Zebradi Gets Back To The Garden

More about Zebradi Gets Back To The Garden

When Zebadri came back to the garden, he did not announce himself in the least. Gardens, after all, are rather busy places, and they dislike being interrupted by speeches. They much prefer the quiet arrival of someone who remembers where the winding path goes, even if he has forgotten everything else.

The old apple tree nodded without moving very much. The robin looked sideways, as robins do when deciding whether a person has returned properly or merely wandered in by accident.

“I believe,” said Zebadri to nobody in particular, “that the flowers have been carrying on perfectly well without me.”

The flowers, being polite, did not answer.

There was a wheelbarrow exactly where no one remembered leaving it, a watering can that had somehow collected the whole morning sky, and a rather ambitious pumpkin who had begun behaving as though autumn belonged entirely to him.

A bumblebee flew around Zebadri’s head three times.

“I suppose you’re taking attendance,” he said.

The bee neither confirmed nor denied it.

Presently he discovered that weeds are curious creatures. They never seem to mind whether you are away for a day or a year. They simply assume you have been helping somebody else and leave enough work to make you feel welcome when you return.

So Zebadri pulled a few weeds.

Then he planted something whose name had escaped him.

Then he sat upon the old bench, because benches are excellent listeners.

The breeze wandered through the leaves, carrying the smell of earth after rain. Somewhere beyond the hedge, someone laughed. Somewhere above it, a cloud shaped itself into a ship and sailed very slowly toward somewhere else.

“It is odd,” said Zebadri thoughtfully, “how gardens never ask where you’ve been.”

That was because gardens already know the important thing.

People may travel around the world collecting maps, stories, impossible dreams, and astonishing ideas, but every now and then they discover that happiness has quietly remained behind, waiting beneath a tree with a patch of sunlight and a place to sit.

And the garden, which had expected him all along, simply carried on growing.