Ficus

I called Renan outside. My house's fence was covered by spiky plants all over. He came was all perplexed about it. He was staring at me with frightened eyes, what naturally frightened me.

"Where would it come from?"

"Well you were my one and only hope of explanation…"

"Ih… The Sanctuary…", the little kid put his hands on his head, "the Celestial Gardener started early…"

"You mean that the inhabitant of the Sanctuary is taking revenge from us? Is that what you mean?", I was already appalled at the perspective.

"Yup, that's what I mean", he was afraid of the reproach.

"Renan Augusto Giacomin Teixeira, you and the Great Vizir put me into this trouble. This on my fence is just the beginning, what is supposed to follow? And just why? Why take me to that place? Can't we here have a bit of a peaceful season once in a fucking lifetime in this town?"

Renan was silent. The mayhem, I knew, was only in its beginning. We could have one more month for free time and have some rest from what the Tinnitus madness brought us this season. But this is Taurinos and no one rests here. The boys here make for a restless existence. The same kids who feared stagnation when all here (or almost all) was frozen in time.

Andrés was the one who appeared next. The news about the invasion have already reached the farm Taurinos, Andrés had already been thrashed good by Duílio's belt; Duílio, always the medieval father through time. Still, Andrés came over to see us. The spiky plants surrounded the main house on the farm Taurinos and the porch where I love to stay when I'm there too. I asked them what they would do next. What kind of trouble they had put me in. Neither of them knew what to say.

I told them that if they knew an outsider was forbidden to enter the Sanctuary and did it just the same, they were committing sacrilege consciously. They swore they didn't know I couldn't enter the Sanctuary even having created everything in Taurinos. They had gotten attached to the theory according to which I had the right to see the place because I had created it. I told them that many of city founders (if not all) only destroyed the localities where they settled. That it was perfectly expectable in situations like this.

"The Celestial Gardener is punishing us. How crappy it was taking Miss Grisam there…", Renan was upset.

"It's no use being sad now, Renan. We have to find a way out of this mess", said Andrés glancing timidly at me behind his glasses.

"Now that the mess has been made, Mr. Andrés Silva Conselheiro…"

"I'm very sorry for all this, Miss Grisam…", he attempted.

"You talk as though this was the whole of the matter…"

Arthur appeared around eleven. He came in his blue dungarees, with small agricultural tools half buried in the large pockets. To me he seemed to be the Celestial Gardener in the flesh. Arthur had never appeared here. He got off his horse and joined us at the porch where we sheltered against the caustic eleven o'clock sunlight. He never greeted us. His face was not friendly as it usually is.

"Whose was the brilliant idea of taking Miss Grisam to the Sanctuary?", he asked dryly and incisively.

Renan was going to answer when Andrés surprised us all telling the police officer to shut up and claiming the idea just for himself.

"Idea was mine, Arthur. Renan didn't even think of walking that much, he was all but dead, he came because he didn't want to stay home alone, I dunno. He came because he wanted to."

"Why did you go with them, Renan?", Arthur inquired as dryly and incisively as before.

"For the very reason Andrés's just given you", Renan was nervous, still he wanted to show us he was the tough guy, "is it an interrogation from the Council? If so, why not scheduling a meeting at the Mithraeum?"

Arthur turned to him showing teeth, "want to solve this in the Council, Renan? We can schedule a meeting at the Mithraeum, no problem. Don't you prefer to solve this amicably? Now you are wrong even when you're silent, dude."

Never known Arthur to talk like this. Things are really crazy around here. It seemed that the Great Vizir and the Agent had run into deep trouble this time. I tried to intervene, but Arthur soon showed me the same teeth:

"Miss Grisam, with all the respect you command me, stay out of it. Don't help them, else like them you'll end up neck-deep in shit."

As he said that, birds started coming from everywhere and dig around my house, seeming to sow seeds in the ground. I and the kids were looking baffled at the movement, when Arthur stated, "this is only to guarantee you won't help the two, Miss Grisam. From today on, the know-all will set his antennae on you so careful what you say."

"What did those birds do?", his words scared me and scared me even further when he explained that the birds had sown seeds of plants like bougainvillea or ficus, plants of roots too aggressive for the foundations of a house.

"If you don't help them, the seeds won't thrive, you know. If you do, whatever means you find to help them they'll grow to their biggest in fifteen minutes. If it happens, you can kiss your house goodbye. The same holds true for the houses on the farms Taurinos and Teixeira. Oh, and don't you try and dig the seeds out. What is going to happen is not going to be pleasant if you only try. Tell people not to."

He had us simply bewildered. I told him he didn't mean it. Andrés and Renan told me he did. Arthur told me he did.

"But how weird, how in the world could I help them?"

"You know how."

"No, I don't, Arthur", I was getting nervous with that.

"Oh, you do. You still don't know that you know or what you know, but you do."

He got on his horse and disappeared down the road at full gallop. How crappy. A time-bomb made of plants buried around my house. The sensation it was no use calling the Council to decide on the matter was the worse thing.

"He came in the name of the Celestial Gardener", Andrés said after a long heartfelt sigh. Renan, accidentally copied him and sighed too.

"As long as I know, not counting with the two morons in front of me, anyone coming to talk to you two will have come in the name of the Celestial Gardener, Andrés. See the shit you have done! They're going to tear down my house. They're going to tear down your houses. Have you no conscience?" I was nervous and upset with them. The two were looking at me with a typical face of TV actors who wait for the moment of a commercial break.