The Cutting Garden

The garden had always been there announced by a small brass plaque besides tall black wooden gates, through which coaches used to pass their occupants unseen hidden by thick velvet curtains. Little passes through those gates now except from time to time late at night a lone figure slips inside. Quiet behind tall walls of pale brick and crumbling mortar the gardens sleep forgotten at the end of a gentle road, that progress in the town passed by. Nothing now recalls the gardens splendour except perhaps the quiet stream that flows darkly into it's grounds fleeing the seeping grayness of the town through which is passed. Glad perhaps to leave behind the rubbish thrown into it and meander gently through the grounds never to emerge. Telling no one where it goes and what it sees there, no ducks inhabit this stream to return telling of the wonders that they've seen of the blooms still tended within those silent walls.

Behind those walls though the garden flourishes still, tended by the gardeners that never left, serving still a mistress grown reclusive. Along gravel paths they walk tying back the more wayward of their charges, ensuring that all is as their mistress wishes, ready for another soirée or garden concert. The garden dwindles though despite their care, neglected by her as she ventures out so rarely. But still the grounds of the garden are watered red by the blood of the blooms the gardeners tend, pale skin bound fast to trellis, wire biting into flesh. In the bower lovers cling one to the other wrapped about by the sharp points of twisted thorns. The paths meander among the strangest topiary, trees shaped in the pain of those that slip through the gate late at night when no one sees. Their cries mingling with the trickling water that runs through the garden like blood down the limbs of the gardens latest guest, still suspended in the rose arch.

English roses adorn the walls a striking display of delicate pinks, their wrists bound fast above them. Nearby others are held in shapes of delicate torment, supported in wrought iron and steel chains. Under the gardeners tender care, crimson flowers blossom in exposed skin to bring a passing delight before they fade like the cut flowers in other peoples kitchens. The beauty of the garden assured by the gardeners work in the dark brooding shed that sit hidden from view distant from the house and any invited guest. From whose forbidding doors the head gardener calls forth new adornments for the mistresses garden even as the fading blooms are removed from sight. Lest any imperfection mar her pleasure.