0/0/1 

For as long as I can remember, I tend to the garden. It is no great task, nor is it simple.  

Gardens take time, consistency, patience and repetition. The garden is lush and seems to grow exponentially. Every time I think I have found the trees at the edge of the boundary, I discover new shoots, waiting to be tended.  

As of late, it is alarmingly often that one tree begins to wilt. Something disturbs her and I bring my absolute focus to her. More light? Water? Space? But plants cannot complain about conditions nor demand better treatment. They speak to me in the shrivel of their leaves or subsequent budding revival, in infestations of mites or yellowing stain. It can feel thankless at times. Once I have rescued one, I discover another is in anguish.  

Though, I cannot deny there is no greater pleasure than walking through the garden. I feel weightless here.  

The trees bear fruits. Not traditional fruits, it is not an orchard here. I am not harvesting for compote or cider or wine. I don’t quite know how to explain, I’ve never really thought to try. Be it dodos or doilies, dice or draughts, discovery or dedication. Ideas, concepts, things, animals, feelings from the world that have become extinct - I tend to them here. I keep their form, their shape, their essence intact. I presume, based on how delightfully the garden is flourishing, the world must be suffering. There can’t be much left.  

Though, I’m yet to come across people in the garden – of which I would be most grateful to find, since I could do with a team. I’m tired and it’s unabating. But, as I say, walking through the garden at times is pure bliss.  

The fruits are strange and bizarre. Some spiky and visceral, reaching off the branches as though they’d like to poke you on the nose. Others are soft and plump, inviting almost. Something sensual in their plush demeanour. Though upon inspecting them they become coy and shy away. Teasing.  

I didn’t always understand the garden. I couldn’t tell the leaves from the trees, excuse the pun. I’d look at some enormous pink lumpy thing dangling ominously and wonder what on earth could that be? (It’s cancer) Now I can tell, just by walking past. Its core breathes into me, tickles my nostrils and spins my soul. Its abstraction explains itself and knows me too. I am a specialist now. That ripe flaxen pear is unmistakeably the golden toad! Those spiky orange tangerines are definitely coins! Those purple marrows growing from the ground are surely VHS tapes!  

But recently, and it comes at quite an inconvenient time, I have started wondering. Thinking and doubting and…well I suppose feeling quite existential. Which I don’t think has ever happened to me before. But you see, I can’t remember. I only know the garden. I don’t understand who I am. I feel the fruits know me better than I know myself. I feel honoured to tend to all these species, yet I feel nervous that I have no idea to which I belong. Am I the last of my own? And I worry this uncertainty in me will be reflected in the garden somehow. Something terrible might happen. A sinkhole or some rife infection. Am I a human? Or just made to appear that way? I don’t know. I somehow don’t think so.  

I was sat by the fountain, which was once only a rivulet, when I thought to try and write. Writing has always been a form of reflection and resolving. It is the Fountain of Knowing; all sorts of philosophy and musings flow through there. The ideas converge with each other and disperse, a constant feedback looping back and trying again. The waters mumble quietly to each other and bubble excitedly when new notions arrive. Sometimes I wish I could enter the conversation and instead bask in the speckles that flutter onto me. It sits at the centre of the garden and is the only structure within it. Not composed of any earthly materials. It is the life source, where I collect water for the plants. When the garden was only a nursery, it was easy to avert the stream to feed the plants. As the garden grew, sitting by the water helped me concoct a better system by weaving baskets to reach the outer corners. I have tried to gauge my reflection from its waters, yet the constant motion, its limitless dialogue, prevents me from ever truly seeing myself. This is amusing to me; their pondering shapes my abilities to reflect.  

Surrounding the fountain are rows of beliefs, some more noble than others. Several tower and command over the rest, whilst others are less certain, shying away from taking a stand. Sometimes I feel they are trying to argue with one another across the water, but the chatter of thought drowns them out.  

Beyond them are the Mother Tongue Thickets – dense bushes full of pictographs, alphabets, dialects, patois, idioms and slang too. They playfully wrestle with one another, chuckling at differences and indulging in similarity – finding words which mean one thing here and a complete other there. The vowels are long and round, the consonants kick about, particularly the clicks who are vibrantly cheeky. Ejectives scold at the concision of brevity. And they all join to sing.  

I wonder if any of the tongues are my own? Of course, literature stems from here and grows up the giant stalk.  

