---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “the Bridge” Down in the Dirt (v140) (the November/December 2016 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Edible Red the Down in the Dirt July-Dec. 2016 collection book		get the 318 page July-Dec. 2016 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Intention

Norm Hudson

    “Intention is everything, you know!”
    He smiled at my feeble effort to secure the small cutting of pelargonium in the plastic plant pot.
    How difficult can it be? I thought. Convey compost to pot. Plant pelargonium. Job done.
    But the compost was dry and crumbly. And the pelargonium cutting was playing up. It insisted on keeling over like a fallen soldier, its originally attractive, zoned leaves sullied. Dirtied.
    “I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this,” I said.
    The other members of the gardening club looked up and smiled as if remembering where they’d started.
    Well, at least they’re a friendly bunch, I thought. They’d given me my first cutting.
    That’s why I’d joined. To make new friends.
    “You need to engage with it. Speak to its spirit. Tell it your intention,” he went on, as if what he’d said was the most natural thing in the world.
    Speak to its spirit! Was the guy advocating I consult with a cutting? Put in a word or two with a pelargonium? Gossip with a geranium?
    Mad!
    Well, what do you expect? I told myself. This wasn’t just any old gardening club. This was a gardening club in a New Age Community. A New Age Community in Scotland.
    And I was English.
    It wouldn’t do to upset the natives. There was enough dissension among Scots. It wouldn’t do for the English to add to it.
    Besides I was here to make friends.
    A little conversation with a cutting couldn’t do any harm, could it?
    “This is lovely compost,” I began hesitantly, one eye on the cutting, the other scanning the room for titters.
    Every eye was serious.
    I gathered courage.
    “You’ll enjoy your new home,” I said stroking the furry leaf affectionately. “I wasn’t keen on moving either but now I’m settled in and I love it. And everyone here is so friendly,” I added.
    There were beams of approval round the room.
    “That’s the spirit!” said my instructor. “See! It’s working already!”
    Sure enough. The pelargonium cutting seemed to be standing more erect. Like a soldier on guard. Though I felt sure that was due to the little extra pressure I’d unconsciously applied as I’d uttered the unsettling words.
    But everyone seemed happy. So who was I to complain? And there seemed to be a new spirit of camaraderie that extended all the way down to the local village pub after.
    “Ay, we’ve had a lot of English here,” said Jock, more loquacious than earlier after four pints of the local draught beer “over the years.”
    “I haven’t heard any English voices,” I said, my ears somehow more eager than they had been down south for the sound.
    “They move on,” he said.
    “Where to?” I pursued, the pints having their effect on me too.
    “Wherever the spirit takes them,” Jock answered.
    “Well, the spirit here is pretty good!” I said raising my beer glass high in the air. So I think I’ll just stay!”
    Everyone laughed. And it felt good. I felt part of the community already.
    “And you’ll be back to Gardening Club next week?” said Jock.
    “With a gardening instructor like you, I wouldn’t miss it!” I said.
    And I didn’t. I went along every week. And took Peter with me. Peter, my pelargonium. I hadn’t intended giving him a name, any more than I’d intended moving to Scotland or intended joining a gardening club but Jock and the others had insisted I make clear my intention. And Peter had certainly responded. He had grown a good six inches since that first evening at class and six bold little buds had appeared. I knew what colour they were going to be. I could already see the rip of red appearing like a new cut threatening to burst out from its green casing.
    “You’re in one of the new houses, aren’t you?” said Sandy, the third week. “The ones built near the battlefield.”
    I wondered if that was going to be a problem. There’d been some strife over building the houses there. On a historic site. The site of a battle between the Scots and the English. However, the developer had got permission and built them anyway. Not that he’d made much profit from them. He’d gone bankrupt and committed suicide shortly after.
    I knew I’d been lucky to get the house. The previous owner had only been in a year and then moved on. Where to, I wasn’t clear. I’d only dealt with the solicitors. As for neighbours, I didn’t really get to know anyone. There seemed to be a lot of movement. No one stayed long. But I guess it was like that on all new housing estates. That’s why I’d joined the only club in the locale. The Gardening Club.
    “Yes,” I said warily, wondering what to expect.
    “It must need a lot done to the garden,” said Scotty, running a ruddy hand through his sixty something, sandy hair. “The previous owner couldn’t have done much.”
    “What Scotty’s getting at is we usually take turns going round each other’s gardens tidying them up,” said Jock. “Seeing where the spirit takes us, so to speak.”
    I was wondering how long it would take them to get round to the subject of spirit.
    “And you want to come round to mine?” I suggested.
    “Ay, if that’s all right with you,” said Jock. The guys usually bring along a few plants and a beer or two and make it a right booze up afterwards.”
    He grinned a cheeky grin. The boys were such fun. I was already looking forward to that night.
    “There’s a lot of English here,” said Scotty, standing at the kitchen window after the hard evening slog in the garden and staring out over the battlefield. I wasn’t sure where he meant.
