"You don't know the first thing about flowers," Carol said, standing with Boris as they watched Larry dig in a small plot of soil outside in the garden area of the home, hands on her hips, "What makes you think you can do this?"
"Because how hard can it be? You're just putting plants in the dirt," Larry said, digging up yet another hole for another flower to be inserted, "It can't be that difficult for god sakes." "The man has a point, how hard can it be?" Boris asked, looking at Carol. "You want to know how hard it can be? Have you ever seen a landscaper do their job? A gardener? Knowing where to prune and sheer? It's an art, a science," Carol said, "It's not something one can just pick up and do, unless you don't care about doing it poorly." "...did you just call planting a flower a science?" Boris asked. "Would you two either shut up or join me, because you're distracting me," Larry said, annoyed. With this ultimatum, Carol and Boris turned and started walking away, towards the gazebo. "You ever get the feeling like this is just reverse daycare? It's like, when you're a child, someone looks after you, cleans up after you, feeds you, gives you pointless activities that go nowhere for you to pass the time with until you go to sleep, and that's exactly what's going on here," Boris said, "Except our sleep is the eternal sleep we're all eventually going to face down." "God talking to you is depressing," Carol said, "Though, you're not totally inaccurate. I for one never assumed I'd be spending my final years in a nursing home, that's for sure. Especially one so...low maintenance." "I know, this nursing home is so low maintenance that if it were a woman it would still be above my standards," Boris said, making Carol chuckle as they sat on the bench outside the gazebo and looked at every other senior passing them by; Boris continued, "See, each is involved in their activity, their mindless time wasting activity, all just awaiting that inescapable visit from the reaper." "Well hopefully the reaper shows up sooner than expected," a voice from behind and somewhat above said, making both Boris and Carol startle and look up. In the gazebo behind them, leaning on the rail and sipping a carrot juice, was Polly. "What tomb did you crawl out of?" Boris asked, as Polly finished her drink and capped it. "You two are making fun of that man for trying to make a garden and beautify this place, and that's just mean," Polly replied, "What are you two doing? Just sitting on your asses? Real lovely way to spend an afternoon, being judgemental while doing something of even lesser value." "You're one to talk, you judge people so much you should be in a court somewhere," Carol said, making Polly smirk. "Well, I'm gonna help him," Polly remarked, coming down the stairs of the gazebo and handing her carrot juice bottle to Boris, adding, "I think it's nice to have flowers around. Not like there's a lot of pretty faces here to look at as it is." With that, Polly turned and headed off, leaving Boris and Carol alone. They glanced at one another for a moment, before Boris looked at the bottle in his hands and then looked back where Polly had been. "Hey!" he shouted, "I don't want your trash!" *** Gardening had been something Larry had never done before. He'd only watched one other person do it...his wife. She always wore a big sunhat and green latex gloves and a large pair of sunglasses when she went out to the garden in the backyard, and Larry would always join her. He'd seat himself on a pull out chair and drink lemonade from the pitcher they kept on a table nearby with them, pouring himself and his wife each a glass whenever they needed it, and he would read a book while she gardened, occasionally giving into conversation. It wasn't an excuse for him to relax or even partake in a hobby. It was an excuse for him to just sit back and admire his wife from a distance. He would watch everything she did, not understanding much of it, but it didn't matter. He just liked how happy the act made her. She'd hum, usually not realizing she was doing it, and he felt like he didn't ever need a radio if he had her around. He'd much prefer to listen to her humming than anything he could find on an AM/FM station. She'd run a small gardening shop that she'd taken over from her own father, but it had shut down a few years back, and that's when she started gardening at home. She just couldn't get away from it, it was something that made her extremely happy. And then one day she died, and Larry couldn't stand to look at a single flower for years afterwards. *** Boris was sitting on his bed, sifting through some old papers he had written some poems down on. This thing with Leanne had hurt a lot, and he wondered if he'd just be better off burning his remaining poems. But he could never bring himself to actually do it, and instead he always merely locked them right back up into the briefcase and pushed it back under his bed. He was in the middle of doing this when a knock came at his door, and he opened it to find Father Kricket standing there. "Oh," Boris said, "What're you doing here?" "There's a man down the hall, very sick, likely not to last through the night...could I borrow your bible? I seem to have forgotten mine," Kricket said, wringing his hands, clearly feeling bad about this failure on his part. "It's out of date but sure," Boris said, stepping aside for him to enter the room, "Come on in and let me dig it up." "A bible is never really out of date, to be fair," Kricket said, smirking, "If we're being semantic about it." Boris pulled open a drawer on his desk and inside was his bible and a few dirty magazines. He took the bible and handed it to Father Kricket, who merely shook his head and rolled his eyes as he took the book and stuck it under his arm. "It's in good company," Boris said. "I'm not going to comment," Kricket replied, chuckling, "Thank you very much." As he turned to leave, he stopped and turned back to face Boris. "Yes? Do you need my rosary too?" Boris asked. "No, I...I just wanted to see how you've been lately. I know things at the hospital aren't really going as well as you'd hoped...are you doing okay?" Kricket asked, and Boris folded his arms, shrugging. "About as okay as someone in a nursing home with a comatose daughter can be, I suppose," Boris said, "There's nothing I can do about any of it, so I try not to dwell on it. The whole thing is fucked, you know? So why think about it constantly and make myself feel even worse than I already generally do?" "Solid line of thinking, I guess," Kricket said, "Well, you know where to find me if you ever want to talk. I care about you, you're my friend. Thanks for the book." And with that, Father Kricket exited Boris's room, leaving him to smile to himself. He'd called Boris his friend. It'd been a while since Boris felt like he had a real