Work Text:
The Weed was noticed on the first Wednesday of the month. Amidst hurriedly pouring her unfinished tea into a to-go mug, Kate saw the green sprout amidst the earthy brown mulch of her vegetable planter. She had to run out out the door to get to work on time so it wasn’t until lunch that day when, with bitter resignation, the Weed was thought about again.
Kate cares a lot about her garden. All plants, really. So, when she had company on her patio the following Saturday and saw the brilliant yellow flash of the Weed between the fuzzy stems of her tomato plant, she felt at once protective and regretful. She wished she didn’t have to do this. But she would protect the plants she committed to raising.
On the next day, Kate grabbed the tools of her necessary violence.
Her morning tea was a solemn affair. Usually the lightly sweetened black tea was enjoyed while scrolling her phone, but today Kate stared at the planter, damp from an overnight drizzle and desaturated by the sky blanketed in the grey-blue of spring clouds. But still, a flash of yellow amidst the green, brown, red.
After the tea mug was drained, rinsed, and placed on the cold stone countertop, from the kitchen drawer she grabbed her herb sheers; black metal with orange grips and silvery steel along the vicious curved blade. By the glass door to her porch, she bent down to pull her gardening gloves, her trowel, and a compost bag from a bin in her low cost MDF storage shelf. Putting the bag in the back pocket of her dark denim overalls, lacing her gardening boots, and zipping up her hoodie, she stepped into the brisk, humid morning air.
Hydrated by the recent rain, the Weed stood proud from the mulch it surrounded. It was less than a centimetre shy of brushing its soft yellow petals against the underside of the tomato plant’s lowest leaf. The Weed itself had just a few leaves, close to the ground and fanning out almost as a skirt which had allowed it to soak up the sun’s rays that had showered it in radiant energy for the past four days.
Three paces to the porch stairs, five steps down, ten paces from the stairs around to the planter and Kate squatted down in front of her tomato plant. She felt proud of it, she’d been growing tomatoes here for three years now and loved seeing her plants get big and strong. But she knew for that to happen she had to protect her plants from competition. She turned her attention to the Weed, partially obscured by her plant.
Sighing, she pulled the compost bag from her pocket, peeled at the seam and shook it open. She placed it down on the damp ground and kneeled with one leg to pin it from the light breeze and protect her overalls. She dropped the trowel and shears on her right side and grabbed her gardening gloves. The thick rubber that covered her fingers and palm slid over her hands and fit snugly, giving her a sense of protection. A sense of power.
Reaching forward with her right hand, she brushes aside the sticky hair coated stem of the tomato plant and chokes down on the stem of the Weed; thumb pushing into the side closest to her and index finger wrapping around the back. With a slight pinching motion to adjust, she pulls up the Weed’s skirt into her fist while the stem sits tight between her fingers and palm. The Weed is only tall enough that the petals are now squished into a bundle and peak out from Kate’s rubber prophylactic coated pinky finger.
Kate gives an experimental tug and feels the resistance of the Weeds delicate roots woven into the healthy soil. Small roots near the surface were under the most tension first and snapped from the pressure like tender sinew. Kate doesn’t notice. She reaches for the trowel across her body with her left hand and brings the use worn tip to bare on the little Weed. It shifts the pieces of mulch and pierces through some top roots of the Weed as it gains purchase into the muddy earth. A push from Kate and the soil it displaces shifts the centre of the plant slightly to the side making room for the intrusion in its most intimate environment. Kate rears back on the trowel and, with a soft squelch, the seal with the ground is broken and the dirt levers upwards carrying the organs of the Weed with it.
Kate pulls back and repeats the motion again on the other side, severing all but a few remaining roots and pushing the Weed to be supported entirely from her own grip. Soft dirt dangles from the unearthed roots and with a shake much of it falls to the small hole remaining where the Weed once lived. Moving her hand back towards her, the final roots snap and the Weed is freed from its home.
For a few moments, as Kate uses the trowel to fill in the hole and smooth the mulch so as to leave no trace of the Weeds mark on the world, it remains forgotten in her right hand.
But Kate finishes the job, she is a practiced hand, and she brings her hand up and opens her palm to reflect on the now creased leaves, bent stem, and ripped roots of the plant. She raises her knee and sits back on her haunches. The compost bag is pulled open again and the Weed dangles over top. Swiftly, the shears relieve the Weed of its flower and it falls to its biodegradable plastic coffin.
Pinched between Kate’s thumb and forefinger remains the slightly disheveled yellow and green head of the Weed. Without its connection to its leaves and roots, its cells will starve for energy, lose their integrity, and shrivel. But for now, it will serve as an ornament, tucked into Kate’s ear, complemented by her friend at the cafe later, fall to the ground unnoticed when she runs for the bus, and slowly wilt on the pavement in the hot afternoon sun.