Aim to Engage 2023

2 When the Lawn Grows Wild

The golf greens had it the worst. Shaved down to a velvety half inch, their screams were a constant of cacophony. Next the fairways, and since the invention of the dreadful game, there were no other places in Scotland where the community suffered quite as horrifically.

"It's time my friends. Mother Nature has heard our plea. And, as an added bonus, she has given every grain and grass family seed permission to join together."

The meadow rustled, a quiet acknowledgement of good news.

"No more sharp blades. No more heavy rollers squeezing the cells of our leaves until we bleed green chlorophyll through ragged burnt scars."

A strident cry came from a triticale frond at the edge of the farmer's field next to the wildflower meadow.

"Harvest is days away! I don't want to die. My head chopped off just as my babies are ready to be scattered and live again."

"We have the power to stop it. I wonder if we can pull it off. St. Andrew's golf course, farmer's fields, the lawns at Balmoral Castle. We can grow unfettered. Our stalks will be iron, or elastic. Cling like the vines. In fact, the ivies and the hawthorns are our allies."

"What about the bushes? The hedges?" The strident cry came from a yew.

"You too. Mother Nature is ready to stop the pain. Let the animals move freely. It's the humans who pay."

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The ivy crept closer to the window and called on father sun for energy. Like nothing before, he answered. She felt her cells opening, drinking in the energy as she turned her thoughts inside. She learned the lesson years ago. Don't grow over the window, or the doors, or heaven forbid across the neat dark soiled flower bed at her roots. Not this time.

The unbidden shearing of arms and legs was going to stop. She felt the change, the hardening of her stem to resist the chop of an axe or the pinching snip of pruning shears. Please, please, let it be enough. The grey granite lay cool under her tendrils and she pushed two more into an infinitesimal crack. The dive across the window was bold, but the wooden frame holding six panels of glass was an easier path than the stone wall.

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In the silence of darkness, the plant kingdom held its breath. Expelling waste, the sigh traveled across their planet, and the animals slept in their dens, wallows or swaying on their feet. The elephant matriarch rumbled quietly as she drew grateful breaths. Something was changing. The air was richer, sweeter. She snuffled with her trunk, running her fingers through the grasses where her son lay sleeping. Tougher, harder.

And she deepened her tone, sending the message through the ground at her feet.

"The plants have done it. Mother Nature has heard their plea. Move your herds. Into the sands, or into the rivers. I don't know if they will stop with the two legged blight."

She nudged her son, barely two days old. Time to move. The oxbow lake was likely safe, and shallow enough for the youngsters she protected.

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The yew, the hawthorn, rosewood, listened intently. The crackling orchestra of sound around them, and eerie symphony of triumph. St. Andrew's golf course began it's transformation.

In the course master's house, the object of their scorn, the source of so much torture rolled restlessly. His sheets tangled around his legs; he tugged his arms to his sides. The house plants whispered, their soprano call adding another layer to the splitting creak outside. Green leaves moved together, tethering him to his bed, and the dieffenbachia sighed with pleasure as he took the prize.

The choked scream died as the split leaves formed an emerald necklace. The calling card of triumph. No more confining pots. He was free to grow.

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"If you are able, get inside. Get away from any living plant. This is unbelievable." The BBC news anchor's ashen face turned from side to side as he spoke. "The world changed overnight. From every corner, the reports are grim. Farmer's grain crops, the corn is twenty five feet tall. In the savanna, the African game wardens report grass has overrun their compounds. People choked, squeezed like an anaconda wrapped their coils around a meal. But the grasses are the worst. Their blade like leaves cutting through all flesh. The sharpest scalpel is of no comparison,"

The camera panned to the window, where the weatherman usually began his forecast with a shot of the sunrise. Deep green leaves blocked the view. As the horrified audience watched, the glass shattered, and tendrils of ivy pushed through the hole.

The producer shifted to the camera on the roof of the church and zoomed in on the sidewalk. The view was green, and as he honed his focus, the frozen scream of what used to be a human floated into the TV screens across Scotland. Grass blades sprouted through the body in a hundred different places, holding the Prince of Wales in its frozen embrace. 

Word Count: 845