Her Beloved Garden

A short story which I wrote a long time back but got the chance to edit today. I hope you like it. Do let me know in the comments what you think about it 🙂

The floorboard creaked as grandma made her way out of the porch towards her beloved garden. Her eyes travelled the length of it and she let out a mild sigh of disappointment. The old woman loved fussing over it when she had strength. But, now that she is not able to tend to it every day, look what they have done to it! Or rather, not done anything at all! When will they learn that it is not easy for her to come here every day anymore?

She hobbled towards the vegetable beds turning on the sprinklers on the way. The tomatoes were doing fine after all – all red and ripe, ready to harvest. She plucked out several and laid them on her saree’s pallu. Bending over the eggplants, she weighed the round ones – not ready yet, a little more time. The bed of pumpkins looked stunted – look at how small the fruits were and October around the corner! She trundled towards the garden shed and grabbed a bag of compost. She kneeled over or at least tried to – oh, the crackling, painful knees! – and sprinkled a handful of compost near the roots. There! That will make them bigger, rounder, sweeter – her favourite of all vegetables. She moved from one patch to another – pruning dead leaves and unruly branches, harvesting the ripe produce and patting the unripe ones as if encouraging them to do better. By the time she reached the end of the vegetable garden, she was exhausted. After all this work, the garden looked better. And yet something seemed sad about it. She muttered under her breathe, “the state in which things are left to…”. And yet, what could anyone do about it, since the house has been abandoned? She shuffled back to the porch and sat on her favourite rocking chair. She closed her eyes and kept nodding on and off as the chair rocked until sleep overtook her and she started snoring. A cat jumped from the porch steps and disappeared behind the night-blooming jasmine bush. Its white flowers intoxicated the air with a heady perfume. The chair kept gently rocking while jet-black ink of the night slowly spilled over the sky and a silence descended over the house.

The next day the caretaker unlocked the front door almost after a fortnight to attend to his usual chores of dusting and airing the house. He opened the back porch door and stepped out. Ah! The garden looked neat and taken care of – a basket of fresh vegetables sat on the porch steps. So grandma came here again! He smiled as he thought fondly of the old lady. She yearned for it when she was sick. And, now that she is able to, she comes back to it now and then to revive it. After all, she loved it so, even death could not separate her from her beloved garden.