IX of Pentangles - Reversed

Once upon a time a woman looked over the wall into her neighbor's garden. Everything about the garden seemed lush and controlled at the same time. Her own garden seemed choked with weeds, all spindly stalks and aborted, rotting blossoms.

Her husband tended their garden contentedly. For him it was the best garden he ever had. It provided everything they needed. He brought in a tomato and she would point to the small black spot on it. He would bring in peas and she would lament that there was four peas in the pod, not five.

She would point to their neighbor's garden, "why don't we have that? You should make our garden like that.

He looked at the neighbor's garden and saw that there wasn't one plant in it that was safe to eat. The oleander smelled wonderful. The foxglove's blue flowered spikes were lined up in neat rows. The white umbrellas of water hemlock towered above the man's head. The bloodroot formed a verdant carpet beside the paths. "There is nothing in that garden that we need, my Love. Come away from the window and try these blackberries I picked this morning." She waved him off and continued to stare out the window at her neighbor's garden.

Everyday he brought her fresh foods nurtured by his patient, simple effort, and everyday she pointed to the neighbor's garden and berated him for his common one. "There is nothing in that garden that we need, my Love," he always replied.

One evening he came in with a large handful of emerald green zucchini and found his wife was not there to greet him. He set the zucchini down on the kitchen counter and chanced to look out the window. His wife was laying sprawled in the path of his neighbor's garden. He ran out, climbed the neighbor's wall and went to his wife. As he picked her up the plump black nightshade berries fell from her hand.

His neighbor was at the garden gate. She opened the gate for him, bowing her head as he passed through. Before she shut the gate behind him he turned to her. "I have more zucchini than I can use. Would you like some?"

"Yes, I would. That is very kind of you."