The Fence
A solitary sunbeam squeezed past the dark mauve curtains that guarded the
bedroom windows of Mrs. April P. Forest, and smote her full on her closed
left eye. Mrs. Forest groaned and rolled over, her pudgy hands placing her
dark mauve pillow over her rather pudgy face, guarding both of her eyes from
the intruding sunbeam. It was 6:30 in the morning on a sunny spring day in a
small town in Ohio, called Swamp Hollow, somewhere in a remote section of
the Allegheny River Valley - and Mrs. Forest was exhausted. She was
exhausted because she had been working in her garden for nearly the whole of
the day before, despite the fact that she was not designed for hard work,
being middle-aged and in poor physical condition. Where her garden was
concerned, however, she was tireless, being the "President of the District
of United Garden Clubs of Ohio, Inc.," as she had been fond of telling her
late husband, Gerald. Gerald wasn't late as in "deceased," but was simply
late as in "having left his wife some years previously because he just
couldn't stand to hear her go on any longer about what he referred to as
'that gosh-darned stupid garden club.'" Also, Gerald couldn't stand Swamp
Hollow, but hardly anyone could. Not being a romantic woman, Mrs. Forest had
hardly noticed his departure. All of her love was reserved for her garden.
Not surprisingly, the Forests had no children.
Finally, no longer able to stand the pressure of the relentless sunbeam,
Mrs. Forest stumbled out of bed, her fingers aching from picking Psuedoregma
aphids from her night-blooming Pomea alba flowers 'til 11:00 P.M. the night
before. She was certain that her next-door neighbor and competing gardener,
Mrs. Fields, had been responsible for infesting her garden with the rare
tropical aphids, in an attempt to defeat her in the 14th Annual Swamp Hollow
Flower Fest, an event which had become the cornerstone of Mrs. Forest's
life. "Humph," she said, as she massaged her aching fingers. "She's not
going to get the better of me! My Pomeas are going to bring home the blue
ribbon, or my name isn't April Pee Forest!"
After dressing and finishing her very substantial breakfast, Mrs. Forest
stuffed her pudgy feet into her rubber gardening boots, donned her sun hat
and went out into her back yard - ready to do battle with anything that
might threaten her garden. When she reached the stone fence that separated
her yard, as well as her neighbors', from the swamp that sat smack dab in
the center of town, she stopped and stared. She often wondered why this
fence was there. She said aloud, to herself, "I wonder why this fence
completely encircles the swamp? Why are the houses all built around the
fence? How come these stupid Swamp Hollow people are so insistent on keeping
this stupid fence in repair? They even have an ordinance about it! I'm sick
of it! Hah! Look! A couple of stones have fallen off! I'm not going to
bother fixing it this year, no matter what the town ordinances say! It's a
waste of my time, time that could better be spent in my precious garden."
Feeling better after having reached a decision, she turned her attention to
her garden, and to its attendant weeds. She ahted weeds. She hated the way
they dared to grow in her garden, the evil little monsters (as she called
them). With her hands on her substantial hips, she surveyed her kingdom,
feeling very much like the Greek goddess Nemesis as she pondered the doom of
the pesky weeds that were threatening to take over her garden, threatening
her Pomeas, bees' balm, hostas, Christmas ferns, and etcetera. "How dare
they?" she muttered, fingers twitching.
After an hour of weeding, she began to grow unusually tired, tired and a
little frightened, without understanding the source of her fear. She stood
up, shivering and massaging her aching back. She said, "Guess I'll go take a
nap. I'll get more done when I'm not so pooped." She said nothing about the
twinge of fear that she felt, almost as if it were simply an accompaniment
to the twinge of pain in her lower back. As she walked back toward her
house, she didn't see the third stone fall from the fence. Or the fourth.
After a restful nap - marred only by a dream in which she found herself
staring in terrified fascination at the stone fence, watching one stone
after another fall from it, while uncouth sounds emanated from the swamp
behind it - Mrs. Forest got up and made herself a substantial lunch: three
cheeseburgers, a baked potato slathered with butter, a glass of milk, and a
slice of Boston cream pie. Feeling her strength restored, she then headed
out to her garden, ready once again to pull more of those pesky weeds. AS
she neared the back of her property, she noticed her other next-door
neighbor, Mr. Waters, who was in his back yard, splitting wood.
"What a woodchuck!" she said, under her breathe, scornfully, as she watched
him out of the corner of her eye. She regarded Mr. Waters with contempt,
mostly because he wasn't a gardener. Despite this, she couldn't stop looking
at him, mostly because he was, despite his constant boozing, an immensely
fit and vital young animal who almost never, in the summer, wore a shirt.
