A crime worth committing.

The scent of crushed coriander tiptoed inside my room and sneaked under my quilt waking a wistful me. The delight of a calm morning in a retired hill town is only excited by a brazen display of the velvety okras and beans trying hard to impress the gardener. Their youth is short-lived after all like the others. But the okras are oblivious to the gardener’s intentions. In a plush corner where the plums and the pears reside, the bay leaves are wearisome of concealing a secret filled with memoirs of the cold, nostalgia and all things that were joyous and content. It is the secret of cinnamon. The glossy mint huddle under the cinnamon tree seems to know something about the whole affair, but is determined to be silent about it. The patch lies still to the naked eye and to an uncaring passer by. But the green is reflected in the gardener eyes; his toil is finally paying off. But this isn’t love. It was greed.

As I meander around, between the council of beans and around the mint senate, I witness in the silence, tales of treachery and disdain, of infidelity and betrayal and the gardener’s selfish love. Of the coming over it and reliving life new, another season. The democracy of the vegetable patch stands conceited and strong. The lenient trees and the altruistic shrubs, like mothers taken for granted, speak of their poignant life only to a selected few. Being the human I am, under the watchful gaze of the jamun and the papaya trees, I pluck a few mint leaves, squish them and inhale. The gardener seems half guilty now under the spell of the dying mint. I walk to the other ignored corner where the modest lemon grass stands, dressed plainly expecting none. I did what I had to. Pluck, sniff and move on. As I reach to the end of the patch, I held in my hands, those showy okras, those velvety beans, mint and the lemon grass strands and a fistful of the cinnamon sticks. It was a crime committed. The garden looks back at me in regret and contempt, branches drooping. I only wish the garden forgives me just like it did the gardener every time.