"Sometimes I think I’d like to just pave those Trees over,” I told Mrs. Scurfield as I watched her pull weeds from her garden yesterday. I’d been sitting on a lawn chair most of the afternoon, studying the Shaw essay while she worked.
She looked up alarmed. Like a parent with a child. “Oh no. I don’t think you would. You’ve got to be careful with that.”
“Well, in any case,” I said, “I can’t, ‘cos I don’t own the land they’re on.”
She straightened her shoulders to give me a second of hard attention and a grin, then began pulling out a large root system.
“I think I like hating them,” I offered. The noise of her work stopped again.
She looked at me for a while before saying, “I think you do too.”
“It’s comforting,” I offered.
She waited.
“But it’s not like I can get rid of them. And I don’t know how to stop, y'know, obsessing. So maybe enjoying the hatred is the best option for me.” I felt bad making this admission.
“And yet, here you are -dissatisfied,” Mrs. Scurfield observed, and resumed her selective apocalypse.
“Yeah.” Damn.
I think it really is time to confront my demons.
2 comments:
Yes yes yes Mrs. Scurfield!
Oh man I want to talk about this one day, but instead, right now it just needs to sit here and be appreciated for the chapter it is.
I have to admit I was only meandering into each chapter of this thing for awhile, but now I'm hungry for each one and the next.
Jon, I'm so happy that you've been getting something from this. I can't begin to say how glad I am that you've been such an active reader.
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