Oct 27, 20172 min read

Garden Grove: 2 Work Shutdown – The Watcher in the Woods by LV Gaudet

Garden Grove Cover - McNally - front cover

I can see the tractors, the workers, and the great swaths of black ruined earth marring the weed infested tan stubble of the once cultivated fields. They have all come to a stop. The scene is partially obscured by the naked bony fingers of the twisted oak branches. They look arthritic and deformed. Despite the belief that oaks are very strong, their branches can be very brittle when they age and dry. Their gnarled rough-bark trunks stand misshapen and ugly in their own kind of beauty.

It was the nonstop growling of their tractors that woke me. The rumbling as they tear apart the ground, scraping and digging.

They haven’t started ripping apart this last section of woods yet. But they will, sooner or later they will. And then they will dig up the ground because they don’t know what is here.

The work will stop now, for a while. And then they’ll come. They’ll dig away the final barrier between me and the world.

News of their grisly discovery travelled quickly through the small community, as any dirty laundry or bad news does in the hornet’s nest of gossipmongers that make up all communities. Ah, but what do they do, playing with those old bones?

Sigh.

Cold. I’m always so cold these days.

My old home is so draughty. My prison.

The figure pulls the shawl closer about withered shoulders. The worn threads don’t do much anymore.

One of these days, I’ll crochet a new one.

The figure turns and shuffles away, receding into the darkness behind a veil of shadows, a faint smile at the corners of age-lined lips. They used to be full. Now they are a withered tight line, drawn together like a little drawstring bag even as they thinned with age.

They’ll be back. The work will start again.

The fools.

Some things shouldn’t be dug up. This is one of them.