the roog

Underneath the garden fence, no more than a fingernail in length, opened a gap between the bald turf and the dangling splinters of spruce. The woman noticed it as she trimmed the boundaries of her garden that Saturday morning, knelt pressing on new knee pads her husband had gifted her, her face bewildered at the sight of a worm’s head slithering its way through the new passageway. That’s odd, she remarked. That panel was snug to the ground last week. She unpinned the left steel button of her dungarees and tacked her right hand, fingers uniform, to the cotton covering her left breast. That’s odd, she remarked. Faster than usual.

Honey, she called towards the open conservatory doors. Come and take a look at this. Out stepped a solid man in a white shirt and denim trousers hemmed over the ridge of his ankles to expose white socks beneath. The man trod the stone islands as far as he could, hands fixed to his waist as he squinted down the end of his wife’s finger.

Look, she pointed. There’s a worm. There’s an opening.

The man squatted and took from his right pocket a small pair of binoculars. He aimed them past his wife to focus on the head of the worm and then reached over the grass to pass the binoculars to her, wiping his brow with the rear of his hand as he did.

Take a look, he sighed. It’s worse than you think.

The woman took the binoculars and, still balancing on her knee pads, leant her head over to hover above the slithering creature. Her face writhed and her free hand clasped to her mouth as she gasped at the sight. She removed the binoculars and turned to her husband.

You’re right, she cried. It is worse than I thought.

With his short fingernails, the husband stood scratching his head and smoothing the stubble on the side of his cheek which now seemed to give a slight prickle. As he gazed over to the house on the other side, the twitch of a blind through the upper bathroom window knocked his gaze back over to his wife’s dungarees. The left shoulder had unfastened itself and the steel button grazed the square of skin on the side of her ribs.

Your dungarees, he said. They’ve unfastened.

The woman shuffled to her feet and fingered her way up to the rail atop the fence. With a swift movement of her biceps she slammed the panel back against the floor, snug again with the turf. She crouched down and plucked a single blade of grass from beside the severed body of the worm. With the blade folded over like a paper napkin, she retrieved the worm’s upper body and whistled with her free hand. Over bounded a black and sunset hound who opened wide its mouth and received the worm without a single chew. The woman turned to her husband and, with the blade of grass still in hand, undid the right button on her dungarees.

Let’s go inside, she said. I’d like some punch.

The next morning, the gap had returned.

Not only is there that opening, muttered the woman as she stood, feet planted in the centre of a stone island, a coffee cup in her hand and her hair scrunched above her scalp. There’s also the whereabouts of our koi fish. She treaded the stones over to the back of the garden where the waterfall made endless ripples into a now-vacant pond. Arching over the rim of the basin, she made thorough checks of either side. Nothing here. Nothing there. As she was steadying herself, she noticed the canted angle of the corner fence panel. It had twisted and turned so that the woman no longer recognised the pattern of lawn beneath her. No longer was there the unbroken line of tapered blades. There was only an amalgam of green splaying in directions uncontrollable.

Honey, she called towards the deck chairs. Our garden must be playing tricks on us.

Over strolled the man in the white shirt. His sleeves were folded upwards once or twice and he held in his right hand a mug of steaming coffee. Standing again from the refuge of a stepping stone, he raised his binoculars at the canted angle of the corner fence panel. He squinted and dipped his head forward like a chicken reaching for feed and lost grip of both hands, both the binoculars and coffee cup crashing towards the floor.

Jesus, he shuddered. It’s been taken.

The woman scurried beneath her husband’s stained shirt, wincing as her hands crushed the shards of porcelain under hand and knee. She retrieved the binoculars, now functional only through one lens, and aimed them towards the rear bedroom window of the house on the other side. No fluttering of blinds or twitching of curtains could be seen but the woman had never noticed the wooden ornamentation around the windows. The binoculars scanned from right to left until she reached the edge of the house on the other side and then she lowered the binoculars, her gaze unshifted.

Say, she pondered. Has our house always been joined to their house?

On Monday, it was time for the woman to deadhead the tulips. They had bloomed well but a litter of petals now circled their stems and shrivelled in the beating summer heat. With one hand on the bulb and the other brandishing a pair of shears, the woman steadied the first tulip. Remember, she recited. Just below the head and slightly above the leaf. With the jaws of the shears teething the white hairs of the stalk, the woman froze and sniffed once and then again. Her head turned towards the fence as the odour of smoked fish passed through the slats. She tilted her nose upwards and saw a rising plume of barbecue smoke, the faint crackle of coals fading in like the crescendo of a miniature orchestra. The woman tracked the plume and traced it to behind the canted fence panel. She crept over and leant first with one ear to the panel, then peeking her gaze through the slat at eyeline level. Nobody tended to the barbecue. Nobody turned the fish. Still, it did not burn. At that, the panel tipped forward and the woman fell flat onto her face, the slats cracking in two and splintering into her cheeks.

She groaned, scampering to her feet and wiping a seeping graze on the tip of her nose. Blood stained the back of her knuckles and she held out her hand to where the fence panel once was. The sound of crisping flesh trickled into her ears as her gaze wandered around the garden of the house on the other side. Well kempt. Neat borders on the far side. She looked to where the worm had crawled underneath the gap and saw now that there were no fence panels anymore. The gardens had fused like some interstellar marriage of galaxies, as if anyone would have ever known the difference between them. This seemed their wedding night. An emulsion of twins.

That’s odd, she remarked. I don’t remember taking those down.

The woman knelt pressing on her new knee pads, snipping the drooping head of her neighbour’s daffodil. She positioned the shears just above the fresh leaves and just below the failing bulb. A boy’s voice called out from behind the conservatory doors. Excuse me, he said. How do you like your fish seasoned?

Squeezing her finger to her thumb, the head tumbled to the ground and the woman looked over to her husband, mowing the lawn in his coffee-stained white shirt and grass-stained white socks.  She placed the shears on the ground and noticed, as she was getting to her feet, a worm making its way through a small gap in the fence. With a single blade of grass, she picked up the worm and turned it around, so that it would crawl back through the gap to the other side of the fence. The boy called out again but she did not hear him.

That’s odd, she remarked. That panel was snug to the ground yesterday.

By J. Bristow