The Seven Gifts

by John Mellor

  “There is a lack of harmony in your garden, but there is nothing anyone can do. The garden reflects the city, which is full of sickness. The sickness in the city spreads to your garden, and the flowers do not grow straight and strong. The vegetables are not healthy. The leaves die. Only the weeds prosper, as they do in the city.

  “It is a natural cycle, a small part of the overall pattern. Its end will come when it is due. Only time will cure your garden, as only time will cure the city." The old lady leaned back in her chair and drew slowly on her pipe.

  George was worried.

  “Is there nothing I can do?" he pleaded. “The Queen will surely sack me if the garden does not improve soon, and I have a wife and three idle sons to feed. I will never get another job after being sacked by the Queen. Have you nothing that will kill the weeds?" he asked.

  The old lady seemed to think for a moment. Then, without any trace of arrogance, she said simply: “I, of course, can cure your garden, just as I could cure the sickness in the city. But interfering with the natural order of things can produce terrible troubles, far worse perhaps than the ones you have cured. However, I may be able to do something here. You must let me think for a while. It will need to be done very carefully. Come back and see me again tomorrow."

  That night George was called before the Snow Queen to explain the state of the garden.

  “An absolute disgrace," she had thundered. “I do not pay you inflated wages to grow a field full of weeds. I cannot eat weeds. I cannot decorate my chambers with weeds. What is the good of my paying a gardener to grow weeds? The woods are full of weeds. I do not want them in my garden, do you understand?" The Queen had that delightful habit, so beloved of those in power, of reiterating the obvious; and the paranoiac tendency to assume that any error or misfortune is a deliberate plot by underlings to stab her in the back. For underlings it can be very tiresome, and timewasting. The time spent listening to such diatribes can usually be spent more profitably attending to the problem. In this particular case, of course, it could not, but at least George could have been doing something constructive, like watching a quiz show on the television.

  But there was little solace for him at home when his wife found out he was on the verge of losing his job. By the time George reached the old lady's cottage the next afternoon, after yet another browbeating from his sons, he was ready to sell his soul to the devil if it meant ridding his garden of weeds.

  Fortunately that did not prove necessary. The old lady had devised a plan.

  “Now listen carefully," she said, when he had seated himself and handed over some more tobacco. She gave him a small sack filled with a fine powder. “Sprinkle this over the weeds when you get home," she went on, “and by tomorrow morning they will all have died, except one. That one cannot be killed, and under no circumstances must you attempt to do so. It is there to maintain the continuation of the natural cycle, and thus prevent a complete rupturing of the fabric of events. You are to look after it as you do your flowers - water it and nourish it. Cherish it even, for it will bear tiny white flowers. If it strangles the vegetables nearby, you must allow it to do so. I repeat: under no circumstances must you ever attempt to kill it. If you do, I will not be able to help you. Now go home, but remember what I have told you."

  George went home clutching the sack of powder, a very relieved man. An end to the weeds at last, he thought. His job was safe. Perhaps, now, his wife might even stop her incessant complaining. He lived in hopes. He even smiled.

  Immediately on arriving at the garden he set to work with the powder, sprinkling it carefully and thoroughly over every single weed. Then he went home, contented and hopeful, and left the powder to do its work.

  The next day George was down at the garden early, full of anticipation. And sure enough - he could hardly believe his eyes - it had worked. Not only had the weeds died, but they had disappeared completely. There was not a sign of a weed, dead or alive, anywhere. It was as though a gang of ten men had gone through with hoes during the night, then gathered up the weeds and burnt them. The garden was immaculate.

  It was only when he went on a close inspection that he saw it, and remembered the old lady's warning. Right outside the Queen's garden door stood a single weed, on the very edge of the broccoli. It was about two feet tall, with long tendrils spreading across the soil towards the nearest of the vegetables. At the very top of its stem was a delicate crown of tiny white flowers. It was actually quite pretty. George decided he could live with that.

  The garden blossomed. George's once-puny vegetables thickened out and grew and grew. His flowers bloomed as never before, filling the air with the fragrance of a thousand scents. And he was never troubled with weeds. Even the slugs and destructive insects seemed to avoid the garden. Only the exquisitely-patterned butterflies flitted around the plants on sunny days, the delicate hues of their fragile wings glinting and flickering in the sunlight. Wild bees purred from flower to flower, picking up and spreading the pollen to fertilise and rejuvenate a garden of which George was now justly proud.

  Even the Queen was pleased. Not that she ever stepped into the garden, but the vegetables were the sweetest and finest she had ever tasted, the flowers the admiration of all her visitors. They seemed to fill her chambers with a very special beauty, an indefinable sense of tranquillity. But when she asked George how he had done it, he just smiled and said it was the soil.

  Nonetheless, she increased his wages; and even his wife seemed to grumble a little less than usual. They were happy times for George, but he never forgot his promise to the old lady. The weed with the tiny white flowers was treated as well as the rest, and he ignored the fact that the vegetables immediately surrounding it were no better than they had been before. It was a small price to pay. And although he could not understand why one little weed should be so important, he had sufficient faith in the old lady's wisdom to accept the fact.

