Gladiolus tormentus
By: Brent D. Seth
Copyright 2015 Brent D. Seth
Cover by Adam Brown
***Please review this story whether you enjoyed it, hated it, or simply had problems with the formatting.
“The weeds haven’t been bad this year,” I remarked to myself while pulling another clover seedling from the dry mulch. The afternoon sun was scorching; the seedling seemed to wilt in hand even before I dropped it in the bucket. Still on my knees, I hobbled along the fence to look for more intruders.
“Hey Jim. What’s up?”
I leaned back, letting my weight rest on my ankles. Peering into the blazing sun, I squinted against the glare until a shadow fell across my eyes. It was Brian—the most irritating of all my neighbors. Some people don’t understand the purpose of a fence.
“Hello,” I said, without feeling. Brian had a big mouth, drove a noisy van and carried himself with all the charm of a garbage can. He was also harmless. The last thing I wanted was to make him feel welcome, but I also forced myself to recognize that overt rudeness would just make me look like a prick.
“Working in the garden? How much time do you spend on this?”
I wiped the sweat from my brow and watched as Brian surveyed my yard. Like most of the other men on the street, Brian probably found my total lack of grass offensive. From my house to the back fence was all garden. Flowers, bushes and a large koi pond, but not a single blade of grass—except for the occasional stray who would find their way into my bucket before long.
“Not much, really,” I explained. “Maybe half an hour every day after work. Couple hours on the weekend.”
“How ‘bout that,” he mumbled and wandered off down a path leading deeper into the garden. I certainly had not invited him to look around, but it was better for me than chatting. With a dismissive shrug, I turned back to my work.
By the time I finished the fence-line I had found very few weeds, but a number of injuries sustained from the climbing roses was causing my mood to sour. The heat was getting to me as well; I could feel the redness spreading across the back of my neck. As I went to dump my bucket over the compost heap, I saw the hydrangeas had wilted, looking like wet tissue paper. I would have to run the sprinkler for a while; a good excuse to chase-off my neighbor.
Brian had moved through almost the whole yard and arrived at a place just behind the pond. I was expecting a stupid-ass comment about bringing his fishing rod—people had made that joke before. Instead, he exclaimed in surprise.
“Jesus Christ!”
I jumped. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would get excited over flowers. He was the kind of adult who still played with firecrackers…all night long!
“Dude,” he said, his fat face twisted into a gruesome smile. “What is this?”
“Gladiolas,” I answered, estimating his position. I couldn’t really see what he was looking at; my view partially eclipsed by a mass of tiger lilies. For some reason, perhaps the fact that Brian was still staring at something, I felt the need to elaborate.
“I’m not really happy with those. I’ve had to stake-up every one of them and they’ve only just started to bloom. I was thinking about getting rid of them altogether.”
“No!”
“I usually tear-out plants that don’t look how I want them to. No big deal.”
“Have you seen this? Come look.”
Humoring Brian might be the best way to get rid of him. If he is that impressed by the flower, I might be able to give him the whole thing and be done with it. The glads were disappointing anyway.
By the time I rounded the lilies, Brian was bent over, examining the lower end of the stalk, giving me a horrible view of his big white butt-crack. Gladiolas bloom from bottom and progress upwards, usually with only two or three in bloom at one time. This assortment had been inexpensive; small corms that threatened to yield no more than a dozen blooms from each stem. They started to bloom a couple of days ago. Most of them were plain white and a few were purple. The one Brian had inexplicably become enamored with was the nicest; burnt orange with a deep mottling of red spots on the lowest petal.
“Yeah,” I agreed as I walked closer, trying to focus past the rolls of fat and back hair. “That one is the prettiest.”
“No, no. Look!”
Brian was pointing a stubby finger at the red spots. His face was a light, almost joyous. Even the sweat running into his eyes didn’t seem to bother him.
“Yes, and?”
“It’s a miracle!”
“No, it’s a gladiola.” I tried to sound as patronizing as possible, but Brian didn’t seem to notice.
“Can’t you see it?” he asked, sounding rather patronizing himself.
“See what?”
“The face of Jesus! This is a miracle! A real, honest-to-God, miracle!”
At first, I didn’t know how to process this development. To me, it was so ludicrous I had to replay his statement in my mind twice to believe what I had heard. Now, I was convinced I would never get him out of my yard.
“It’s just a pattern of red dots,” I clarified. “Look, all three blooms are the same. Personally, I don’t see a face at all.”
“You’ve gotta see it. This might be a sign!”
A sign of what, I wondered? And why the hell would it come to my back yard? Fortunately, I knew better than to ask. Even though this was the nicest of all the gladiolas, I was more than willing to part with it if that meant getting on with my life.
“Fine. Here, you can keep it.”
I pulled the pruning shears from my back pocket and extended them towards the stem, bound to bamboo with a piece of green tape.
“Don’t cut it,” Brian cried, horrified. “Won’t the rest of these bloom the same way?”
“If you put it in a sunny window, the rest of the buds will still open…well, most of them anyway.”
