I was teasing weeds from my garden fence when I heard grinding among the plant pots. These were plastic so I could only assume that something had disturbed their contents. Most of these pots were empty except for the one beside the lettuce patch. I have a terrible problem with slugs so it seemed entirely possible that one had slipped off a leaf and landed inside.
Peering within I saw that the pot
was full of colourful plaster. One of the gnomes had been wrenched loose from
the soil by a gale force wind and dashed against the fence just yesterday.
When the wind died down, I swept up the pieces with a dustpan and brush. It occurred to me that I
might be able to do something with the plaster and so tipped it into the pot
for the time being.
In a
way I was glad the slug had reminded me of the shattered gnome: now I could tip
it into the bin and make proper use of the pot. Still I needed to coax the slug
out first. While they may destroy my lettuces, I’m not the kind of
gardener who poisons. They’re just doing what comes natural to them.
I grabbed the lip of the pot and was
about to turn it when I noticed a large chunk of gnome shift all on its own. It
was the red cap, showing the white of the plaster beneath the paint. I watched
as a slimy black limb wound itself around this then yank it deeper within the
pot.
I took a step back. Something odd
was going on here and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see. As I took a moment to
catch my breath, the internal grinding picked up again. It grew so loud that I
worried that the harpy next door would poke her nose over the fence and screech
at me.
When shame overrode my irrational
fear, I reached out for the plant pot again, this time with the toe of my boot.
It only took a tiny nudge to tip the whole thing over. Still the grinding continued, much louder
than before.
I glanced inside and saw the cracked
bits and pieces of the gnome whirling around. When the plaster finally scraped
past the rim, I jumped aside and reached for a trowel. What was once the
crumbling white beard of the gnome stretched out like an exploratory hand. It
pulled the rest of the shattered gnome’s body out of the pot; all the limbs
that it once had, now serving as others. The gnome’s nose and corncob pipe had
become its feet, the torso had split into two to become its legs and the legs
joined together to become the torso. Wherever plaster gnome parts weren’t in
use, slimy black slugs acted as connective tissue, giving the shards' impossible movement an oily elegance.
This peculiar hybrid of slug and
garden gnome pointed its beard hand at me. Dropping my trowel, I ran right out of there, pace picking up as I heard the
definite scrape and clatter of plaster on paving slab behind me.
I came back an hour later, my
partner leading the way. He didn’t believe my story, of course, and I couldn’t
blame him. He had to see for himself and I had to know that I wasn’t going round the bend.
And yet, as soon as we had set out
into the garden, we could find no sign of the slug gnome beast, not even in the
guttering above the bins. My partner shook his head at me and went back indoors. I
made one final sweep of the garden, trowel back in hand, then closed the gate that I had left open.
Wherever the slug gnome has gone, it has at
least left us in peace. It occurs to me that this beast may not have actually meant
any harm. Even so I refuse to say I overreacted.
I certainly refuse the suggestion
that throwing out the plant pot was a waste of valuable materials. To that I
say, valuable to whom exactly?
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