  But one day the Queen did come into the garden. So overwhelmed was she by the quality of the produce and the amazement of her friends, none of whose gardens could produce the like, she decided that she had to see this extraordinary place for herself. She also had the sneaking suspicion that more lay behind the transformation than met the eye. All the gardener would ever say, no matter how much she pressed him, was that the soil was especially good. Why it had suddenly become so good, he would never say. But she was certain he knew. And she wanted to know. She was the Queen, and the people could have no secrets from her. So she arranged a tour of inspection.

  She brought with her the Minister of Agriculture (who could produce no theories whatever to explain the sudden and miraculous fertility of this garden), the Minister of Technology (who was quite convinced that some amazing technological discovery was at the root of it), and the Chief of the State Police (who was certain that with a little persuasion the gardener would explain all). And George, clearly very reluctant, showed them around his garden.

  Up and down the rows they walked, George pointing out particular items of interest, and trying to sound enthusiastic. The two ministers babbled excitedly, while the Queen simply looked around and made the occasional comment. The Chief of Police followed along behind, watching George carefully. The old gardener could feel those eyes piercing the back of his neck.

  But, despite George's forebodings, nothing untoward happened, until they finished the tour outside the back door of the palace. The Queen stopped abruptly, then pointed.

  “What is that?" she uttered in a tone of distaste. George's heart sank as his eyes followed the pointing fingers down towards the weed with its crown of tiny white flowers. His brain raced.

  “Er ... um ... it's a new type of flower we're trying out, Your Majesty," he stammered, most unconvincingly. The Police Chief's eyebrows shot up in suspicion and he stepped closer.

  But the Queen's brain worked on more direct lines.

  “Flower?" she snorted. “That's a weed; in my garden. What is that weed doing here, gardener, right outside my back door? I t
hought you had got rid of them all. You assured me they were all gone." She glared accusingly at poor George, who was not feeling happy at all.

  “Er ... we ..ll," he stuttered, “it's only a little one, Your Majesty. And it's not doing any harm tucked away over here."

  “Harm?!" the Queen yelled, turning decidedly angry. She waved her arm about her. “Look at those broccoli: dying, all of them. Next thing the whole garden will be overrun again." She turned to George and pointed at the weed. “Get rid of it," she commanded.

  George had turned white. “I ... I ... I .... I c-c-can't d-d-do that," he said finally, desperately trying to get the words out. He looked ill.

  “Dammit man," the Queen snarled. “What's the matter with you? Do as I say."

  George looked as though he was about to faint. He was swaying on his feet, mouth wide open, but he could produce no words. All he could think of was the old lady's warning. She had been very serious, and quite adamant that he never damage the weed. Nothing, but nothing would induce him to so much as touch it. The old lady was not one to jest.

  But the Queen was now beside herself with rage, her face suffused with pink blotches. She was not used to being disobeyed. The Minister of Agriculture stepped forward past the white and trembling gardener, and indicated the weed. “Shall I dispose of it, Ma'am?" he offered. “This man," pointing to George, “is clearly not well." He was not an unkind man.

  “No," the Queen snarled. “I'll do it myself, like I have to do everything myself around here. Just get that gardener out of the way." She turned to George and almost spat in her fury: “You're fired, you old fool." Then she grabbed a forester's axe that was leaning against the palace wall and chopped the crown of tiny white flowers clean off the stem of the weed. George fainted.

  But when he came to nothing had happened. The Queen stood by the decapitated weed, still shaking with anger and still clutching the long-handled axe. Then suddenly, as though it had waited for George, the weed shuddered; and before all their eyes the stem pushed slowly upwards and produced a bud that opened right out into a delicate crown of tiny white flowers. Then it stopped.

  George shivered, and looked around him. He could feel menace in the air. But the others did not. They crowded round the weed and stared in amazement.

  “This could revolutionise the whole farming industry," announced the Agriculture Minister. But the Minister of Technology was not listening. He had a strange gleam in his eyes.

  “We could take over the world with a plant like that," he breathed. The Chief of Police nodded in agreement, plans already formulating in his fertile brain.

  But the Queen in her anger was not thinking at all. She guessed she had missed with her first swing, and so tried again. George watched her. He felt strangely detached, and sensed with an absolute certainty that something incredibly horrible was going to happen. The weed had given them all a chance. This time, he decided as the Queen swung the axe down again, it would run out of patience.

  As the heavy axe split the crown of tiny white flowers for a second time the weed seemed to literally explode, growing in all directions at once. But there were no more white flowers. Tendrils, as thick as the gardener's fingers, leapt and writhed, spilling out in bunches to pour across the ground like a mountain stream. One struck at the Queen like a bullwhip, gripping her neck and squeezing till her eyes bulged like her breasts. And the weed shot up, now the size of a small oak tree, dripping tendrils that sought the ground and then raced in the direction of the palace walls.

