An Octopus' Garden?

An Octopus' Garden?

by J. Macreus
03/26/2018

“I can’t believe we have to go over this again!” Lewis stormed as he chopped the hoe at the ground. “This has become…ridiculous! All right, just freaking insane!”

Behind him, Doug made a blubbering sound and gooey tears swelled up in his eyes.

“You know I’m freezing my bejeezees off out here don’t you!?! All because you can’t get a grip! I tell you Doug, you have been making me wish I’d never brought you home! I hate to say it, but it’s true!”

Doug slid back toward the shrubbery, now blubbering even louder and leaving an inky trail on the lawn.

Lewis continued to curse as he dug the hoe into the nearly frozen ground in an attempt to cut the topsoil into pieces like a birthday cake. The turf, however, was too hard and packed and the hoe barely bit into the dirt. Lewis looked over at the shovel and then to the glow emanating from his living room window. It was nearly nine o’clock and America’s Top Yodelers was about to come on and he hadn’t even set his DVR. At this realization, Lewis’ hands began to shake, not from the cold or the dampness, but from some fury that had begun to build up inside of him. But instead of the anger bringing with it warmth, he found himself even colder as he threw the hoe toward the shed and kicked at the shovel.

“Darn him!” he exclaimed in his mind. “I can’t deal with this now. It’s just going to have to wait until morning.” He turned to look for Doug, planning on giving him more of a tongue thrashing, but Doug was nowhere to be seen.

“Come out here you little monster!” Lewis called. “I know you are here somewhere hiding in the bushes. Come out now!” Lewis stomped into the garden, kicking at the frozen ground and dead flowers.

Doug, had scooted off behind a mangled old tree stump and was shivering, but not from the cold. His eyes blinked slowly, but his three little hearts beat frantically at the base of his head. He was in sore trouble and knew it. But why he was in trouble was really a mystery to him. He couldn’t remember doing anything bad. He could just remember being hungry and cold. But, he reminded himself, being cold didn’t really bother him. It was the hungry part he didn’t like. The hungry part sucked, he thought to himself. And it was that thought that made him remember the little snack he had left for himself on the other side of the garden, beside the busted gnome and the fallen tire swing. So, he began to scoot that direction.

Lewis meanwhile was still stomping about and hollering. He had a hard time seeing as it was and the weak porch light barely illuminated the backyard. Twice already he had stepped on some old roots that had sprouted barely above the soil. Between those and the gum balls that littered the yard, he looked like a drunk on his way home from a bender.

Then something moving caught his eye, a dark shape scuttling across the dead garden. “Doug!” he yelled and took off in pursuit.
Doug heard Lewis holler and reached out faster with his knobby little tentacles. But the suckers on the bottom of his appendages were not made to boost his speed and could only fasten to some of the smooth stones that littered the row of dead petunias. Doug blinked and his beak bleated when he saw Lewis move in front of him, shovel in hand.

“Are you going to make me chase you all night?” Lewis asked, “Or are you going to get back up in your bucket on the porch and QUIT CAUSING ME HEMMOROIDS!?!”

Doug shrank back, his second heart, the smallest of the three, gave out for a moment. He knew he was in sore sore trouble now.
Lewis stood over him fuming. “Now I’ve got to get up early, dig a hole, and clean up your mess! I swear Doug! This is the third time this month! And it’s not like I don’t feed you, is it!?!”

If Doug could have gulped, he would have, but octopi were incapable. Instead, he blinked slowly at Lewis.

“I feed you. I give you a nice bucket. I change your water out whenever you ink it up. Oh, oh yeah, and here recently, I bury the bodies, don’t I? Yep, bury the bodies. I’m like a freaking undertaker in my own gosh-darn backyard!”

Doug turned toward the broken gnome again. It was hard to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes when he was hungry.

Lewis noticed the movement. “What are you eyeing at over there?” he asked momentarily calmed.
Again, Doug would have gulped.

Lewis dropped the shovel and walked over toward the gnome. Behind it he found the remains of Mrs. Melon’s springer spaniel. It had a Doug-sized beak shaped hole in its head.

That is when Lewis lost it. The little switch in his brain finally flipped and he spun around ready to throttle the life out of Doug.
But the funny thing about octopi is that when you leave them on the porch in a bucket for too long, they get bored. And when they get bored they tend to roam around and practice picking things up, like small stones and garden gnomes and eventually even tire swings. They also like to grab and hold onto lawn implements like hoes, and watering cans, and even shovels.

And that was the last thing Lewis saw, an octopus brandishing a shovel. That and the body of Mrs. Melon, whom he had planned on burying the next morning, and of course, her dog.