Gardens

I sit in other people’s front gardens. If I stay still enough, I get away with it. People walk past. Sometimes they look over the railings or fenceposts or nothing at all. They scan for flowering plants and maybe butterflies, at the right time of year. It helps that I’ve got a beard. And a hat. I always wear a hat. Wellington boots are a must, even in the summer. Sometimes there’s a pond, you see. I like to pretend I’m fishing sometimes. Nobody notices me. I’ll stay for days at a time. People who live in these front-gardened houses, they don’t notice. No-one tends an urban garden every day. They don’t look at anything on the way to the car for the trip to work or the school-run.

 
If the gardens’ owners are retired, it can be tricky, until it isn’t. I stay on a bit longer at these, once the owners are on the downward stretch. You know the ones I mean. They water already over-watered border plants at 2.00 a.m. They’ll speak to me sometimes, but  address me with the name of someone they know, but I don’t. I don’t answer, but most times it doesn’t seem to matter.

Just occasionally, I stay long enough in these gardens to be certain they’ll be leaving soon.

I avoid gardens where there are dogs. They just can’t help themselves. And I don’t want to smell like a pub urinal after a Saturday night.

People never seem to notice me in the street, although I know someone of my stature ought to catch the eye of fellow pedestrians. I’ve got bolder, now that people are more careful about how they treat people who are different. Where they used to stare, they just ignore me. It makes me laugh, which I haven’t done out in the open since some normie wrote that song about me.

Maybe I’ll sit in your garden one day. Until then.