friend. Oh sure, he had Whittle, or people in the home like Carol and Burt, but...the way Father Kricket said it, it felt more genuine, like a real friendship and not simply a friendship for the sake of friendship because of their situation. Boris went to bed happy that night. *** "This looks awful," Carol said, watching Larry and Polly still try and plant flowers the following day; she continued, "Not to be mean, I'm just...this looks awful. Do you guys want me to go to the library, get a book out maybe about how to garden? Because it looks like you need it. I didn't expect two people to not be able to complete one task, but well done, ya did it." Polly pulled her hat up and wiped her forehead with her arm, glaring over her shoulder at Carol. "Well, I'm sorry it doesn't live up to your majesty's garden at the palace," Polly said, "We're doing our best." "It's weird how your best is still bad," Carol replied, just as Boris strolled up and looked at the 'progress' that had been made. He stood there, chomping on a sandwich beside Carol, while Polly continued to put flowers into the ground and pat the dirt lovingly around them. "Wow," Boris muttered, "Somehow it looks less like a garden than yesterday." "I'm sorry!" Larry said, standing up, throwing his arms into the air, "I'm sorry I don't know how to garden! She never taught me how to do it properly! I was just...I was just trying to steal back a piece of her, you know? I'm sorry it doesn't live up to your weirdo standards of perfection! I was just...I was just trying to bring her back. Any part of her back. Just for even a moment..." With his sudden outburst complete, Larry wiped his eyes on his sleeve and turned to walk back into the building. Boris and Carol stood there, rather shocked by this surprising evidence of emotion from a man so usually stoic, and when they finally looked at Polly, who was now standing up herself and wiping the dirt from her knees, she crossed her arms and stared them down. "So, feel better about yourselves now?" she asked. "Not really no," Boris admitted. *** It had happened while he'd been at the store. Larry had gone to get ingredients to surprise his wife with a dinner, and when he got back he knew she'd still be out gardening. Larry prepared and cooked the entire meal, and only once it was plated and ready, wine glasses filled to the brim and candles lit, did he finally head outside to the garden to find her. Find her he did. She wasn't hard to miss, as she was laying on her side in between a row of roses bushes and her wheelbarrow. Larry rushed to her side, even though he knew full well that there was nothing he could do at this point. That she was gone long before he'd even gotten home. When the doctor finally informed him of the cause, cerebral hemorrhage, Larry didn't even care what had done it. He didn't even really get upset at the fact that it had happened. Mostly, he was furious that it had happened while he was completely unaware. That's what upset him more than anything else. He'd never wanted her to die alone, who would want that for anyone really? Sitting outside as the paramedics loaded her onto the stretcher, then covered her with a sheet and carried her to the ambulance. After they left, Larry sat there on the marble bench near where she'd dropped and stared at the spot her body had lied for hours before he'd found her, wringing his hands. If only he hadn't left. If only he'd come home sooner. If only he'd been here when it had happened. A million examples of 'if only' ran through his mind, and try as he did to ignore them, he couldn't. What would become of her garden? Turns out he wouldn't have to make that decision, as a few months later he'd slip getting out of the tub, give himself a concussion and his son would bring him to the home, then move his own family into the home. The garden, from what Larry had been told, had been left untouched, but not cared for. It too, like them, had rotted away and was now nothing more than a mere shell of itself. They'd added more to the backyard; a bigger deck, a barbecue built into the ground and a playset for the kids, a porch swing for themselves, but nobody really had any passion for gardening, so as the backyard grew in life, the gardens life diminished. Larry always had seen the empty bits of land on the grounds of the nursing home community, but he'd never had the guts to do anything to it until now. But now, as he was discovering, he couldn't do it properly. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't bring even the smallest piece of her back, even momentarily. *** Larry woke that morning and laid in bed for a while. Usually he got up immediately and got dressed and went for breakfast, but not today. Today he lay there, thinking, mostly about her. After a while of silently apologizing to her memory that he couldn't make the garden happen, Larry finally got out of bed, put on some slacks and a turtleneck and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. He sat by himself, figuring the others felt bad about how they'd treated him the day prior and were now avoiding him, and ate his oatmeal before finally deciding to go see his friend Don across the community in the other building and have a game of chess. As Larry stepped out onto the back steps and began to cross the grounds, he spotted Boris, Carol and Polly all by the area he'd tried gardening at. "Christ," he mumbled before striding over there, "What the hell is going on? Come on, I told you I was done, it's pointless! You can all stop now and-" And as they moved aside, Larry saw they'd done it. Boris, Carol and Polly had made a nice little garden full of different flowers in the space, and Larry was without words as he approached it and knelt before the floral arrangement in the dirt. "After what happened we all, well Carol and I really, felt bad about how we behaved towards the idea, and towards you, and...you're our friend, Larry, and if this is what would make you happy, then we wanted to help. We also had no idea it had something to do with your wife," Boris said, stepping forward, planting one hand on his shoulder and pushing a flower encased in dirt in front of him. Larry took it and looked up at Boris who smiled. "It's the last one to be transplanted, if you'd like to do the honors," Carol said. Larry took it, set it into the dirt and lovingly pushed the soil up around its stem, then leaned in and smelt it. Tears swelling up in his eyes, his fingertips gently touching the silk petals, he smiled and whispered. "I did it, Petunia. I did it for you."
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Golden Years follows the exploits of a bunch of old people in a retirement home as they try to have fun, relax or come to terms with the soon to be end of their lives. Archives
April 2024
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