Dandelions

Dandelions. They were creeping up through the dirt, pushing their fingers between the cracks of soil, eating away at his Hydrangeas. Arthur knelt, brow furrowed, glaring down at the little green weeds. He had pulled out a crop of them yesterday, and now here they were—back again, and seeming to multiply.

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He wiped a smear of dirt off his face, using the heel of his hand. The green rubber gloves on his hands were wearing around his knuckles, nearly welded to his skin with years of use, almost an extension of his body, like feathers on a sparrow. The fingertips were permanently stained gray. He reached forward and tugged at one of the weeds, prying the root free from the death grip of the earth. It came up easily.

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Above him, faint cries sang through the air. Robins and starlings flitted back and forth across a sky, coated in clouds and cold daylight, the breeze bringing in the salty scent of the shore. It was miles away, hidden across sprawling fields of grass. Arthur’s garden was at the end of the winding dust-road, a trail that if followed long enough, would lead you to the seaside town of tile roofs and flagstone squares. Arthur didn’t go there often.

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It wasn’t really…his garden, at least not legally. Calling it his garden felt right, though, and every second of every day, before the sun rose, after it set, he was in the green acres between the old brick walls, and under the overcast sky. Watching, watering, whistling to the birds, trimming the foliage, and sowing the seeds.

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And pulling the weeds, the hundreds of tiny green-and-yellow weeds.

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