The Lawn

Fiona Xu ‘24

Every visitor of the town agreed that the house on the corner of Poena Street had the most beautiful lawn they’d ever seen. They all wondered how the owners of the brilliant patch of green managed to keepitsovividandlushallyearround. Only the earliest of risers in the town knew of its timid and gentle caretaker–– the lady of the house––who would flit, as faint as a whisper, amongst the soft blades in the early hours of the morning when even the brutalSunhadnotyetawokenfromhis slumber.

One morning,afewyearsago, she did not appear In fact, she would neverappearagain.

Her husband said it was a foreign virus they had picked upwhile traveling in Europe. They had never left the small town. Yet, he must have been telling the truth, the town reasoned, and if the webs of welts and curious finger-shaped bruises like spiders crawling up her arm (scarcely hidden by her long sleeves) seemed vaguely familiar, the residents could not be sure and they remained convinced the symptoms were like nothing they had ever seen. And when once, a young man, a visitor passing through the town, had tentatively approached them in the streets and asked the lady if she was alright, she flinched and slipped a furtiveglanceat her husband, who roughly grabbed her before she could respond. The town would not see her again.Hercondition has deteriorated so, the husbandwould explain in response to the occasional concerned query, that the slightest leaf rustle rumbled like an earthquake in herears.Itmust’vebeentrue,forevery night, as soon as the silence oftheday was broken by the hoot of an owl or the banshee wail of a coyote, ghastly cries ofpainemanatedfromthatcorner oftheotherwisesilentstreet.

The grass, too, began to fade. At first, the changes were almost imperceptible— a slight patch of fading green here or there— but, gradually, the decay became more pronounced, until all that was left was a yellowish-brown patch of stubble like anautumncornfielddenudedofits verdant,silkybounty.

One night, the screams stopped.Thenextdaythetownsawthe man in the hardware store, purchasing a largeshovel.Thestrangequietnessof last night was still on the town’s mind when they asked the man, had something happened, was everything alright, and all of those questions people pose when they know already that something had happened and that everything is terribly, horribly wrong. Through tearless sobs, he told them that, after years ofunflaggingstruggle, the Reaperhadfinallyclaimedhiswife asHisown.

Eventually, his words became truth, diffusing through the dry air in murmurs and whispers, rustling the yellowing blades of grass. No one questionedagain.

And when, a few weeks later, all but a bare patch of recently upturned soil in themiddleofthegrass started to grow green again, the town said not a word. Indeed, they had forgotten the time the lawn on the corner of Poena Street had becomethe same wilted brown as all the others around it. No, no, that house had an ethereal evergreen lawn: therefore, it alwayshadanetherealevergreenlawn.

One day a small child, still unfamiliar with the ways of the town, stumbled too close to the house. Her ring finger brushed against two of the crisp blades and she cried out, watching with round watery eyes as a drop of blood fell into the soil. Her mother came running and scooped her up, rushing her far away from Poena Street. No one would notice theblades of grass growing from the patch ofred soilstretchhalfafoottaller.

Later that night, under the bright gleam of the silvery Moon,they grew even taller–– firsttotheheightof a dog, then that of a man, then tall enough to swallow the house completely. Likevines,theirserpentine cousins, the blades snaked into the house through crevices around the doors and windows, winding through the rooms. As thin and soft as a lady's fingers, they reached andreached,asif drawn to something deep inside the house. They reached up the stairs and into the master bedroom where, pausing for a few seconds to stroke a belovednecklace,finally,theystopped. They had reached the foot of the large oak bed where the man lay in imperturbableoblivion.

The next day, the town would not see the man. In fact, they would neverseehimagain.

And as for the grass? It was the same wilted brown as all the other lawns around it–– it had always been the same wilted brown. It had never been otherwise, the town agreed. Occasionally, a visitor passing by would notice the faint streaks of green running up the clapboard sides of the house, but the question would fade before it could form on their tongues and they would turn the corner and soon forget the house on the corner of PoenaStreet.

*Poena is the spirit of punishment and the attendant of punishment to Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution, in Greek mythology