Oliver's Army

Oliver was the first to notice.

He was enjoying a day off, determined to spend it in his garden, partly to work in it, partly to relax in a folding chair.

Leaning on a rake he called out to his wife:

“Would you look at that? I have never seen this many together on a single bush.”

She was just as surprised as he was.

"Remember? Last spring we didn’t mow the lawn for a month. Could this have something to do with it?”

Thousands, even millions of butterflies gave a clear forewarning: the new rulers were on the rise. From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

Raking Leaves

Raking leaves

is an exercise in the good-enough.

You will never get them all.

You come to prize

the strong, steady stroke of the rake,

the appropriate armful that you lift

into the waiting wheelbarrow.

The maple leaves which from a distance

appear two-tone, red and silver,

reveal a soul-satisfying palette

from crimson to lavender.

A leaf falls in your hair and tickles your neck.

You cover the lily beds

with their winter blanket,

a gorgeous quilt

in five-pointed patchwork.

You’re no good at quilting, but it doesn’t matter.

Raking leaves is an object lesson

in Lamott’s “shitty first drafts.”

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.

Slow And Steady

Millie was a fireball and Herbert was steady. The cattle woke them up one night.

“Snake,” Millie said. And she shot out of bed.

Millie had the snake partially subdued with a garden rake. It was still moving so she stood on it with her right foot just behind the head and her left near the tail. Barefoot.

“Herbert! Get out here!”

No answer.

“Herbert!”

Finally, Herbert comes sauntering up to the corral. Fully dressed, knife in pocket, hat on, boots laced up, he sized up the situation.

“Millie, if I knew you had it, I wouldn’t have hurried so.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

The Gardener, In The Pool House, With A Rake

I stared at my client, debating internally how to respond. It wasn't the first time I'd been asked to perform a questionable task in my line of work. Normally I would refuse, but she was offering 50,000 dollars.

"You're putting me at risk here."

"If you don't want to do it, there's plenty of people who could use the money."

She was bluffing. The fact that she was asking me to murder her husband said that she didn't have anywhere else to turn. But then again, where else was I going to make 50,000 dollars as a gardener?