Further out are sweeping Construction Canopies, full of all sorts of earthly industrialisation. Here gathers entrepreneurship, capitalism, business and the like. Grouped together and discussing commerce. With coffee tables too and paperweights, staplers, Newton’s cradle. The intentions of temples, mosques and so forth remain closer to beliefs. It is still around the spiritual development. A smell of incense drifts through the air.  

I don’t know if I sleep, or if there is day and night here. Still, I convince myself of a rhythm. Is it real? I am almost certain I have not experienced darkness here, besides the shade of the Construction Canopies.  

I sit by the iPod tree and listen to it whirr for comfort.  

Perhaps if I cannot map out myself, I can continue to map out this space? 

0/0/2 

I approach this outlining idea with caution. Chronicling comes with inherent bias, who am I to impose my own perspective?  I am especially wary of this since, long ago I attempted to introduce order. Really crack down on the categorisation of space in each section. The plants defied me with childish mutiny. They know their own classification. I have learned to listen to the garden. 

There are more ordered sections. For instance, amongst the canopies is the Electrical Avenue - full of devices. They yearn to stay together. In a kind of order of invention woven also into order of extinction. Ones that replaced each other in the world, now stand and hum in harmony. The bower of Electrical Avenue is veined with live cables, their vines twisting and pulsing, with flourishes of electrons and volts littered through. At the end of the avenue lies the patch of synthetic succulents - scentless and requiring little attention. Here, all different forms of plastic flora flourish, unbothered and eternal. 

Then there are pocket districts, not strictly linear. Such as Metallic Grove. It is listless. Still, it clamours. Everything from cutlery to pipes to nuts and bolts and hardware. In amongst all this are emotions too, such as the essence of feeling irked. Emotions appear amongst creations – and that, I think, is beautiful. Animal plants pick and choose where they scatter, for instance goats and rams enjoy the liveliness of Metallic Grove and settle here. They resisted when I tried to group them together, to create an Animal Kingdom. Such labelling is not adequate here.  

The most stimulating has got to be the Eatery. If the Fountain is the heart, the Eatery is the stomach. My oh my, the smells here are divine. Every dessert and nibble and dish of your dreams. Every culture, yes, every cuisine. They bustle together; every civilisation’s variation of the dumpling gathered for reunion in a great dumpling family tree. You can’t walk through the Eatery without smiling as the sweet and spiced aromas envelop you. 

There is the Quarantine Zone too. I do not enjoy my time there. The colours are blinding and naughty. It is all coughs and sneezes. So many diseases. So many variants. Yet the bacteria are beautiful too. The Pharmacy clinks next door, full of drugs made to soothe and never quite cure.  

I think that’s enough documentation for today, I have a lifetime to complete these records after all. 

0/0/3 

I’m beginning to feel guilty that my dating system cannot be accurate since, I existed much before. Though it does suggest to me that I must experience some kind of passage of time. How else could I differentiate the days as such? 

I don’t feel like contemplating much more today.  

It hurts to come to no answers.  

It aches somewhere. 

0/0/7 

There is a new tree in the garden, and it makes me sick.  

It is already proud and fat, somehow, having never been a sapling. I can’t help but feel some kind of hatred towards it. I water the tree but (and this is terrible to admit) I spat at it.  

0/0/10 

I approach the tree last on my rounds. I am avoiding it. 

Yet, as the days go by, I notice its core is growing something. A tumour. I fear this tree is the destroyer. The one that will threaten the garden. I create a kind of fence around it made of old branches, to try to contain its menacing energy.  

0/0/14 

This is it.  

The tree is clearly pregnant.  

It must be some kind of end of the world before.  

I am going to meet a person.  

I am frightened.  

I wish I had greater clarity on who exactly I am.  

How can I introduce myself when I only know my purpose? 

How can we share the garden? 

0/0/20 

I am too anxious to write. To document. The garden is not itself at this time. The trees speak amongst themselves in hushed tones and leave me out.  

I ground myself in the verdant grass. Bare steps across perfect wishes, fill me with hope. 

0/1/1 

I check on her very often now. Almost obsessively.  

She must almost be at full term. The gestational sac is strange and red. Very bloody liquid amidst the harsh hull of trunk. The tree looks exhausted. I have taken down her fencing. I massage her bark and tell her she’s doing well.  

I don’t think she will survive the birth.  

This fact is shocking and upsetting.  

I don’t want to be left alone with her offspring.  