    His hand waved towards the estate of virgin red-brick houses but his eyes didn’t divert. “They come north for the cheap housing and the country living.”
    “A bit like me,” I said.
    Scotty’s voice was slurred already.
    “Ay,” he said, then went on surprisingly. “I hear your neighbour has moved away.”
    How the hell did he know that? I thought. Then I realised everyone knew everything in a small village. Still, he knew more than me.
    “I’ve not really seen them, I said, “since I moved in. I believe he was from London. Everyone seems to keep to themselves around here.”
    “Ay, and they accuse us Scots of not being friendly!” joined in Jock.
    Willie raised his half bald head from where it had already slumped on his chest and uttered, Here! Here!”
    His head slumped down again.
    “I hope you’re not including me in that!” I said, like a true Sassenach.
    “It’s the spirit that’s doing the talking,” butted in Jock, raising his glass. “And Willie’s taken a bit much o’ it.”
    “Have ye been to see it?” said Scotty, suddenly
    I’d lost the thread of the conversation.
    “It?” I repeated.
    “The battlefield.”
    He waved his hand expansively across the view from my kitchen window. A vast expanse of wild, windswept wilderness wept before me.
    “No,” I said. “Is it worth a visit?”
    “Is it worth————————————?”
    Jock almost spat out his mouthful of beer.
    “Man, ye canna mean that!”
    I wondered if I’d offended him but then he laughed and patted my shoulder.
    “We’ll take you and show you,” he said. “Ye canna no see the battlefield.”
    “I’ll look forward to that,” I said.
    “Do ya feel it?” said Jock.
    We were standing in the midst of the battlefield. I say standing though that was difficult enough to maintain amid the buffeting blows of the northerly wind. Standing in the midst of a moor. At our feet the hardy heather. Interspersed like some southerly intruder by small, granite headstones marking the smitten.
    I certainly felt something. A spirit of desolation. Despair. Death.
    “The spirit of our fallen fathers,” said Jock. “Scots and English.”
    The other two were silent. And even I was at a loss as to what to say.
    “There’s a lot o’ bodies here!” said Jock, breaking the silence that had descended on us.
    “Ay, a lot,” echoed Willie.
    Something seemed to be required so I said, “English or Scottish?”
    “Who’s counting?” said Scotty.
    I was counting. All through the winter. Counting the number of leaves Peter, my pelargonium, had grown. When he wasn’t with me at Gardening Club, he was in his favourite position. On the South facing windowsill of my new house soaking up any slight sun we got during that long sun-forsaken season. I often spoke to his spirit like Jock and the others had advised and I knew he was happy when his bold little buds burst into blood red bloom, radiating out over the battlefield like routing red-coats.
    “Ay, it can happen at any time,” Jock said when I told him my surprise at its blossoming during winter. “The spirit canna wait for spring. Any more than we can.”
    The only blot on the landscape was the garden. The plants didn’t seem to be doing so well. I mentioned it to Jock and the others one evening at the club.
    “Maybe our intention was wrong at the time of planting,” said Jock. “Not enough spirit.”
    “Or too much,” muttered Willie, raising the beer glass that was never out of his hand.
    I wondered why he drank so much.
    “You can always right that,” said Jock.
    I knew he meant the garden. Not Willie’s drinking.
    I was trying to do exactly what he’d advocated one evening when I saw it. I’d raised my head momentarily from conversing with a crocus. The mist was mingling with the damp winter air on the moor and the dark was descending. For a second I almost missed it. The fleeting shadow of a figure. A figure waving a sword.
    “Ay, that can happen. When you start speaking to spirits,” said Jock, like it was an everyday occurrence.
    “Are you saying I’m seeing spirits!” I said incredulously.
    “Ay, spirits of the fallen,” chimed in Scotty.
    “Do they do battle enactments on the moor?” I said, unwilling to accept their explanation.
    Jock shook his head.
    “Ye dinna believe me,” he said sullenly.
    I shook my head.
    Speaking to plants was one thing. Speaking to the dead was something else. I couldn’t go along with it.
    The others looked sad. And no amount of the liquid spirit that followed altered the fact this was our first disagreement.
    “Maybe ye need to engage with it. Speak to the spirit,” said Jock, head bowed, cap in hand, as he left that evening, with no mention of the next meeting.
    “Speak to the spirit. I’ll bloody speak to the spirit!” I said out loud courageously four whiskies after they’d gone. “More likely some bloody prankster who thinks it’s fun to dress up like a Highlander, swing a sword and harass the householders on the estate. Was that someone’s intention? But why? Or was Jock right all along? The spirit world had overtaken me.
    Either way I had to find out. If it was some prankster, I’d soon clip his ears. And if it was a spirit?
    Then I’d stop speaking to spirits.
    Stop talking to Peter.
    A momentary moroseness descended like a heavy mist. I’d miss my conversations with Peter. He was like an old friend.
    But sometimes ruthlessness was demanded.
    I grabbed the jacket hanging on the back of the kitchen door, my eyes carefully avoiding Peter’s position on the kitchen windowsill, in case he’d picked up my intention, and headed out across the moor.
