At The Bottom of the Garden

They loved the little cottage in the valley by the creek
It was exactly what they had sought for many a week.
Weather boards, a verandah on which to sit and pass the time
A cottage garden flowed prettily down a slight incline.

No matter that the house was in a state of dishevelment,
Furniture broken, china smashed and pots scattered and bent
No matter that linen was strewn all over the floor
The bedroom furniture match-sticked behind a closed door.

They were told the old owners were a couple like them
But he had died suddenly, down in the glen
And his wife was a nervous type, got into a flap
And fled the house the next day, never to look back.

He was the gardener, he called it his fairy glade
Down 'neath willows. But she was afraid.
There was a kind of dark dank malignancy there
That made the hairs on the back of her neck rise with fear.

He made little furniture, beds, tables, dressers and things
Put them in a willow hollow, arranged in small rings.
He sat down in a chair there for hours and hours
She tried to dislodge him with all of her powers.

She wanted a social life, have fun visits with friends
But he only saw life through a magical obsessive lens.
He would sit down doing nothing in his enchanted glade
While she fretted alone, argued he did not make the grade.

Summer passed, it was now cold and damp by the creek,
She demanded he stay by the fire inside for a week.
But he had to go, he said, there was no other way
That he could miss being down there for a single day.

When night fell he had not returned up the hill
She thought he was sitting watching out there still
Intent on what ever it was that he thought he was doing
She thought the cold and the damp would be his ultimate ruin.

Clutching a torch she made her way down the path to his chair,
She could see him at last lying stone cold dead in his lair.
His head was slumped forward on his little round table,
She tried to lift him up but was totally unable.

The next day when the hubub of death had subsided
She went down to the shed for the axe, having decided
She would let her frustrations out on this deathly place
Smash it to pieces destroy its powerful malice.

She hacked and she chopped, wielding that axe
Smashing little pieces of furniture to the max
And when she had exhausted all her anger and grief
She went back up to the house with a sense of relief.

Exhausted in both her heart and her head
She retire weeping disconsolately to bed.
In the morning she awoke to a scene of total melee
Around her the cottage was in great disarray.

Furniture was smashed, everything turned on its head
She saw only devastation surrounding her bed
And in amongst the middle of that chaotic raid
Was the axe she had previously left down in the glade.

Pausing only long enough to put on her clothes she departed
With fear in her heart she was more than downhearted,
The house went onto the market at a reduced price
Another couple bought it thinking it was very nice
Despite the fact that the inside was a horrible mess
They never doubted their new home would be a success.