The hole in the garden
Beep Beep, Beep Beep’
I was woken to the sound of a text message. ‘NEED HELP!’ It was from Jimmy, he was referring to his new project. In his unemployed boredom he had decided to rent a piece of land to grow what he called essentials, like potatoes, carrots and beans. Why he couldn’t buy what he needed from the supermarket like everyone else, I don’t know. I dragged myself out of bed, made a pot of tea and headed down to the new patch of land. I got there and I was surprised. It was a wasteland, full of overgrown trees and plants. I noticed some seeds that Jimmy had left on the bench in the vain hope of being able to plant them today.
“Jimmy?” A straw hat appeared above some tall grass.
“I brought some tea, do you have time for a break?” I saw his head nod, so I made for the broken down shed. Jimmy was already there waiting for me. With his scratched face from the tree branches, his dirty hands from pulling up unwanted plants and his oversized clothes he looked more like a lost boy than Jimmy. I handed him some tea and tried to make some witty remarks about the garden, but Jimmy was in no mood for my humor.
“Shhhhh, do you hear that?” There was a quiet rumble that quickly turned into a huge crash. The shed began to shake. We swung the shed door open and Jimmy stepped out first. He suddenly disappeared from view. I cautiously peered out of the shed and looked down. Right below me was a huge hole, and at the bottom of the hole was a crumpled Jimmy. I shouted down to him.
“Jimmy, are you ok, do you have any kind of injury?” I saw him stand up, dust himself off and check himself over. I knew he was ok the moment he opened his mouth, as he was still complaining.
“What’s going on? This is typical this is, everything always happens to me. All I want to do is grow some vegetables. Get me out of here!” He began shouting.
I inquired how.
“I don’t know just find me someone, the chief of police, an army general, whoever is in charge of the fire brigade, just get someone to get me out of here!” As Jimmy jumped up and down and ranted and raged I couldn’t help but smile. With his dirty hair, his muddy face with three day old beard he looked like some kind of ape screaming in a high pitched voice. I was informed that the fire brigade was on strike due to some disagreement over money and it would take a while for the reserves to get to us. I passed the message down to Jimmy. I could see the news didn’t make him all that happy.
After a two hour wait I wasn’t sure my ears could take much more complaining. For two hours I had to listen to Jimmy go on about his minor injuries. He had turned a few cuts and bruises into something much worse! Then came the shouting that is was all some kind of elaborate plot by the supermarkets to assassinate him because they didn’t want him growing his own products as it would dent their profits! He was beginning to drive me crazy!
“And you know what Becky, they failed. They would have to get up pretty early to catch me out after all the training I’ve done!” That was it for me, my patience had gone.
“Training, training you was in the scouts and you weren’t even very good at it!” Thankfully I heard the sound of the fire engines roll up, just in time as I was just about to jump into the hole and assassinate him myself. The fire brigade got him out without too much trouble and explained something about their being underground mines around this area. Of course Jimmy went on to the firemen about how brave he was. While I just sat there and thought about pushing him back in the hole.