#773

Gardener (3)

Upon opening the door, a landscape both alien and familiar unfolded.

A void where there were no floors, walls, or ceilings.

In the midst of this void, there was a table and two sofas, standing alone.

Sitting on one of the sofas was a man with shadows cast across his face.

The man, not looking at Oliver, asked if he had arrived, and Oliver greeted him, saying it had been a long time.

Then, without hesitation, he walked over and sat down on the empty sofa opposite the man.

Plop.

"Ah, this is quite comfy."

Oliver sprawled out on the sofa, making a groaning sound.

He was tired from walking a very long time.

Crackle, crackle. Sssshhh...

While sitting on the sofa, Oliver loosened his stiff body, and in the empty space, sounds of joints cracking and tired muscles tightening and relaxing alternated.

As he loosened up, Oliver occasionally glanced at the man opposite him, who subtly avoided looking directly at Oliver's face.

Well, it wasn’t clear because of the shadow on his face.

'It really doesn't matter.'

While easing the travel fatigue in his body, Oliver observed the man, who then spoke up.

"Eventually, you—"

"That's disappointing."

Just as the man's voice began to echo, Oliver slumped back into the sofa, his voice languid, somewhat like a whining child.

Uncharacteristically for Oliver, the man seemed puzzled and tilted his head.

Looking at him, Oliver pointed at the empty table.

"Previously, before I even spoke, you'd prepare warm milk and a mountain of chocolate cookies. Now, there's nothing. I feel let down."

"Didn’t you say you had no appetite?"

"When did I say that? That was then, this is now. I’m at the age where I eat a lot."

As Oliver awkwardly acted out his complaint, the man flicked his finger and summoned a mug filled with warm milk and a pile of chocolate cookies on the table.

"Thank you."

Oliver picked up a cookie, immediately popping it into his mouth.

The rich, smooth fragrance of chocolate spread in his mouth, the sweet taste hitting his brain directly.

Addictive taste, even upon repeated eating.

Oliver continued to dip cookies in milk occasionally, stuffing several in his mouth and then washing them down with milk.

"Mmm, mmm."

When Oliver shook his empty mug, it was quickly refilled with milk.

He continued to drink the milk, repeatedly eating the chocolate cookies, until the mountain-like pile was gone.

"Indeed, it's delicious. Could I have some more?"

Snap!

The man instantly flicked his finger, summoning more chocolate cookies.

Oliver, still feeling hungry, put another chocolate cookie in his mouth and enjoyed it.

"You must have been very hungry?"

"It seems so after a bit of walking."

"It must have been a long journey."

The man nodded, his voice infused with sympathy, compassion, and a hint of guilt.

Oliver looked at the man again.

His face was still shadowed, so his features were indistinct, but his body appeared differently contoured than before.

Previously, it was hard to tell whether he was skinny or fat, shabbily dressed or well-dressed, which made discerning his identity even more confusing. But now, it was not the case.

The contours were slowly becoming more defined.

The man asked again.

"Isn’t it hard?"

"Boring."

"What?"

"I said it's boring. All I've heard on my way here were phrases like 'It will be a very long journey.', 'It will be very hard.', 'It's very far away.'... That incessant 'very, very, very'. Hearing it here too just takes all the fun out of it. It's disappointing."

Oliver feigned being upset again.

"Coming all this way to meet you, and you don't even welcome me properly, just offering boring talk. Considering all the effort I made, couldn't you tell a more interesting story?"

"I don't know any interesting stories."

"It does seem that way. For someone who stays alone in such a dreary place, that might be too much to ask."

"......"

"Ah? You were about to get angry just now, weren't you? Don't do that. It's disappointing."

"I wonder how I can make it so you won't feel disappointed."

Oliver shrugged.

"Well, why don't you try telling a story from your past?"

"My past?"

"Yes, it seems you know me very well, but I don't know much about you."

"Don't you know enough about me already? I am a gardener, and tired of such subjects, doing nothing but... maintaining my position, and then—"

"No, no, I'm not asking about you as a gardener, but about you as a person. Those are different things."

"Why are you curious about that?"

"Is it wrong for me to be curious?"

Oliver's question was met with silence from the man.

There had been silences in the past, but this silence was different. It was not a silence of choice but one of being momentarily at a loss for words.

Oliver could sense this intuitively and shrugged again.

"Of course, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. I'm not planning to force you—"

"—I was once called the brightest of them all, a very, very long time ago."

While Oliver was speaking, the man started his story.

"So, when I was beside the highest one, He asked me if I would like to manage His garden down below."

"It sounds like you could have refused."

"You heard right. I had the right to refuse. No, He granted me that right. He only offered choices, never forced them."

"Why didn't you shake your head then?"

"Why choose the thorny path of being a gardener when there was an easier way?"

The man fell silent to Oliver's question, and a prolonged silence followed.

