The Garden Club by James Gerard (bill gates best books .TXT) 📕

The breach in the tree line went unnoticed as Hal glared at Ron entering the gap.  Violent imaginations consumed the thoughts.  Blood boiling heat flushed the skin with a deep hue of red.  The jaw clenched and the teeth grinded.  The narrow path was made narrower by a sense of tunnel vision of the mind that transfixed on the target ahead.   A swift attack would deliver a painful blow.  But just as the anger reached its fruition, they both emerged back into the sunlight that had been blocked by the tall trees.

Ron suddenly stopped and turned.  The empty container of medication was hurled at Hal but missed.

“Are you crazy?” Hal barked.

“No you idiot; I’m dead!”

Hal stopped and took a deep, long breath.   With mouth agape, eyes stared in wonderment that was the landscape that stretched out forever.

“Do you….”

“Ron.  Look.”

Hal watched as what could only have been a sense of amazement came over Ron.  He too stood still and just stared.  Quick and shallow breaths gave way to slow and calm breathing.  The posture slumped in reaction to shedding the weight of anger.  The face that had been gripped by scowls was loosened by a jaw dropping to the ground.

The first thing Hal could think of after the shock wore off from the view of the stunning landscape was that they stood in a garden.  Seconds elapsed before reality reared up and questioned how could a garden exist in such a desolate area?  But there it was.  Lush and green trees of all sorts were spread out in clumps.  Groups of long and slender ones set apart from ones short in stature but with broad, vibrant crowns.  Some clumps of trees had sweet, delicious fruits dangling from twigs while others were adorned with colorful flowers that added a splendid sight to the blue of the sky.

Also scattered about were outcrops of rock, varying sizes of what looked to be rugged slabs of granite holding back declining slopes looking to break the escarpments.  Shrubs too, also formed lines breaking up the vast stretch of land into small swatches.

He stepped to the side and collapsed onto the grass. Hands fondled the short cropped, dewy blades as the lungs were filled up with such an aroma of freshness that he wondered if they had died and gone to Heaven.  Except for the blades of grass standing tall in the meadows, everything in sight was so neatly groomed and arranged that it could not have resulted from the hands of nature but by that same power his mother had secretly believed in and lived by all those years.

Momentarily fazed, he heard Ron shouting something.  “What was that?”

“It has to be a golf course.”

“A golf course?”

Eyes further surveyed the area looking for a neatly groomed fairway sitting between long blades of course grass acting as roughs.  Hall tried to spot a finely cut green marked with a flagpole or for the white blemishes of sand acting as traps, but none were seen.  He also looked for menacing, glass faced ponds that would penalize any golfer for just one errant shot, but none were detected as well.

“It’s not a golf course.”

“Then where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

Hal’s eyes followed the winding trail of brownish soil until it disappeared at the top of a rise some miles away.  Inspecting the path closer, footprints leading to and away from the bridge were numerous.  Eyes trailed the ones leading to the top of the rise until they became too distant to discern.  Believing the answer to where they stood and by whose hands it was created lay beyond the rise, Hal called out to Ron and pointed.

Ron turned and glanced at the rise.  He gave an affirmative nod of the head that the destination was understood then stepped up the path on a fast and steady pace.

Up ahead, Hal noticed a grove of trees dotted with yellow orbs growing just off the side of the path.   In an instant Ron made a mad dash to the first tree in reach.  Hal smiled in reaction to what the excitement was all about and bolted towards the tree to taste the savory and juicy flesh of the ripe and plump oranges just beckoning to be picked.

“Not even in my dreams could I imagine this,” said Ron after slurping up a puddle of juice from the half peeled orange.

Hal plucked an orange off the tree.  He bit into the rind, spat it out, held the orb above the mouth, and squeezed the sweet citrus until its juice streamed forth.  The very taste of the long forgotten sweetness awakened taste buds that had lain long dormant for too many years.

“Oh my god,” exclaimed Hal, “this is the best damn orange I’ve ever eaten.”

“You screwed up Hal.  You might have actually got us to a really good place.”

Hal laughed while taking hold of another orange.  “At this point Ron, I really don’t care about where we are, just that we are here now.”

Ron reached out and rapidly picked off oranges.  He tossed them to a bed of soft, green grass some thirty feet away.

Hal strolled over to the fruit resting all about and plopped onto the ground.  “What is this place?”

“Just for once stop questioning things and enjoy this.”

“You can’t deny that there is something very strange about this?”

“No kidding.  All of this is too weird, but I could care less about taking the time to try to figure it out.  I’m just going to enjoy it without any questions.”

“But….”

“Hal, why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You always have to analyze everything so much to the point where it brings you down.  Why can’t you just let loose and forget about where and why and what and the how about this place and relax?  No wonder you’re miserable.”