    The sun was almost set and darkness had almost descended. The wild, troubled wind whipped my face and for a second I panicked. What if I couldn’t find my way back?
    This was foreign territory. I was an intruder. And I’d had the comfort of Jock and the others last time on the moor.
    Jock and the others. Good friends. I’d make up any disagreement with them as soon as I could, I vowed.
    Good friends were few these days. In England. In Scotland. Anywhere.
    The thought of that and the four whiskies gave me renewed courage and I battled on bravely.
    Until I saw him.
    He appeared as if out of nowhere. But even from some distance I could see him. A short, stocky phantom clad coarsely in plaid, a bonnet on his head. But all that really registered was the sword. Raised high in the sky like some torch of war. And the skirling shriek of his voice as he ran towards me. And then there were others. All around.
    All thought of clipping ears or speaking to spirits fled.
    I turned and ran as any routed redcoat would have, my feet sinking heavily into boggy ground.
    Home. I had to get home. I’d be safe there. From prankster or phantom.
    I was almost there. The shadow of the housing estate appeared like an oasis in the desert. My hand reached out but my foot failed to follow. For it hit hard granite and I fell face down in the dirt.
    I pushed myself up. But a hand grabbed my shoulder and forced me over on my back. I saw the sword descend straight down and I felt a searing slice.
    I was hallucinating. My friends were here. Jock, Scotty, Willie. Hovering above me. But why were their faces fouled? Their voices vicious. And what was Jock holding in his hand?
    Peter. Peter, my pelargonium. No longer proud in his plastic pot. But drooping, dragged down by his now heavily laden blood red flower-heads. Despairing of escape from desperate hands.
    And Scotty. What was Scotty holding? A sword? No, a spade. And Willie? A bottle of whisky.
    “Don’t despair,” said Jock. “There’s plenty English here. Past.”
    He waved his hand all over the battlefield.
    “And present.”
    He pointed at the distant estate then at the ground beneath me.
    “They’re all buried here. We couldn’t let you all come here and do this,” he said. “Not in the past. And not now. Any of you.”
    He began to pull off Peter’s petals painfully and drop them on top of me.
    “Peter knew. He knew what you were going to do.”
    I watched the red dye of the fallen petal on my hand transfuse itself to my skin. More petals began to fall over me, their red dye spreading like blood on a battlefield.
    Scotty was already beginning to dig while Willie began to swig the contents of the whisky bottle.
    “You see, you only need to engage with it. Speak to its spirit. Tell it your intentions.”
    He raised his sword one last time and plunged it into me.
    “Peter knew our intentions all along. Didn’t you, Peter?” he said. “And he knows now,” he added, slicing through Peter’s stem with the sword so that all that remained of Peter was the original cutting.
    “Don’t be sad,” he said to me. This is lovely earth. You’ll enjoy your new home. You won’t be keen on moving but once you’re settled in you’ll love it!”
    I lifted my arm a last time as if to reach out to him. But the gulf between us was already too wide.
    “That’s the spirit!” he said. “See it’s working already. “And don’t worry about Peter,” he said.
    He waved his hand at the housing estate.
    “There’s plenty more English there. We’ll make sure some other Sassenach joins the Gardening Club and cultivates his cutting. And we know he’ll flourish, don’t we? Until he’s cut down. After all intention is everything, isn’t it?”
    I didn’t know if he meant the man or the plant. But it didn’t seem to matter. His voice was already fading and my last view of Peter was from a high distance.
    The spirit had already spoken to me.
    “What have you learned?” it said.
    “I’ve learned intention is everything,” I said.
    “So you’ll want to stay south of the border next life,” it said.
    “Oh, no,” I said vehemently. “I’ve got friends here.”
    The spirit looked at me strangely.
    “Oh, not them,” I said, waving a partying hand at my murderers. “Them!”
    I pointed a final finger at the battlefield that was fast receding.
    At Peter’s progeny. The cuttings I’d taken at the end of winter and nurtured carefully till they were able to stand up erect on their own. Then I’d planted them out. One by one. At each granite headstone on the moor. Their little red Scottish faces beamed up a final farewell. I wasn’t worried. I knew they’d survive. They’d have shelter and draw strength from the granite. And I’d already engaged with them. Spoken to their spirit.
    Now I was speaking to mine.
    “Then what is your intention?” he said.
    I whispered in his ear.
    “We can’t let them off with it, can we?” I said aloud.
    The spirit smiled.
    I’d engaged with it. Spoken to it. Told it my intention.
    There was only one thing left to say.
    “What’s yours?” I said.
    The spirit smiled but said nothing.
    I wasn’t worried.
    I already knew.
    Peter’s progeny knew too.
    That’s why they’d lifted their blood red heads from their drooping position and stood stiffly erect like soldiers ready to do battle.
    “You’ll see them again,” said the spirit.
    And I knew I would.
    After all intention is everything, isn’t it?
    And meanwhile?
    Meanwhile, I’ll just have to wait and see where the spirit takes me.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...