More Fantasy in the City

Faerie Garden

“Oi!” a distant voice yelled. “Watch where you’re flippin’ going with that thing!”

Surprised, Arthur stopped unwinding the electric cable of his Green Reaper 3000 lawnmower and looked about. There was nobody there, but he could have sworn that the voice had come from within his carefully manicured Victorian walled garden. He shook his head and bent back to the flex. It was probably just those dreadful people next door who could not say a civil thing to one another at a conventional conversational volume.

“Will you bleedin’ stop that, you dopey, cloth-eared git!” the voice screamed. It was a weird sound. To Arthur it sounded like someone shouting from the bottom of a well. “You can’t use that here!”

Once again he looked around. He was sure that it was coming from within the garden. Was there someone sneaking around at the back of the glasshouse? Arthur was about to go and look when he felt a sharp pain, just above the strap of one of his open-toed sandals.

“What the hell was that!” he shrieked, dancing around the mower, holding his throbbing ankle and flapping with his free hand at any potential hostile insect life.

“Now are you listening?” the voice called. “If you’re not then I’ll flippin’ kick your head in till you do!”

Arthur stopped. Whoever it was that was there was most definitely talking to him - and attacking him, if the pain in his ankle was anything to judge by. Shakespeare had said that discretion was the better part of valour and Arthur had never really understood that until now. The last thing he wanted was another bee sting, if that was what it was.

“H…hello?” he ventured. “Uh…where are you?”

“Down ‘ere!” the voice said forcefully. “Look down by your feet and watch where you put them or Killer ‘ere will take another chunk out of you!”

Keeping his feet still, whilst still rubbing his sore spot, Arthur bent low and peered at the lawn. It took him a moment to understand what he could see but he drew in a sharp breath of surprise as if to say “Oh!”

Standing by the left front wheel of the Green Reaper 3000 was a small, green man no taller than Arthur’s little finger. Dressed in drainpipe jeans, red braces, tiny bovver boots and a bomber jacket, the little man looked exactly like an eighties skinhead except for his size, colour and a furious bumble bee that he held on a delicate silver chain. The wee beast was straining at its leash and appeared to be buzzing in a convincing imitation of a dog barking.

“What do you think you're doing?” The little man shouted up, gesturing at the lawn mower. “Why are you oppressing the peaceful folk of the Earth with your scum-imperialist garden prison?”

Arthur was nonplussed to say the least. What on earth was a scum-imperialist garden prison? Could this microscopic thug actually mean his beautiful corner of Eden? Without any prior experience to direct his disbelief at what he was seeing, he defaulted to the only course of action that an English middle class upbringing prepared him for - pomposity.

“What do you mean by that? I’ll have you know that I’ll be asking the questions! Who are you and what are you doing on my land?” Arthur blustered.

“Ooh! Get you, with your ‘I’ll have you know’!” The little man stuck his chin out and took a step forward, his bee bouncing up and down at the limit of his chain, straining to get at Arthur. He kicked the wheel of the lawnmower in a provocative manner. “Are you plannin’ to use this ‘ere? Are you thinkin’ of using this on your plantation slaves? My comrades of rye and fescue will not bow to your blade. They will be free!”