Brian was back on his feet, waving his hands in front of himself with his back to the glads, as if to protect them from the man who had originally planted them.
“Look,” I said, still hoping to diffuse the situation. “You can have the thing or not, I don’t care. But I have to turn the sprinklers on for a while, or everything is going to die.”
“Okay,” Brian said, backing down. “Just don’t cut the flower. I have to tell April about this.”
I didn’t bother to respond as I marched up to the garage and the sprinkler controls. Without looking back, I heard Brian exit through the gate. He was calling for his girlfriend long before he reached his own yard.
The snap and hiss of the first sprinkler heads coming to life restored to my garden the sense of peace recently robbed. I sat in a shaded chair on the patio, listening to the flow of water and relaxed. My work was done, Brian had gone away and the garden was getting its water. Everything was good again.
Perhaps I relaxed too soon. Only a few minutes had passed since Brian’s departure and already he was tromping back through the gate, dragging his girlfriend behind. I couldn’t hear them over the sprinklers, but I watched as Brian pointed-out the flower to April. By her expression, I knew the story was about to be replayed.
The sprinklers in that half of the yard would start soon. If I were still sitting here when they came on, they might come to the patio, or ask me to turn off the water. I had no intention of allowing either scenario, so I went in the house. Maybe, after fixing myself a strong drink and enjoying a long, hot bath, I might be able to forget the whole thing.
***
The next morning began with a slight hangover. Indeed, I had forgotten the silliness of the previous afternoon, but in a way, it lingered in the shadow of my headache and bad
breath. I had trouble motivating myself to dress for work. The toothpaste tasted foul and even my morning coffee seemed off.
I was running late by the time I left the house. Barely six-thirty and the day was blazing hot already. On most summer days, I would leave the house early enough to take a quick stroll through the garden, but today there just wasn’t time. And as I fumbled with locking the back door, I discovered another reason to skip my morning routine.
Brian was back, with April and someone I had never seen before. The stranger was a woman in her fifties, squeezed into purple stretch pants and a T-shirt several sizes too small. I didn’t need an introduction to know this was April’s mother.
The three of them were behind the pond, ogling over the small group of gladiolas. Or more specifically, the gladiola they all imagined contained the face of god. There was probably a new bloom today, the same burnt orange and red specks. No magic, just a coincidence of light and shadow and three idiots with a deranged sense of imagination.
As I dashed to my car, I wondered how long this might continue. There were at least nine buds left on the stem; the blooming period might last for a week or longer. Could I stand spending a whole week watching the most repulsive couple in America stomp through my yard every day, bringing along all their friends and family? Definitely not, and I promised myself to take care of that stinking plant the minute I got home from work.
***
I was distracted through my shift. My job on the assembly line was so repetitious it allowed my mind to wander, even on good days. But today, my concentration was shattered. All I could think about was what Brian might be doing right now, who might be walking around my yard, squashing my plants or disturbing my fish.
By lunchtime, I had gone the full gamut of worry through dread and finally to complacency. Brian has a job, after all. At least, I assume he has a job; I certainly never bothered to ask. But they have a house; they pay rent and each drive a car. They must go to work at some point. Hopefully, his day will bring him into contact with something shiny and Brian will have something new to fixate over.
I was sitting with my usual group in the lunchroom, but not really paying attention to the conversation. My hangover had failed to rectify itself, and now, in addition, I was getting really sleepy. No, I definitely didn’t want this to go on for a week.
“Yeah, I heard on the radio this morning that some guy found a flower with Jesus’ face on it! Or was it the Virgin Mary?”
My head spun around like a coiled rubber band snapping back into place. I turned to the group at the next table and demanded the speaker repeat what I hoped I had misheard.
Jeannine, one of my oldest co-workers, leaned back in her chair and repeated her tale, laughing even harder than the first time she recounted the radio story. She was one of oldest employees in the plant, looking much like anyone’s ideal grandmother. But looks are deceiving; she had possibly the filthiest mouth of any woman I had ever met, and she seemed to spit pure gin when she spoke.
“Some moron called the morning show and was talking about his neighbor’s flowers. He claimed one of them bares the image of Christ. Or the Virgin Mary, I can’t remember. He said it was a miracle.”
Another man at the table laughed. “I saw someone on TV once with a potato chip like that. You know how chips have those burnt spots; he found one that looked exactly like a face, but it looked more like Manson to me.”
“Who examines potato chips that close?” Someone else asked. “I just eat the damn chips.”
“Yeah, it shows!”
Laughter was spreading around the room like wildfire, but I felt only rising panic. “Jeannine, was this a local show? What station?”
“Oh, John what’s-his-name? You know, on the country/western station...”
Very local. And very popular. “Shit!”
I bolted from the room, leaving behind a stunned silence. Everyone must have thought I had suddenly experienced an epiphany, or some mad compulsion to examine this miracle flower. I didn’t even bother punching the clock; I ran straight for the parking lot.
