The Garden Weeds

“Mom, where are you?” I screamed. There was no answer.

The living room was unusually quiet which stunned me as Mother usually spends her evening in the living room watching the television.

I ran to her room and found her sitting soundlessly in one corner of her bed.

“Hey Mom, where’s Dad? I need him for signing some papers for school”

She didn’t speak for a few moments but finally with a wry tone, said, “He must be somewhere washing his hands”

Her reply seemed eerie and vague but I didn’t dare to question her. She seemed too depressed to speak. She said “Listen, I am going to the market to buy vegetables for dinner. Be a darling and clean the backyard. Clear some of the weeds”

“Yeah of course!”

After she left for the market, I took out the garden fork and was about to go to the backyard when I felt a bit chilly. When I returned from school it was still sunny, I just didn’t know when it became so cold.

Meanwhile someone knocked on the main-door—it was father.

His face was all sweaty and he had an unnerving look. His eyes were red and his fists were clenched.

“Hey dad, where have you been? I need you to sign……….”

“Hey lad, stop! Don’t bother me” he said and hurried fast to his room.

I knocked on his door and said “Dad, what happened? Are you alright? Mother said that you went to wash your hands or something like that!”

“What? Who said what?” he shrieked. However, after a few moments, he came out. I presumed that he had calmed down as he gently said to me, “Why don’t you go, take a stroll? Meanwhile I would make dinner”

“No, no, Mom has gone to the market to buy vegetables for the dinner. Wait for her”

“What!” he said, this time, with a frightened tone, “you must be kidding”

“Well, is it a time to joke? Why on earth would you think it as a joke?”

“Never mind”, he said.

Then he went to the cupboard and started rummaging through it. “Where’s the garden fork!” he said.

“Oh, my bad! Mom has asked me to clear the weeds from the backyard. So I took it out of the cupboard. I must do it now”

“What’s your problem boy, when did you hear from Mom? And please don’t you go into the backyard” he said in a stern voice.

“But………….but..”

“Say no more! Just go out to some friend’s house or the park. Leave me alone” he said and almost hurled me out of the house.

At the park, on the bench, I saw Mother, just sitting quietly. I asked “What? Your shopping done?”

“Yeah, I am done!” she said, “just promise that you will clear the weeds. And oh, be careful of the garden fork”

I said that if it was so important to her to clear the weeds, she would have told me earlier. I mean I have homework and other stuff and now father had forbidden me to go to the backyard.

“Oh, you know your father! He would kill you but not allow you to go there. Ha ha!” she laughed.

I was confused. I was intrigued. So, I left the park and went to the library. At around eight I returned back and checked whether father had calmed down or not.

The main-door was wide open and it seemed that something was wrong. Father was nowhere to be seen.

Since there was no one, I decided to just check what the fuss was about, what is in those weeds. When I was finally able to go to the backyard, I found that the soil was dug recently. Well, mother must have told father to clear the weeds and that’s why he had been asking for the garden fork. Phew!

Just as I was about to call father, I saw something sparkle in the ground. I moved my head around to see where it was coming from. It was from the recently dug soil. I went there and found something which made me wide awake: Mother’s wedding ring!

I don’t know what struck me but I found myself digging up the mud. After few minutes of digging, a sort of human hand emanated from under the ground. It didn’t take me long enough to recognize that the hand belonged to my mother.

I screamed in fright. Just then my notice went to the backdoor of our house where I saw a silhouette of the man holding a garden fork!

And now it was all clear: father had killed mom and buried her underground. For a moment I felt numb but somehow the survivalist instinct took me over. I grabbed a large pebble and hurled it towards dad. It hit him in the head which bought me time to run for life.

Just when I was about to run, I found a trunk lying on the ground. It must have been buried, I conjectured, seeing the dirt on the trunk. I couldn’t resist myself from opening it and I found small packets of some whitish powder and brown crumbs which, at once, I recognized to be cocaine and marijuana. I couldn’t believe that father stored weeds!

Mother must have found out and that’s when he must have killed her. I couldn’t forgive him and instead of running, I decided to confront him. He was already advancing towards me to give a final blow to my head when I somehow managed to lift up the trunk and hit his head with the trunk.

I don’t know what happened next, I must have blacked out. When I gained consciousness, I found Father with the garden fork, walking slowly towards the back-door, into the house. He had somehow managed to avert my blow!

He was bleeding but not profusely. Meanwhile I felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from me. Well, it took me a while but I finally figured out what had happened.

I slowly walked out of the backyard, into the house and went straightaway to the police station to notify them about the weed. I knew that nobody would hear my plea but I decided to try anyhow.

I kept telling the officer to ‘clear the weeds’ but he turned a deaf ear to my complaint. In despair I walked off. On the way back, I found a mirror in a shop and I looked into it. I mean, I knew that it was going to happen, but I found it truly amazing not to find my reflection in the mirror for the first time in my life, or should I say death?