In the Garden by M. Christine Benner Dixon

God sat down on my garden bench and sighed, putting his hands on his knees, head dipped low. I saw him out of the upstairs window and hurried down. I am not accustomed to strangers walking into the garden uninvited. Many a dog walker uses the back alley and admires the garden on the way, but no one ever comes in.

I opened the sliding door and God looked up. “Hello,” I said, aiming my voice at friendly-but-also-pointed, as if my greeting were also a question, a challenge. 

God nodded. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Sorry to Alarm You, but I Was Just Passing By, and I Saw Your Garden, and It Looked So Peaceful. So I Stopped to Rest. I Am,” he added, “Very Tired.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I am a sucker for compliments about my garden—he probably knew that—and he did look awfully tired. I approached the bench, sitting across from him on the low stone wall, the one that terraces the bed with the beans and the sunflowers. 

 “Well . . .” I said, perfunctorily, but I let that opening glide away, having nothing to fasten it to. 

He carried his weariness like a dozen awkward packages, impossible to stack, some looped onto his fingers, some sweating against his ribcage, some thrust up under his chin. Here in the garden, his worry-packages avalanched around his feet.

“What is This Plant?” he asked, pointing to a pillow of tiny leaves between the stone pavers.

“Thyme,” I answered.

“Oh, That’s Right.” And God smiled on the thyme. Its trailing stems with their clusters of just-blooming flowers eased towards him very subtly, very softly; the petite flowers, pale lilac, widened for him.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked God. “A glass of water?” 

He shook his head. 

“Help yourself to the raspberries,” I said, pointing behind him. “There should be some ripe ones.” 

He turned around and reached up. A red berry came off in his fingertips, tender as a kiss. 

“So Sweet!” he said. “And Still Warm From the Sun—I Love That. It Reminds Me of Being Young.” 

In the silence, a sparrow chortled at us, proud to have such an audience. God rested his eye on it and listened to its song. 

“I Am Not Young Anymore,” he said after the sparrow stopped. “And Some Days I Feel Old Beyond My Years. I Worry . . .” He looked down, running his fingers across his forehead. “I Worry.”

“Yes,” I answered. I knew what he meant. It’s hard to be in charge of things. Probably ‘being in charge’ is just an illusion, even for God. 

“It Is,” he said in answer to my thoughts. “Especially for Me.”

I was charmed by his openness. “I fantasize, sometimes,” I said, “of cramming myself into a crevice in a wall. Somewhere no one can find me. I just want to live there for a while with the ants and the lichen.”

God gave a rueful little chuckle and nodded. “I Feel Like That Many Days.”

“Well . . .” I said, finally having found the tail for that kite. “Well, you are welcome to use this crevice for as long as you like.” Meaning my garden. “If you don’t mind, though, I’m going to go around front and do some weeding. If you need anything, please come find me.”

“Thank You,” he answered simply. 

The next time I came around the side of the house, God was leaning back on the bench, watching at the sky. When I came back a third time, he was gone.

Or, I thought that he was gone. When I found him again, it was by accident, a week later. I was trimming the long grass by the wall, and when I pulled back a clump to cut it, there he was, between the stones. 

“Forgive Me for Startling You,” God said. “You Were Right. This Is Nice.”

He did look awfully snug in there, curled into that little cave of fieldstone. 

“May I Stay?” he asked me.

“Of course,” I answered, amazed that he would even have to ask. “I’d be honored.” 

He comes out sometimes at night, I think. I see little signs of him here and there. To give him his privacy, I have let the grass grow up to screen his nook. I plant things that might be soothing to his tired soul. I mean it as a kindness, though I suppose that it is worship nonetheless.

M. Christine Benner Dixon lives, writes, and grows things in Pittsburgh, PA. Working in both prose and poetry, her writing has appeared in SLICE Magazine, Fearsome Critters: A Millennial Arts Journal, Vastarien: A Literary Journal, HeartWood Literary Magazine, pacificREVIEW: A West Coast Arts Review Annual, Paperbark Literary Magazine, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and elsewhere.