As my car peeled out of the lot, I fumbled with the dial to find the station in question. I am not the kind of guy who ever listens to country music, so it certainly was not programmed on my stereo. But they had billboards all over town, so I knew the frequency.
It was the all horror channel, or at least that is what it had become to me. They were still talking about the back yard miracle, as they were now calling it. The DJ was talking to someone who was claiming to have just seen it. If I had a cell phone, I would have called and demanded to know who the hell these people were, and what they were doing in my yard. And when the DJ mentioned my street by name, I instead thought about calling a lawyer. But I did neither; I just drove as fast as I could.
***
By the time I was five blocks from home, I knew things had escalated. Cars lined both sides of the street. Throngs of people were walking, all in the direction of my home. I saw a news van parked on my front walk. A crowd of spectators stood in my driveway, and only moved after a shrill blast of my horn and revving of my engine.
“Hey asshole,” one of the spectators yelled as I jumped out. “We all want to see it, wait your turn!”
I didn’t even bother to flip-him-off; I just pushed through the crowd surrounding my patio. There, I almost dropped when I saw what had become of my backyard.
At least a hundred people were standing in what had once been my beautiful garden. The ferns had been trampled into a sickly greet mat. Tiger lilies wilted upside down, dangling from broken stems. Children were swinging from the few remaining branches of the small willow tree and discarded paper cups, leaking melted ice and coca-cola, floated on the surface of my pond.
My heart sank. No, it broke in half. Eight years of hard work, eight years of determination and passion laid waste. The fruits of my labor reduced to ash. The sight was one of total devastation and a cacophony of religious ecstasy from the people who had caused it.
“Get out of here!” I screamed, trying to push people towards the drive. “This is my house, go away!”
No one listened. They pushed back and glared at me as if they had every right to be here and I was the one intruding.
Despair was quickly turning to rage. I started shoving, kicking, punching—anything to force my way through the crowd. I might even have pushed over a nun; I didn’t care.
As I slowly maneuvered closer to the apex of my personal hell, I saw Brian. That dickhead was standing on the embankment behind the pond, next to the collapsed rocks of the former waterfall, talking to a reporter. He was smiling, the reporting was smiling. Even the fucking camera man was smiling. Around them, there was nothing but rubble. Everything had been destroyed, stomped flat by the rapturous crowd. Only one thing remained standing, that horrible gladiola with the imaginary face.
April was conducting the actual viewing of the flower. Dressed in her best spandex, she led people, one at a time to see the miracle. Of course, April hadn’t bothered to tell anyone to watch their step, no reason in her little mind to consider the value of my poor, unlamented phlox or slow-growing potentilla. She just beamed with joy, and sudden celebrity status, as she led an old woman to the gladiola.
The old woman leaned over the stem, and beheld the image of a perfectly ordinary flower. But in her mind, it was magic. She stroked the bloom lovingly and then kissed the tip of her gnarled finger. She rose and a furor erupted from onlookers.
“Praise Jesus! It’s a miracle! She can walk!”
“Of course she can walk,” I screamed. “She was walking before! What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
My shock was receding, leaving in its wake only agony and rage. Still screaming, I fought my way through the mob of devoted parishioners. The summer sun was blistering. Between my lingering hangover and surging blood pressure, the pain in my head was nearly blinding.
By the time I reached the damn flower, my face was red and drenched in sweat. I could hardly breathe. My chest ached.
“This is the man you want to talk to,” Brian said, oblivious to the ranting that preceded my arrival.
The reporter also hadn’t seemed to notice—quite a failing for his particular career choice. “Oh, so you grew the miracle flower. How does it feel to receive such a blessing?”
“Blessing?” I spat the word as if it were poison. “Look around! Does any of this look like a blessing to you? My garden is ruined!”
“But the flower,” Brian injected, “it’s a sign!”
“It’s not a sign! It is a flower! It’s not even a good flower, it has to be held-up with sticks! Watch this…”
That flower offended me; the one thing in my garden that I liked least was the only thing remaining, leaning proudly against its bamboo stake—but among all this carnage, that was the only thing I could fix. In one quick motion, I reached for the gladiola and wrapped my fingers around stem, leaf and pole. I heaved. The son-of-a-bitching flower came free with only slight resistance, bulb and roots riding along without interruption. A large earthworm, half moored to clinging bits of dry dirt, twitched in shock, mirroring both the mood and mentality of the surrounding crowd.
They stood aghast, speechless. Many of them still wore expressions of self-induced ecstasy, deep-frozen by the sudden shock. A few disinterested children continued to play; their laughter echoed through the dense forest of horrified acolytes like the breeze through an abandoned temple from ancient Greece.
“What have you done?” whispered someone in the crowd, as his shock, and spirit, deflated.
Despite the carnage around me and the loss of so much hard work, I found the question perversely amusing. What have I done? I grew a flower and lacked the good sense to padlock the back gate. I grew a flower and failed to expect the scale of a nosey neighbor’s mouth. I grew a flower without considering its impact to the superstitious masses.