0/1/2 

The tree is shrieking. The whole garden is subdued against her wails. Her pain is staggering. I limp around her helplessly, wiping her with wet leaves to try and offer relief. The sac is simply enormous. An angry red bulging yolk.  

She lets out one last scream. The sac erupts. There is a splatter of amniotic fluid at her feet. She is whimpering. I hug her tightly and find myself crying too. She is close to gone.  

When her noises stop, I look down at the discharge on the floor. Amidst the fluid there is a body. The tree bends towards him, a final act of motherhood.  

I wonder if I should leave him or wake him. He looks peaceful and I ought to tidy up the mess.  

This is the first death in the garden.  

I don’t know how to proceed. 

0/1/3 

I sat with the tree through the night.  

This morning, I have tidied.  

I leave to meditate on the situation. Craving clarity. I hear a cough which startles me. The body is up and awake and standing before me. 

“Are you Eve?” says the naked man.  

I notice for the first time that I am naked as well, it never occurred to me before. My nakedness feels different from his. His is clumsy and gauche. I feel seen, and I despise it.  

I look at him and wonder, am I Eve? Eve doesn’t feel entirely appropriate. Something in his tone is as though he’s speaking to an assistant. An Alexa. I think of the Alexa tree near to my beloved iPod tree. I wish I could go and rest there instead of deal with this delinquent.  

“I think you were made from my rib,” he continues. I look at him and try not to laugh, as though I haven’t watched him mature from a tree and fall to the ground.  

“I don’t think I was.”  

He looks off into the distance and contemplates for a moment.  

“I just have this strong sense, that you are Eve. And I am Adam. And you were made of me.”  

“Listen mate, I’ve been here, the whole time. I watered your tree.”  

I have a terrible sense that this has all happened before. Or something fatally similar. Perhaps a different cast, but the same set of characters. How many times now? 

0/1/4 

A smell of rotting fruit has invaded the garden. It is sickly sweet. Hot summer refuse. 

I am trying to keep my distance, which shouldn’t be challenging in such a huge garden, but he is like a rash and appears everywhere. He craves company, I think. Socialisation.  

He asks what we do here and I tell him I garden. He seems dissatisfied with this. He wants something more.  

0/1/5 

I express to him; the tree was his mother and that we must mark her passing somehow. Where she has gone is an eternal mystery and plays on my mind constantly. Is there another garden? For this one? If there is, who cares for that one? He says he could make an instrument from her body.  

I conduct a ceremony alone. I do not wish to record it; you don’t need to know everything. There is privacy here.  

0/1/7 

I have noticed fruits dropping. This is new too and puts me at unease. I have set up a composting department. I can’t think what else to do. 

He picks up pages of these. That which I spent precious time drying to write on.  

“We can use these, to create fire!” he declares triumphantly.  

We have no need for fire. He is surely deranged.  

0/1/7 

He has eaten fruit from the garden. A concept which has never occurred to me. His excuse was his hunger. We must be different. I have only seen hunger grow from branches.  

The trees that have been eaten from look shy and embarrassed. I try to revive them. They tremble.  

The date. I’ve repeated? Something is not right with me. 

0/1/10 

Several times he has broached the subject of reproduction.  

I tell him we are surrounded by life. I feel no necessity to attempt more. (I do not tell him my uncertainties as to what I am. He is still sure I am from his rib).  

0/1/15 

He has declared he will write too, to record his perspective. At least he does not want to burn pages (for now). 

0/1/20 

He calls it his garden and I have become embittered. I am jealous.  

Some of the trees respond to him now. Not me. They do not care that I am the one that tends to them. As he frolics around, I am starting to hate this garden. There is something thick in the air.  

0/1/22 

I think I am sick.  

The tiredness never lessens.  

0/1/25 

I think I am dying.  

I am still tending to the garden.  

I am trying to teach him what I know. His spirit is strong and ungracious. I fear for the garden’s future.  

0/1/26 

I am terribly weak and beg him to pick up responsibilities. He treats me fearfully. It is uncomfortable for him to see me this way. He placates me by helping. I worry his soul is not in the work. 

0/2/1 

He rests me in the cave of his mother. He is trying to be kind and gentle, but I cannot appreciate it. Even now, he grates me.  

“Thank you,” he says, “from all of us. You don’t need to work anymore.”  

I focus on the hum of the garden.  

I think I have been planted. 

Where will I go?