  The two ministers stood petrified. Not so the Police Chief, however, who was made of sterner stuff. With a gun in each hand he stood back, blazing away at the maddened, writhing weed. Like a cowboy trying to be an actor, thought George dully. Too much television, that was the trouble. These people had it rammed into their heads so much they no longer had any concept of reality. The macho image: so important, yet so often hiding the exact opposite. But was this reality? he wondered. His mind seemed to float, refusing to relate to what was happening before his eyes.

  The weed must have been thirty feet high, its tendrils flowing to the ground like the branches of a weeping willow, then spreading out across the palace walls like ivy, creeping and crawling, rooting into every crevice. He heard the crash of breaking window panes as the weed relentlessly pushed its way inside the palace, then the screaming of the servants.

  The Queen had vanished beneath the swirling mass of tendrils and her minions were nowhere to be seen. George stood alone at the bottom of his garden watching the weed, that had once lived there harmlessly with its crown of tiny white flowers, methodically tearing apart the magnificent white palace that the old Queen had spent seven years building. Oblivious to the bricks and chimney pots that fell around him, he wondered what the old lady was thinking. He had let her down, when she had obviously stuck out her neck for him. He hoped she wouldn't suffer. Frankly he felt little concern for the others.

  The palace was almost in ruins. Beyond the dust and smoke that arose from the burning rubble he could see the weed's outriders - the furthest tentacles - charging down the hill like galloping great green horses. Rearing and plunging, they strode into the streets of the city, crushing people and tearing down houses. Bulbs flickered and blew as the garish neon lights were ripped to the ground, and the half-naked bodies of dancers, courtesans and princes poured screaming into the streets, to be crushed and mangled by the flying tendrils of the weed.

  The weed itself, as thick as a house now, seemed to reach the very base of the clouds. Beneath its spreading mantle of green the sky grew dark, lit by occasional streaks of lightning. And George thought he could hear the rumble of thunder. Curiously, no tendrils had encroached on the garden. His flowers still bloomed, a startling splash of colour amid the surrounding devastation. The reds and yellows, pinks, golds and purples stood proudly, bathed in the strange greenish light that was reflected from the weed. And George himself was untouched.

  Still the weed grew. It covered the city now till it resembled a long-wrecked ship left dry by the receding tide. And still it galloped on: through towns and villages, farmyards, stations and seaports, to the furthest extremities of the Snow Queen's kingdom. Here the spreading mass of green was joined by more tendrils, reaching down from the upper branches of the weed, wriggling through the clouds to build a curtain from the sky that surrounded the whole kingdom.

  Then, as though its job were now done, the weed died; as quickly as it had grown. The millions upon millions of long, snaking green arms withered from their ends, their life seeming to draw back along them and into the stem of the weed. And the stem itself drew back into the earth, until there was only a small green plant with a delicate crown of tiny white flowers to indicate that anything had happened. But the Snow Queen's kingdom was bare; as though it had been stripped by countless quadrillions of voracious soldier ants. Not a building stood. Not a person lived.

  Apart from George, who stood in his garden watching little green plants shoot up through the blackened, scorched remains of the Queen's palace, to sprout delicate crowns of tiny white flowers, then stop. A strange welling of music seemed to expand in the still evening air, sweeping from the tiny white flowers to enfold the garden, and George himself. And soft voices began to sing: lilting, rolling songs that flowed back and forth, into and through one another.

  The sound grew, a thousand voices harmonising in sweeping melody and counter-melody, building and building till it filled the air like a fragrance. It seemed to blend with all the flowers in the garden, drawing them in to one world with the weeds and the music and George.

  A feeling of intense joy and deep tranquillity suffused the old, tired gardener, spreading warmth and energy through his weary body. He stood straighter, more erect. He felt younger. He felt at peace.

  He turned to face the smouldering remains of the old palace, from where the music seemed to come. As he stood there he saw an arm thrust out from the ashes and reach upwards, clutching a battered old thirteen string guitar. And
through the heavenly music an unmistakable voice called out:

  “Here comes my band again!"

  o ------------------------ o

  The young boy closed the book on the Sixth Gift

  and remained a while with his thoughts

  in the lonely tower at the end of the beach

  And the Angel watched over him

  o ------------------------ o

  The Neverending Story

  THE BOY laughed. “He didn't wreck the place again, did he?"

  “Of course not!" The Angel was short.

  The boy stopped laughing, and said seriously: “I think this one must be Eternal Life - new life growing from the ashes of the old. The indestructibility of life. I think this gift is Eternity."

  “It is," said the Angel. “The guardian's sixth gift was ETERNITY. However people may change and die; however they are destroyed, the essential life that is in them - their spirits - cannot be. The life of a man's spirit is forever."

  The boy nodded absently. He seemed unconvinced. By its simplicity, perhaps.

  “I think there is more to the story than just that," he said.

  “Do you?"

  “Uh-huh."

  The Angel seemed to think for a while before replying.

  “Perhaps you are right," she conceded. “This gift does have certain strings attached to it, none of which" - she stressed - “affect the basic quality of the gift. Spiritual life is eternal, and that cannot be altered. Its progression can, though." She paused, gathering her thoughts.

  “Do you remember the salmon?" she asked him.

  “Yes."

  “And how horrified you were at the prospect of them never reaching their goal?"