Genesis

In the beginning there was a garden. I returned to tend first to my parents and then to the garden. My parents were dying and then they were dead. I was tending the garden. I was born a hundred miles south of the psychic capital of the world. Mediums and palm readers gathered there in old Victorian houses near the springs where the water remained one temperature throughout the seasons and bubbled up like a living thing. Palm trees framed the houses and a sign declared the town. When I was young I’d visit the psychics and ask about their visions. I wanted to see my life laid out so I could live it. I’d had some trouble living it. The more I tried to live in the world the more I felt outside of it, like I was watching myself try to swim out of a riptide into still water when I should have let the current take me out to sea. I’d had some dreams where I was drowning. The psychic said that I might drown.

Back in the garden, the lemon trees no longer bore fruit. I needed a way to make the trees bear fruit and I set my mind to it. The lemons were only half the task. First there were the weeds, the flies, the rodents. I chased them out. Raccoons came at night and pulled the coy fish out of the pond and the frogs that laid their frog eggs that turned into tadpoles. There was a small pond in the garden lined with pebbles where the tadpoles hatched and grew their legs and orange and white fish swam around in circles. The fish swam with open mouths eating the bits of life floating in the water. When I was a child I would catch the tadpoles in glass Mason jars, and line the jars on the kitchen counter and fill them with water. I covered them with foil and poked holes in the foil for air to circulate so the tadpoles could breathe. I stood there in the kitchen next to the counter with the jars and I waited for the tadpoles to transform, one leg at a time, until they turned into frogs the size of my thumbnail and then I let them go and watched them hop away in damp soil, damp from summer storms, showers that passed as quickly as they came.

At some point I left, then I returned, and I tended the garden.

I clipped leaves and packed soil, walked around with water. There was a man once who I brought to the garden. He loved the garden like I loved the garden. He walked around with water with me in the garden, clipped leaves and packed soil. We said let there be a garden and there was a garden and we tended it. We tended the garden and the garden grew. The garden grew and we saw that it was good. The garden grew and we tended it and the garden kept on growing. We liked the way it made us feel. We liked to stand there in our garden and see that the garden was good. We fucked in the garden, made love in the garden. We talked about the garden, wrote poems and all kinds of things about the garden. We commented on how the plants complemented each other, the colors and the shapes of the leaves. They bore us fruit and we ate it and flowers and we picked them and we wove them into bracelets. We felt the garden and we saw that the garden was good but we wanted the garden to be more of a garden, to be a garden like no other garden, with fruits like no other fruits and leaves like no other leaves. Animals passed through our garden, mice and birds and butterflies. It was a good garden but not enough of a garden, so we tended the garden to make it more of a garden. We wanted more animals, larger animals, to come to the garden, so we planted new plants in the garden to attract the smaller animals which would in turn attract the larger animals. So the larger animals came to the garden. They came to the garden two by two. Then the larger animals ate the smaller animals because that was life in the garden. Life happens like this. It happens all the time. Soon the garden outgrew us. The clipping couldn’t stop it. The garden was out of control. Leaves swallowed other leaves, the roots became all mottled. We trimmed the leaves and tugged at the roots but the roots wouldn’t give. We planted them too deeply, watered them too thoroughly. We fucked in the garden, made love in the garden, and then the garden outgrew us. It outgrew us and we saw that it was fine. We tended it. We tended the garden but the garden had outgrown us, and soon the garden cast us out. We watched the garden from outside of the garden and did everything we could to return to the garden but the garden grew without us. There was no garden any longer because we were outside of it. We were outside of the garden so we couldn’t tend the garden, couldn’t clip leaves or pack soil. We carried water but we had no garden to water, so there was no garden and there was no water. There was no garden to return to and that made us want it more. We did everything we could to return to the garden. We did what we could do. The garden put up fences and we tried to climb the fences but the garden laughed. The garden could see what we couldn’t see. There was no garden.

Outside of the garden there was only dirt. We hated the dirt. We hated the garden because we were outside of it. We hated the dirt because it wasn’t a garden. Fuck the dirt and fuck the garden. We tended the dirt but it didn’t grow. Dirt doesn’t grow. That’s the problem with dirt. We wanted to give it something to do. We needed a seed but there were none. We didn’t know that outside of the garden there would be no garden. You don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m talking about the garden. I tended it. I brought a man there once and we tended it together. We loved each other in the garden. We loved the garden together and we tended it. I found him somewhere and I brought him back to the garden. Where did I find him? I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. But I found him and we loved each other and together we tended the garden. We met in the summer in the heat. We had only known heat. We fucked in the garden, made love in the garden, and then the garden outgrew us. We fought from time to time in the garden. You wouldn’t understand the garden. It’s not a metaphor, it’s just a garden. But there was no garden. The garden outgrew us and we had nothing to tend but the dirt.

Outside of the garden there was no love. Who could make love in the dirt? It’s easy to make love in a garden. There’s flowers and fruit. But the dirt is just dirt. It’s not a metaphor. It’s just the ground. It’s the world we live on. So live on it! That’s what they say, but I’d had some trouble living on it. What we did next was we sat in the dirt and we talked about the garden. We discussed what we would have done differently, knowing what we know now. We would have named the flowers. We loved the garden, and we saw that the garden was good even if there was no garden. You cannot understand what I understand about the garden. I tended it. I fished tadpoles out of the pond. In the garden, there was a pond. Frogs laid their frog eggs in it and when they hatched I put them in jars. Then the garden outgrew us and we were outside of the garden. Outside of the garden, we talked about the garden. The garden grew over the fences of the garden and we could see the garden from outside of the garden and we saw that the garden was good. We watched the garden outgrow the garden and grow into the dirt. We made love in the dirt in front of the garden. We did this for some time. Some time passed. Some time passed and the garden grew. Outside of the garden we found others, others who had come from other gardens. Big people and small people and children and husbands and wives. We hosted dinners, we put on shows, we made beautiful deals to end our beautiful fights. Our blood dried up, our wars turned white. We stayed in conversation. We bought new shoes, we booked new flights, we documented our lives. Our memories became our constitutions. We lived by rules. Women danced in smokey rooms, hung sheets on wires in the sunlight. Psychics set up tables and told stories of their visions, we put our money on the odds. Some time passed and the garden grew. What else can a garden do? The garden grew. The garden grew right over us, covered us with its roots, and then we became the garden. We loved each other and we walked around with water, not that the garden needed the water. There was no garden so there was no water. The garden grew right over us, just like I said. Flowers sprouted out of our joints. Leaves began to kiss us. Birds flew by and perched on our shoulders, pecked at the sides of our faces. The garden began to cover us.

When I was a child there was a garden. I left the garden then returned. I tended it. I fucked in the garden, made love in the garden, and then the garden outgrew me. There was a small pond in the garden lined with pebbles where tadpoles hatched from eggs. I collected the tadpoles and put them in jars and I watched them sprout legs so they could walk on land. First they sprouted legs, then they walked on land. Some time passed, then there was a flood.

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Greta Schledorn lives in New York.