The air was thick with pomegranate seeds buzzing and flitting around my head as I tried to eat my cheese sandwich. It was the first time I’d seen seeds like this, first time I’d seen any part of a pomegranate come to that, but somehow they were unmistakable. My sandwich struggled and pulsed beneath my fingers, trying to escape my grasp before I forced it into my mouth and ripped it apart. I’d got used to that, the way sandwiches struggled when you tried to eat them, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to them scream or feel them struggle inside me without shuddering.

Beside me an old man sat crying as his feet slowly merged with the patchy grass and earth beneath the wooden bench we sat on. Dust to dust they used to say, and now it was true. Give him another half-hour and he’d be a human shaped pile of turf, waiting to be chopped and laid as someone’s lawn. That’s what they did, a lot of them, as soon as they felt they were dying they would find a garden they liked the look off, lie down and sort of merge into it. But this one was different; he was crying, desperate. He pulled at my arm and mumbled something I couldn’t understand, then pointed to a field across the road.

“I don’t understand you,” I said talking loudly and slowly hoping that we might switch into the same language for a moment or two, “what do you want?”

He pointed at his feet and then back at the field, his eyes frantic. All of a sudden I began to understand his words. They sounded odd, not quite the same language I was using but close enough that I could get some of it. “My wife…. Last week…..Want to be with her, over there”. It made sense. Dying seemed to be a slower thing now, you could hang on for days or weeks or until someone cut the grass anyway. I could see little mounds of turf where he was pointing and figured his wife must be in there somewhere. “You want me to take you over to that field?” I asked but we shifted language again and he didn’t understand. I waved away the seeds, still buzzing around my head, and stood up lifting him into my arms. I had to put a foot onto what was left of his legs and pull him free, leaving a little of the flesh-turned-turf behind me but he smiled and nodded and that seemed to be OK.

Walking across the duck pond, its water hot and bouncy beneath my feet, I had to jump a few times to avoid snapping attacks from old burger cartons and fried chicken buckets. They were always angry these days, hunting in packs to snap at the ankles of passers-by. Somebody said their feelings were hurt. By the way we used and discarded them, like one-night-stands or worthless friends, but you couldn’t really tell what a carton was thinking.

When I made it to the other side I could see that one of the mounds of turf in the field was looking back at me, the shape of a face straining through the uneven grassy patches and rich brown soil. Bright blue eyes startled me as they opened, shining and wide with recognition. The old man was straining to hold on, tendrils of earth curing up towards him from below trying to capture and pull him close. He lifted his head from my shoulder and I nodded toward the eyes in the mound as they stared back at us, tears forming at their edges. He smiled and I felt his arms tighten about me in a hug of thanks. He spoke, but I couldn’t get any of it. I’m pretty sure it was English, from the accent I mean, but I’d moved on, thinking in Urdu now. I carried him to the edge of the field and pushed him up and over the fence. He fell on the other side and rolled until he was lying looking directly into those beautiful blue eyes, one arm over the grassy mound that contained them.

After that it was very quick. The grass grew over his body as I watched and he seemed to merge and sink into the landscape. After a few minutes he was gone, I watched as the eyes closed and I was left standing alone looking at two mounds of earth grown together. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little scrap of paper with her address on it. I knew her house had moved. Last time I called there was just a huge hole in the ground where it had pulled up its basement and wandered off, but they seemed to like to keep their addresses. All I had to do was get into a taxi and it would take me to any building I wanted, so long as I knew the address. Only problem was I couldn’t remember it and the note she’d left me is no help, not yet anyway. I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m able to read Chinese again?




This was written as part of a challange.  Can you tell a story in less than a 1,000 words.  I think the answer is probably no, but I do have ideas for a number of other short episodes so this may become an episodic story.