The Garden

An wealthy European girl ventures to a beleaguered country, but falls victim to her own pride and needless guilt. A Chinese investor in a fictional state questions her motives and his conscience.

 

 With every plan of action against injustice, there is obstinate nationalism. This can be found in the motherland and also in her satellites. Fact. It is to be expected, mandatory even. So when the first wave of righteous anger manifested itself in the form of graffiti and stones against windows, no one seemed to mind, up there. Up there they all thought, “Ah, another infantile, powerless nation is throwing a hissy-fit against its mother. After all its mother has done for it.” I bet some even thought (with gritted teeth…grrr!): “That’s what happens when you try to educate those down there; the baboon brains! They drone about liberty, but they cannot look after themselves when they are given it.” I would agree with the Aboves to some extent. I mean if you ever walked down a dirt-track (that is apparently a road…for cars!) in this place you would be embarrassed to look around you; as a respectable Below. As an Above it is almost unimaginable not to feel ashamed.  

There is a dirt track called Cabusand Ruis Road. It is named after Cabusand, an Above luminary of some sort. He was a founding father, a peace bearer and a light bringer. Yes he bore the magnificent weapons of peace and rhetoric. Besides, the road sign is not there. I only remember its name from my grandfather’s memories; memories that are a collection of fabricated stories anyhow.  Puz, so imagine you are walking down this road; first thing that would hammer you is the smell. It is a mixture between faeces, fried meat, beasts’ rotting wounds, decaying fruit…need I go on? Puz! You would automatically put your hand over your nose (outsiders always do, no matter how polite they are.) So, with one hand you would be holding your nose (large, bridged probably) and with the other you will be shooing away the skeletal, spidery excuses of humanity who are trying to sell you sob stories, (which are all true). They will be about their mothers being abused and their fathers being sent to lives of servitude in the Above quarries and construction sites. One skeleton may touch you, perhaps your forearm, and you may feel some strange nonsensical guilt as you peer into their reddened eyes, encircled by a grey haze. You would feel this guilt until you realise that their filthy hand has scarred your expensive jacket. After getting through the gauntlet of blackened, emaciated drones you would most likely encounter vendors selling meaningless trinkets (snow globes, plastic flags etc…) in exchange not for money but for what is needed to truly survive: water. On one occasion my friend had a bottle of water, he got a t-shirt in exchange! Anyway, once you get pass them you will see where the ingredients for injustice are matured (like a fine wine in an Above’s cellar). At the end of the road is a humungous wall made of redbrick and cloaked with a barbed-wire blazer. It blocks the Cabusand road dwellers from civilisation.  After hours, sometimes the sellers press their hardened skulls against that very wall, closing their eyes and praying. The Above estimation of this phenomenon is because Cabusand is so close to humanity (on the border between the dead and soon to be dead). Apparently the sellers can hear the utterances of the Above intelligentsia. The rumour: behind that wall is where the largest, most"impressive properties in the land are found, grand architectural elephants covered in glass and stainless steel. Can you believe it, dereliction beside debauchery? Besides all these stories are from my grandfather…

The second wave cannot and could not be so easily ignored. The “righteous anger” transgressed. It mutated: Graffiti to vengeance-squalls, stones to blood.  A group called the “Independent People of Deliverance” (mockingly referred to as IPoD, in some Above circles) began a political campaign for the liberation of the Below nations. This catalysed philosophical and violent efforts by the Belows and on their behalf by liberal Above intelligentsia, goons and celebrities (such as Federico Fonsenca with his number one, hit song “Above’s look Below”). Theses’, poetry and other forms of literature (some written in the mansions besides Cabusand) were spread to all kinds of humanity, defending the rights of the Belows. Some call it  “The Aboves Burden”.  I call it “goodness” wrapped in polystyrene because everything I heard, read and consumed surrounding this debate seemed so glossy, so overly wholesome, so forced. Some may call me a fortunate, ungrateful below. I call these people blind goons.

Anyhow, Puz the second wave enraged the more stoic, traditionalists and as with every conflict. The governments of the Above states congressed and formulated The Joint Forces for Stability and Peace in Below States (which was mockingly referred to as  “too-long” in Below circles). Multiple seminars were assembled on what was referred to as a “very real, terrorist threat,” by President Blaart. Some Above liberals thought Blaart was full of s**t and could not be trusted. They had a right to believe this as a month before he was nearly impeached for some tax folly. His family is quite messed up too, but overall most Aboves had faith in their beleaguered multinational president.  So when Blaart started his “Battle on Below terror” campaign, he was embraced by many, too many.

 

The third wave sent a quake through the minds of all those who disputed or questioned the Below cause, quite literally. Last December, a young girl, dressed in traditional clothes gently strolled down the Cubusand. Her loose, purple and gold, silky dress swayed in the morning breeze as she swept past the trinket-vendors who wolf-whistled and hollered. Unbeknownst to them and everyone else there lay a volcano inside of this girl.

I was also walking on the Cubusand, but in the other direction, away from hell. I was heading to the airport to go my very first airplane journey. As I passed through the road I  This innocent-looking creature was much  

Author's Note

Ignore any grammar problems, as it's just a draft.

There is one mention of a swearword