The father thought about all the effort and time he had put into this garden. Then he thought about how much of his energy he had put into the gardening plants. He grew sad at what a polluted waste it was now. Then he grew angry. So he walked back inside his house to get some matches and gas to burn the garden. But his son saw him and asked, "What is the gas for?" His father replied, "Come with me and you'll see." So they both went to the backporch and his son took in the whole scene. The son said, "I think I can fix this." His father replied, "How are you going to get the pollution out? I will not have it." The son replied, "I think I can regenerate the plants, turn it around and actually make use of it. Just think of the satisfaction of turning the neighbor's pollution that eats away on its head so that it creates. Besides, this is my first garden and I like my little plants. I think we should save them."

Looking at his son his father said, "Alright, this might be harder than you think. First, I have to build a green house. Also, I am going to build a whole new house and move away from our neighbor. Enough is enough, he will probably starve to death. For your sake, I will not burn this polluted garden. You save what plants you can and plant a seed from them in the greenhouse. Then when we move you can take the plants that you save with us. Again son, I will not take that pollution but will leave it here. In fact, I will have to burn the garden when we are ready to move, to be rid of it as much as possible. So save what you can, I have a lot of other work to do now. Also, only the plants that actually trust our instructions can go. I'm not going to have this happen again. They'll have to trust you. You can make them trust you if you want but you cannot save those who do not trust you."

The father sighed as he went to put the gas and matches away. Then he thought, "It's going to be harder than he thinks to save those polluted little plants. Already, they did not trust us."

The son went down to the plants that were hiding. He said, "Come out, I know you are there. Why are you hiding." The plant replied, "Me scared!" "Of course you are. Look what you have done to yourselves and now the ground is polluted too. Look at these other plants with thorns in them, struggling against each other. Now gardening is going to be hard for you." The plant with the slender stalks waved one of her tender tendrils in the direction of the fence from which she heard a whisper and said, "Me no like."

The son said, "But you did like, you liked it enough not to trust me. Well, now your plant systems are all messed up, little one. But I can turn what he did on its head. Do not worry too much, we will garden like we once did. You have really messed things up. But one day I'll take one of your seeds inside again and fashion a plant for myself to fix some things through. I'll have to be the one to do all the work, since you failed my father and I. He is really upset, you know."

Then he ripped up some other plants and gave them some of the leaves to cover their recycling systems. The gardening plants quivered at this because they had never seen a plant ripped up before. They saw that the son seemed sad as he handed the ripped up plant to them. For the lil' plants were ashamed of their recycling parts now because of the pollution in them. So they covered themselves.

The son walked back to the porch and took inside a plant that was sitting there. It was a special plant that he and his father had made to change the recycling system of the gardening plants. But now it would have to be put in the greenhouse. The son thought, "I can probably make a hybrid seed with this plant and a whole new seed to make use of that pollution. It's not going to do any good to have them garden this plant now, the pollution would be eating them up inside even as I garden them." He looked out the window and saw the little gardening plants struggling to garden the other plants. The one with the tender tendrils had her tendrils droop, just a bit, as she helped the one with the strong stalks struggle to garden.

He sighed, then set to work too.