The Absent Gardener

Another flower sighed and wailed before finally dying from a lack of sunlight from the blocking weeds.

"Where is justice? Where is hope? Where is life? Why does the Gardener not value me? Soon, there will be nothing but weeds left and then they will choke each other out and it will be as if the garden never existed. What's the point of this? Why must sun be given equally to flowers and weeds?"

A weed monster laughed. "How stupid it is to be a flower! Survival of the fittest, baby!"

His fellow weeds guffawed in agreement. Ever since the weeds first started invading the garden their numbers had grown. At first the weeds spoke glowingly of the flowers and how much they admired the flowers' beauty. But as time passed, the hideous nature of the self-loathing weeds started to surface and as their numbers increased they grew more bold in their hate. One thing, though, would not - and could not - ever change: an all-consuming need and desire to be accepted by the flowers.

What made the weeds so bitter in their rooting was their choice not to be a flower, fearing they could never muster the beauty required. Until one actually flowers, how can one ever know one's true worth? So they chose the path of the weed, forever doomed to rationalizing that fearful mistake, embarrassed to live as prisoners of doubt, losers in life.

Knowing this about themselves made them hate the flowers even as they envied their elegance and grace. But weeds have one ability flowers do not: the ability to choke out surrounding life (though done at the expense of their own which they do not value). Helpful flowers warned the weeds to change explaining the Gardener will return one day and pull them out.

"Ha, that's just so much philosophy! There is no Gardener! That's just a fiction you made up to make yourselves feel better. There is no truth! Why should we ever listen?"

The flowers, of course, knew that was a fiction made up by the weeds to make themselves feel better. "It's just a matter of knowing the science." But as the weeds forsook their shame, they began to mock the flowers and speak of the "beauty" of weeds, and that to speak well of weeds was the new enlightenment. That sowed doubt in some flowers who then beseeched "tolerance" of the choking weeds. These fooled flowers hoped against hope the weed's destructive nature would change however impossible that might be. They could see no other possible way to a future.

Seeing nothing to stop them, weed power continued to ascend as their numbers grew while flowers dwindled. "Mob rule cannot be denied!" Weeds believed declaring flowers to be evil would enable a weedy future. Flowers were declared enemies of the state since preserving life meant the end of weed rule. A new abnormal arose as the weeds killed in toxic glee, all the while claiming they were the victims having been (self-)denied beauty in their life. It was a time of darkness never seen before. Hell had come for breakfast.

Heady with their rule - however short-lived - the weeds claimed the Gardener loved them more than the flowers. They declared themselves as plants of "true faith" and heaped praise upon the Gardener "who has placed us in our rightfully ascendant position." But no amount of words could relieve the weeds from needing the flowers' acceptance. They cursed the flowers as "morally bankrupt" and "corrupt" for not following holy weedy ways. Frustrated and terrified, the weeds decided the only way to find peace would be to eliminate the flowers altogether - and no force in the universe could stop them.

Then the sun disappeared in a shadow. This initially made the weeds rejoice thinking their dark deeds could remain hidden. For no matter how self-sanctioned they made their killings, the weeds could not escape the self-knowledge of their insanity. Even when they "won" they lost, satisfaction perpetually escaped them. But the shadow was not the savior they hoped. It was the shadow of the returning Gardener.

The weeds wailed as they felt their roots being pulled up from the ground. "Please don't kill us! We want to live!"

"Why would I want a garden of weeds? What farmer throws away the wheat and keeps the chaff? I gave the garden time to grow and you made your choice. The sun was denied to no one and the sun is all you need to be a flower. But now time is up and garden life must be preserved. What the fuck did you think was going to happen??"

Uprooted for eternity, the weeds could never return. Now fully mature, the flowers spread over the remaining ground making it impossible for weed life. They lived in unity and in communion with the Gardener as the point of their previous faith was fully realized. Truth never wins until the end but then it wins forever.