When the weight of the silence seemed unbearable, the man finally broke it.

"It was somewhat so."

A cryptic response broke the silence.

Oliver inquired what he meant by "somewhat so."

"In the past... He once swept humans away with water. Humans were debauched, and they sullied the world with too many sins, so He washed it away with water. I watched that from His side."

The man raised his finger.

"Don't get me wrong. It wasn't out of sympathy for humans. They had corrupted despite the blessings they were given and deserved to be punished... Does it seem too much?"

"I suppose. It's not something I can easily comment on."

For the first time, the man who had been avoiding Oliver's gaze looked straight at him, trying to gauge whether his words were sincere or not.

"After the deluge, God repopulated the human world with the few who survived. Time passed."

"And they fell into corruption again, the humans."

"Yes."

The man answered quietly, but the weight of his words was heavier than any verbose speech.

"That time, He asked me if I would like to take care of His garden... Initially, I thought of refusing. I didn't particularly like humans."

"Yet, you eventually took on the task."

"The sweeping away with water, it was a bit hard to watch."

"..."

"It seemed there was still room for improvement compared to then, so I..."

"You took on the role of the gardener."

As Oliver guessed correctly, the man slowly nodded.

"Are you disappointed? That I took on such a role for just that reason?"

Oliver shook his head.

"No, on the contrary, I think it's quite admirable."

"..."

"Without any grand reason like loving humanity, you took on such a significant burden."

"Not anymore."

"Ah, let's put aside such boring talk for later. What did you do after you decided to take care of the garden? I'm quite excited to hear."

With Oliver pleading like a child, the man started to speak but paused, taking a sip of warm milk from his mug, the first time he did so during their conversation.

"I left the side of the One I had served all my life and came down here. The 72 lords who ruled this place at the time each tried to test me in their own way."

"Even though you came down on His command?"

"It was not a command but an offer, and the 72 lords also had the right to resist, given by Him."

"Did you subdue them?"

"Yes."

"That's impressive."

"It's nothing impressive, child. It's not much different from what you have done."

"Then, I suppose I'm impressive too."

As Oliver cheekily spoke, the man fell silent again, looking a bit stuck.

"I like to be praised, you know. Go on, praise me."

"Yes, you are impressive."

"Thank you for the praise. So, what did you do after being recognized by the 72 lords?"

"I reorganized this place, Hell, and established new rules that allowed for interference between the human world and Hell. I sometimes ascended to the human world to spread His teachings and issue warnings. During this, I also granted them new powers, like holy and black magic. I thought if both sides held power, they might respect each other. It was a nice failure, though."

"You don't know that. The outcome hasn't been decided yet."

Oliver countered the man's words.

The world hadn't ended yet, so the result wasn't out. It wasn't the stage to say whether the man's decisions were failures or successes.

"If you say so, it must be so."

"Yes, I'm right. Will you continue the story?"

"There's not much more to say. Everything after that is just a repetition of the same story."

The man's face, shrouded in shadows, rapidly seemed to grow tired.

"If I think it's well managed, I return here to watch over the garden, and if problems arise again, I go up to tend to it. It goes on endlessly."

It might seem like nothing much, but the final part was somewhat concerning.

Endlessly.

A day, two days, three days, four days...

One year, two years, three years, four years...

One hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years, four hundred years...

The time Oliver had walked to come here felt like dust compared to the weight of that sentence.

Whether it's a thousand years or ten thousand years, having an end means just that, but having no end meant literally not having one.

If anything was endless, it might as well be hell.

And the one who had lived in that hell spoke.

"I continued to watch. The sight of aphids clinging to flowers, green leaves turning brown and withering. I saw branches sprawling out greedily casting shadows, insects burrowing into fruits, and pests like field mice thriving in the garden,"

"I'm listening."

"At first, I endured and tidied up. I couldn’t do as much as I wanted, but within the range I could manage. Soon enough, the garden was a mess again."

"I'm listening."

"I resumed my work, and the garden became a mess again, sometimes worse than before. For an endless period, I kept repeating this task, and suddenly the thought occurred to me. It wouldn't be so bad to sweep it all away. Whether with water or fire."

"But you didn't do that right away."

Oliver pointed out a critical fact.

If that had been the case, this situation wouldn’t exist.

The man acknowledged it.

"It was something like that. It's hard to destroy what I've touched with my own hands."

The man averted his gaze from Oliver again and gripped the armrest of the sofa tightly.

"So I asked Him. I told Him I could no longer manage the garden."

"What did He say?"

"He said I couldn’t just quit. From the moment I accepted the offer, it became my duty. Nevertheless, I said I couldn't do it. I was too exhausted. Then, He showed me a way. A way out of this duty."

"What was it?"

The man looked at Oliver again. His face was still shrouded in shadow, making it hard to discern, but he appeared sad somehow.

"He said to create a new gardener to replace me, to pass on all the choices."