When I rake my zen garden, I feel relaxed. My son gave it to me after he had made it in class. He lives with his father, so it was a nice thing to do from him. We saw each other every now and then. I just don’t get along with my ex’s new partner so maybe that’s why they moved so far away from me. Anyway, I digress. You see, there’s something wrong with the zen garden. I noticed it when I was talking on the phone with my mother. She went on and on about some people I didn’t even know, or didn’t care to remember, so I took the rake and my keys and started burying them in the sand to pass time.
After the call was over, I raked the sand open again, but I couldn’t find the keys. I raked the whole garden and checked the usual places, but I knew that I had raked them under the sand. I left the garden be, thinking that when I needed these keys I could just pour the sand into a bag and find them that way. I got this urge to look outside, and then I saw that the ground in my yard had been turned. It was unusual since I lived in a suburban house, and we never had a mole problem before. I took a garden shovel to see if there was a hole in the ground, but to my amazement there was a set of keys. They weren’t my keys.
When I went back inside I got a call explaining how I’ve inherited a house near where my son lives. It was a relative’s house, whom I’ve never heard of before, and it was a big house in a nice area. They said that I must’ve gotten the keys by now. I asked if this was some kind of joke, but the caller ignored me, saying to enjoy my new home, before hanging up. And I did enjoy it. I moved there in a heartbeat after I saw how well kept and beautiful it was. I’m a freelance graphic designer, so my work moved right with me.
I asked my mom if she knew the relatives, who left the house to me, but she hadn’t heard of them either. It seemed really weird since she knew family like the insides of her pockets, but I didn’t want to question it. I never managed to find my old keys, but I had copies so it didn’t really matter. There was even an electric bike in the new house so I didn’t need my old bike anymore. The zen garden is magical. I hope I had stopped burying things in it then and there.. but I didn’t.
It started out small. I buried pumpkin seeds in the sand, and I found whole pumpkins in my yard. I was happy doing this for a while with other food items like oranges, and tomatoes. I eventually got bored because the yard did look like it was hit by a bomb. I decided to hide my car keys in the sand, and I won a new car the next day. I didn’t know I was in any kind of lottery, but it was held by the bank I was already a client of. The advertisement of the lottery was buried in the front yard.
It was like a dream. Yet, I felt so alone. The divorce had left me feeling really lonely and anxious, because it was hard to move on when I was the one being dumped. My loneliness hit the rock bottom when weird things started to happen in the house. One weekend my son was bitten by a rat and he had to be taken to a hospital. The wound was infected and everyone was mad at me because I had been so neglectful. It might be true, because I might’ve missed vegetables growing in the yard, and they in turn lured the rats in. I put some traps after the incident, but I was so worried for my son, so I started to go through the house manually. I opened up one kitchen cabinet, and slammed it shut immediately. A cold sweat ran across my face when I taped the door shut with duct tape. There had been at least a dozen eyes staring back at me. I decided to make a cup of coffee to calm my nerves, but when I drank it, it had a weird aftertaste. I scooped the liquid with a spoon and saw that it was full of little dead bugs. Startled, I dropped the mug in the sink, shattering it, and as I stared at the bug liquid going down the drain, a swarm of bugs started to climb up from the drain. I was in complete panic spraying the bugs with a countertop cleaner, and grabbing the phone with shaking hands. The cabinet door had started moving and I held it shut with my leg as I made the call to pest control. I cried and rambled about the bugs and rats, so thankfully they came as soon as they could. The whole house had to be sterilized so they hooded the house for the operation, so I had to stay with my mom until it was done.
I tried to lift my spirits with the best medicine, exercise, but my electric bike broke down when I had already bought some groceries. When I got home I stared at the zen garden with a blank expression. “Mom, did you use my zen garden?” I asked when I saw that the rake was placed differently, and there were rake marks on the sand. “Yeah, I hid some money in there for you.” She sounded a bit embarrassed. Of course the money couldn’t be found, not there at least. I found a thousand buried in the yard, and I gave it to my mom saying that I won a lottery. I didn’t believe that the zen garden was cursed, otherwise I would’ve kept the money myself. I blamed circumstance and myself for the setbacks I had earlier.
This time there was a robbery at my mother’s house, and she was shot through a door when she was making a nine-one-one-call. I was wailing and crying like I had never cried before. I couldn’t believe that my mother was gone just like that. I blamed myself, and thought about ending it all. Then I got angry, and I threw the zen garden into the trash. When I did that however, I saw that the bottom had a painted symbol on it. I shed the last sand off the garden, and I laid it on top of my lap to see it clearly. It said “I hope you suffer like your husband did.” and then it had a weird symbol on it, like a magic circle with runes on it. I’m now certain my son didn’t make this zen garden. He might’ve made one but it got switched to this one at some point. I have some revenging to do.