Weeds poised to attack

Weeds of madness poised to attack

DISPATCH FROM THE FRONT

The weeds are everywhere. They surround the house. They rush down the hill to the neighbor’s house. The people who live there despise us—me and the cat and the ghosts—five ghosts, hiding out in a bungalow from hell. I don’t venture out. I keep my cover. In the basement I have a year’s supply of canned food, and bottles of gin, rum, vodka and Jack Daniels. Jack and the old man, doing the best we fuckin’ can.

We watch the neighbors from our window as they scrub their driveway and fondle their lawn and play with their rock garden. Their property is immaculate.

The weeds from our property have advanced as far as they can without actually starting a war. It would be worse than a war. It would be outright slaughter.

The weeds are poised on the very edge of suburbia. They have positioned themselves in the rocks directly above the house of the immaculate deception. They are in absolute readiness to attack.

I watch and wait. As Sun Tzu wrote: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” *

News from the front lines reaches me firsthand because there are weeds growing in my ears—did you think that was hair? There are weeds in the back of my throat—I thought it was raggèd from the whiskey. They grow on my chin—no, that is not a beard. I think they have infiltrated my brain.

Somewhere there are wildflowers.

* I do love, as someone wrote (J.D. Salinger I think), “the aesthetic evil of the footnote.” Above quote is from ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War.’

7 thoughts on “Weeds of madness poised to attack”

  6. WEED’s; Years ago we owned a Herd of Sheep & Goats, we never had a single Weed! Then neighbor’s moved in on the land we used to use to walk our animals on, I eventually had to Butcher them All!, Now our land is infected with a Plague of Weeds, and I just had to spend $3,000.00 on a DR. Power Mower, I have to buy Gas for it! The first one I bought Blew Up^ on me, so I had to convince the Company that it was not My Fault, I only ran it 5 minutes, so they paid for the Repairs! So, now I have to walk behind that mower, where I used to just turn the Sheep and Goats out! I milked as many as 18 Goats a day, I even trained my Sheep to jump up^ on that milking Stand! When I was new to this my Goats used to Fuck with me, they would refuse to come in to be Milked, It took me awhile to figure it out; then I realized that if I just told them: “No-one Eats until the Milking is done, they were all Lined up^ to get on that Stand……I realized then that they understood English Perfectly!

  7. Great story. Interesting life up there, and not only do you communicate so well with fellow bloggers around the world, animals understand you!

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