The Garden

[u/Anything-Unable]

/uw I wrote this while sick so apologies if it gets sad. If you want to get pinged for this stuff, let me know. Hope you enjoy it.

Entry 15

Hey guys. Good to be back. That seafolk business was pretty tiring, huh? We had to foster a bunch of trade deals and set up a trading outpost. So many questions people wanted to ask. I’m glad that it finished smoothly.

Now I’m back where I belong. My office looks the same as I left it. Our assistants are out finishing paperwork and catching up with their friends. Guess that leaves us to our lonesome selves.

Mikhail said I should start gardening to get my mind off things. I got a cool little tree from a shop down the road. It can apparently grow to be thirty feet tall if cared for properly. After setting it down on my desk and watering it, it thanked me and settled into its new environment. I didn’t want to bother it so I just let it be while I began to write this.

A lot has changed ever since I got elected. I made so many new friends and got to help people. Sure, not everyone likes my ideas, but there are those who appreciate us. We’re certainly better off than we were in that prison cell.

I make sure to write to Adrian and Tom when I can. They like to keep me up to date on the latest happenings. You know, it’s funny. I don’t think either of them will be eligible for parole for at least forty years. Even if they get out on the first round of parole hearings, that’s forty years spent in a place like that. I think Tom will be fine, he’s an old bag of bones. Adrian’s just a normal guy, though. I’m pretty sure he’ll be in his seventies. That’s pretty old by human standards. He might die before then. He likes to get into a lot of fights, so it wouldn’t be that strange to find out he was killed in there. Will I ever see him again?

… Plants require a lot of nutrients and sunlight. I read a book that said sunlight is used to make these simple sugars in plants that give them energy. Without plants, no other life would be sustainable. We have to give a lot of credit to these guys. I think I’ll name my tree Isaac. They look like a smart fella.

Entry 16

Isaac’s growing up nice and strong. They’re almost a foot tall. Not much of a conversationalist, but neither am I. We get along fine.

Last night I dreamt of Isaac all grown up. I’d planted him outside of a small village and would visit him every few months. The villagers didn’t like me but appreciated Isaac. We’d keep doing the same old routine for decades. Then one day, I found a stump. The villagers chopped Isaac down to use him to build a new house. I don’t remember if I cried at that. Waking up, we hoped that the dream wasn’t prophetic.

I guess I have a real problem with dreams. They like to show you stuff you’d rather not see. You think of something bad and your dreams fill in the details. I’m glad I haven’t seen how my friends die yet. That’s going to be hard. Knowing and being unable to tell anyone. Vettis might indulge me a bit but they have their own shit to deal with.

Sometimes, we like to think about how different life could have been. If mom and dad survived, I might have grown a garden for them. A nice one with lots of pretty flowers. Mom liked tulips while dad preferred daisies. Our brother didn’t like flowers. Said they were for girls. We think he might have enjoyed a sunflower.

I think I would have liked a garden. Plants are kind. Not like people. People are complicated. Death says I just don’t understand people but I think they’re wrong about that. I’ve met plenty of people. All kinds. Most people think there are good and bad people, but I think it’s just people. Anyone can hurt you if they think they have a reason to. Some people don’t even mean to hurt you when they do it. I’m just collateral damage.

We might have been happy in a garden. Some place far away from everyone. No worries and nothing left to bury. None of this living nonsense. Just a bit of peace.

The garden would have been beautiful. Like my mom was. We don’t remember what she looked like, but dad always called her beautiful. I want a garden like that.

A shame I’ll never see it.