Bubble Gum Garden

by Theresa Fortier

Saturday Morning by Diana Alexander

I hear the children playing in the backyard next door. It's an eyesore, that yard. The poor lawn suffers with dry patches the color of straw and bald spots beneath the tired old swing-set. Through the kitchen window I watch them take turns on the swings and play tag, their bubble gum faces golden from the afternoon sun.

They chase one another around the round inflated pool in the center of the yard, shrieks and screams and gales of laughter, and then a shrill screech when one of them almost falls in.

"Heads up," someone shouts, and before they see it coming everyone's drenched and dripping save for the devious one with the crafty grin holding the garden hose, who in turn is chased and caught and splash!

"Lunch," calls a voice from inside the house and there's a mad dash for the screen door that slams once . . . twice . . . three times, and now the yard is still and silent but for one swing swaying to and fro, to and fro.

I hear the patter of the leaves rustling in the elm tree in the corner of my backyard while golden sunlight kisses the garden. A picturesque arrangement of pastel flowers tickled by the breeze, they quiver, bordering a lush emerald lawn. Bright yellow roses climb the trellis at the yard's entrance and portulaca flourishes in the rock garden in the far corner. It's breathtaking. It's perfect. Just perfect.

Lunch is over and once again the children burst out of the house into the backyard next door. Such an eyesore that yard -- and yet, though in my yard the flowers bloom, over there they blossom.

Theresa Fortier is a writer living in Ontario, Canada. She writes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and prose. Ms. Fortier can be reached via email at: tfortier@sprint.ca.

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