Weeds
John hated weeding. Each time he kneeled down by the flowerbed, pulling out weed after weed, he would find himself depressed. He knew that when he came to do the same task again in a couple of weeks, that same flowerbed would once again be full of weeds. Instead of taking satisfaction in the clean patch of soil before him, he would go back inside in a darkly contemplative mood.
As the years rolled by and John’s hair turned from black to grey, he continued his private war against these unruly garden intruders. To the outside observer, weeding was merely a task that John completed like any other. To him, however: to weed was to win. Over time, “beating” the weeds became a quiet obsession. On those rare occasions when he was too unwell to tend to the garden, he would look out of the window disdainfully at the mess of green and yellow, telling himself that the weeds may have won the battle, but that the war was not over.
The slow and steady course of time saw John’s body fail him. As the end of his life drew near, his family moved him into a hospice, where he had a bed next to the window. Each morning, he was awoken by a thin blade of heat as the sunlight seeped through the gap in the curtains.
On the afternoon of his death, John’s wife and daughter sat either side of him, each holding one of his hands. He looked out of the window onto the hospice garden. The familiar green and yellow of his enemy covered the ground, and dandelion seeds filled the air like paratroopers. In his final moments, the futility of his lifelong battle somehow no longer troubled him, and he smiled at his family.