She loved looking at his tanned and sinewy torso as he brought the axe up
over his head, and then down in a sweeping blur, splitting logs with a
primitive abandon that she found fascinating. Of course she would never
admit this to anyone, not even to herself. Suddenly her heart nearly skipped
a beat as she saw him put down the axe and, bottle of cheap bourbon in one
hand and a beer in the other, start walking toward her property.
"OhmyGod!" she said, under her breath. "That drunken hillbilly isn't coming
over here, is he?" It soon became obvious that he was, as he reached her
yard and continued walking toward her, chugging beer as he walked. She stood
there rooted, unable to move, as the neighbor to whom she had never before
spoken boldly and brazenly approached her.
"Hey lady!" he exclaimed, standing only a few feet from her. "Your fence is
starting to come apart. Want I should fix it fer ya? I'll do it cheap." Mrs.
Forest didn't answer at first, thinking how disgustingly sweaty and
primitive Mr. Waters was, and how he really needed a haircut.
Then she said, coldly and haughtily, "No thank you, sir. And what, may I
ask, are you doing on my property, uninvited? Is this type of behavior a
common practice where you grew up?"
"Well, ain't you a sweetheart!" he answered, taking a substantial slug of
bourbon to lubricate his vocal chords. "Suit yourself, lady, but we're
supposed to keep the fence in repair, ya know. Git fined iffen we don't.
Town says so."
"My fence is my business, sir. Now please leave my property at once. You're
beginning to poison the air."
"Okay, lady, but don't say I didn't warn ya. Ain't noboby ever not fixed the
fence before. Injuns built it hunnerds of years ago. I dunno why, but musta
been some kinda reason. God knows what'll happen iffen it ain't kept fixed."
With that he turned and walked back to his yard, shaking his head.
"Hillbilly woodchuck!" muttered Mrs. Forest, under her breath, as she
watched him walk away from her.
With conflicting emotions of anger, puzzlement and, strangely enough, lust
warring within her, Mrs. Forest returned to her weeding. Soon she forgot all
about Mr. Waters and the stone fence. She forgot about everything except for
the sheer joy she felt at destroying the evil weeds that threatened the
peace of her garden. Time flew by and, before she knew it, dusk was
approaching. She heard the calls of robins as they began settling in for the
night. She heard the twittering of nighthawks as they circled overhead. She
heard the eerie ululation of a screech owl coming from the woods bordering
the swamp. She heard the incessant trilling of spring peepers from deep
within the swamp. She heard the loud music coming from Mr. Waters' house, as
he settled in for the night with his hillbilly music and his hillbilly
booze.
And then she heard another sound, the sound a rock makes when it falls to
the ground from an ancient stone fence. She froze, listening. She heard
another falling rock. She began to grow frightened and to notice just how
dark it really was. There was no moon, and she could barely see the weeds
clutched in her hand. She heard another falling rock, and then another.
Suddenly she grew very afraid, as she heard a strange wet sound, as if a
huge and slithery body was crawling through the recently created gap in the
stone fence. She held her breath, unable to move. After hearing nothing
further, she had just started to breathe again when she felt something wet
and slimy close around her ankle like a vice. She screamed and began to
struggle, but to no avail. She felt herself being pulled, remorselessly,
through the gap in the stone fence. She tried to hang onto the fence but was
unable to do so, and succeeded only in ripping her nails and dislodging yet
another rock from the fence. She shrieked in terror, but no one came to help
her.
The last thing Mrs. Forest said, before she died, was - as she was slowly
being digested alive by the stomach juices of Po-We-Suk, the giant
Salamander God of the now-extinct Swamp Hollow branch of the Seneca
Indians - "Please, God! Don't let this thing get in my garden! It'll squash
all my Pomeas!"
--
Author's note: There may exist on the North American continent a species of
unidentified giant salamander, which may be closely related to the Mudpuppy
(Necturus maculosus), a large salamander found throughout much of the
American Midwest, although some speculate that it may be more closely
related to the Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), another large
species of American salamander. This unknown species may also be related to
the Giant Salamander (Megalobatrachus davidianus), which reaches five to six
feet in length and is found on mainland China. The earliest reported
sighting of this unknown salamander was from a tributary of the Scioto River
in Ohio, in the early 1800's. Farmers there reported seeing pinkish,
water-dwelling "lizards" reaching eight feet in length. Whether this
unrecognized species of giant salamander would include annoying lady
gardeners as part of its diet, if given the opportunity, is unknown at this
time. |
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