Hal reached out for another delectable orange but froze.   Detecting faint chattering coming from behind and off to the side, panic set in.  The attention shifted to Ron, his stretched out body sinking into the soft bed a grass and seemingly unaware that danger was approaching from behind.  And while the urge to whisper out a warning or a command to run, fear held him in place

The chattering grew louder.  Ron sat up and turned.  “How you all doing today?”

Hal cringed expecting the worse.  He looked to the small group and instead of their spears raised for a strike, they all just smiled and waved back.

“You are nuts you idiot!”

“Oh I am,” said Ron.   He sprang to his feet and shouted, “Hey wait, here he is.  It’s Hal.  Come and kill him.”

A rapidly beating heart pumped surges of panic throughout, but instead of having to make a hasty getaway, the group just quickly turned and responded with a laugh before continuing down the path.

“You see,” Ron laughed, “all paranoid for nothing.”

Deep, penetrating breaths snuffed out the fiery anger.  They brought about cool and collective reasoning over what had just occurred.  Either they were more focused on the hunt to care if two of their enemies had invaded their territory, wondered Hal, or they just did not care to begin hostilities anew.  Whatever the reason, escaping what could have been a deadly confrontation brought about utter relief.

“From now on,” Ron said, “just follow me.”

Hal jumped to his feet in reaction to Ron marching to and up the path.  He realized there could be no valid argument against trusting his friend in light of what had just happened.   If there were an objection to be stated, it centered on Ron’s health potentially declining.   The empty bottle of medication served as a reminder of that.  At the same time, however, the threat lay with the physical health.   His mind remained sharp as a tack.

Hal struggled to keep up with Ron’s rapid pace.  Seeing they were just about to reach the top of the rise, he stopped and gasped for breath.  Ron too stopped when he reached the top.

“What in the world?” asked Hal walked up to theb stood next to Ron eying the scene before them.

“Yeah, no restoration work, huh Hal?” he uttered in a sarcastic tone.

Immediately below the rise was a plot of well-groomed leafy plants and vibrant flowers.   A meandering stream, its gently rippling waters breaching the garden’s seemingly impregnable stone wall, fed a gushing fountain at its core.  Overwhelmed, the knees became week then collapsed onto the path.

All around the plain, dotting the landscape, Hal stared at other plots also adorned with a colorful array of plants and flowers, fed by the same meandering stream of fresh and untainted water.  The fountains, their collective hum, sang of days past when the world was raw.  It was a world that had been nurtured and ravaged by nature.  A time when the very face of the world had been etched out by wind and rain and heat and cold, and by forces that could neither be tamed nor managed,   And in spite of all that was witnessed, he could see that the hand of man had intervened by sculpting such an idyllic haven.  The gardens were smartly arranged.  The stream was craftily engineered as if to keep nature at bay and to soften its tight grip and allow all the life to flourish unbound.

Without a word, Ron sauntered down the gentle inclining path with eyes straight ahead, but Hal did not follow.  Instead, he aimed the binoculars at the far off horizon and searched for answers to explain all that was seen.  The focus was set on discovering buildings, people, vehicles, or anything that would surrender a clue as to what he viewed as a mystery, but the search was to no avail.

The thoughts turned towards Kenneth.  The corporations’ plan, as stated to the citizens, had been to transform the polluted land into a habitable refuge for the growing population.  Their plan also called for nurturing the soil to make it once again profitable for agriculture.  Through slips of the tongue, however, Kenneth had let out the secret that their true intentions were to forego the restoration work and settle for the extraction of crude oil and precious earth minerals needed to fuel the new society.  Ssuch purposes needed no pristine environment to carry out the process.

As the binoculars scanned the horizon from side to side, it was more than obvious that Kenneth’s untimely slips appeared now as lies covering up the truth.   But the purpose for such covert babblings was unknown.

Ron had to be right all along, Hal considered.  They had restored the land, but why the cover up?

Hal raced down the rise and approached Ron sitting on the ledge of one the garden’s stone walls.   He was leaning over and handling some of the variety of plants as if examining them for a reason that was hidden in the depths of his mind.  And while Ron continued a meticulous inspection of each and every plant, Hal set the eyes on the pristine landscape.  He was simply in awe of the spectacular foliage stroking the thoughts with utter calmness.

“Hey Hal, would you go back if you had the chance?”

Hal sighed and considered the question.  Considerations over how they would be received by the group they had seen on separate occasions, how they would eke out a living, find a purpose of living a life other than just existing came to thought.  But in a strange way, Hal entertained the idea that none of that really mattered.  Ron was seemed more than content and willing to accept the challenge of facing a future where all structure, rules, and regulations meant to manage the lives of each separate individual made the answer mute.

“What do you think?  You think it’s a good idea?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think Hal.  What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“My god Hal.  For once in your life just make a decision without picking things apart!  Don’t consider me, consider what you want and do it.”

“But….”

Ron sprang to his feet and marched away.

Hal did not budge from the spot.   Eyes locked into the