15 points
Become the Author by Jamila
January 30th, 2007 2:54 PM
No One Said it Had to Be a Good
The body stayed hidden for 78 days under Mrs. Frost’s inadequate compost pile. Masked by banana peels and grass clippings, the contents of the pile was unknown by any on looker peering through the four-foot chain link fence several feet away. With the exception of the compost pile, the yard was manicured: short green grass, cherry blossoms, and rock garden. For 78 days no one had considered the possibility that Gavin Cross died. In those 78 days the world went on as it normally does. The sun rose. Children played with red rubber balls in the schoolyard across from the Frosts’ home. The busses queued and the rain poured from the sky. Garbage trucks hummed on Monday mornings, and the elderly continued to walk slowly in crosswalks much to the dismay of impatient drivers. There are people who, to this very day, are unsure how to live in a world without Gavin Cross: it is unfortunate that they cannot just relive those 78 days when he was gone but no one seemed to notice.
Complications began the day Mr. Frost learned that compost happens to be the final product of a complex organism buffet. While watching television in a burgundy robe and absurd yellow sweat pants, Mr. Frost heard that composting took more than throwing half the garbage into a pile in the back of his yard — an idea that he thought was a blight on his manly yard — but was actually a feeding pattern involving hundreds of different bacteria, fungi, worms, and insects. According to the Sunday morning plant expert on the local news, there was actually some work that needed to be done achieving some sort of balance. Work that his wife had certainly not done.
Mr. Frost was a plump man. With age, little skin pillows had begun to form under his beady dark eyes. His mouth drooped and his skin was a worn ash color. His hands were the hands of a man closer to his death than his birth, but Mr. Frost was certainly not yet too old to work, and certainly not to old to maintain his yard. Since the invent of the Internet he had taken to cheating on the New York Times Crossword puzzle and seldom read the paper in any form but online. He spent his time at home being civil to his wife. But he knew he married the wrong woman — she was not put on this earth for him. She was not his Eve, and some days he felt overwhelmed by the thought that she was supposed to belong to someone else.
That morning, following the advice of the television gardener, Mr. Frost took the initiative to check on the heap of leftovers that his wife had been throwing into the grass clipping in the corner of their yard. After putting on some pants that were not yellow, Mr. Frost first poked at the pile a bit. Let out some thoughtfully placed sighs and went inside to tell his wife that she had just not created the compost pile correctly. It was time to give up on this liberal crusade to save the environment one apple core at a time. Mrs. Frost, however, was in the shower and his words were drowned out by the running water. He considered that removing the pile might be easier if she were to see that he had already begun the process. He returned to yard and began to scope the compost pile and relocate it to a blue tarp that he planned to drag across to the recently abandoned house down the street. The owners were nincompoops, he thought, as he began to shovel the rank smelling material. They deserved the remains of the failed compost pile on their property. But after only a few minutes of wedging the rusty shovel into the pile and transporting the waste, Mr. Frost saw a toe. Not just any toe — but the toe of artist Gavin Cross. The toe of Gavin Cross was, as one would suspect, attached to the foot of Gavin Cross and the leg, and thigh and so on. In his compost pile Mr. Frost had found a prominent artist dead, and after vomiting on his shoes Mr. Frost was going to get fifteen minutes of fame.
The body stayed hidden for 78 days under Mrs. Frost’s inadequate compost pile. Masked by banana peels and grass clippings, the contents of the pile was unknown by any on looker peering through the four-foot chain link fence several feet away. With the exception of the compost pile, the yard was manicured: short green grass, cherry blossoms, and rock garden. For 78 days no one had considered the possibility that Gavin Cross died. In those 78 days the world went on as it normally does. The sun rose. Children played with red rubber balls in the schoolyard across from the Frosts’ home. The busses queued and the rain poured from the sky. Garbage trucks hummed on Monday mornings, and the elderly continued to walk slowly in crosswalks much to the dismay of impatient drivers. There are people who, to this very day, are unsure how to live in a world without Gavin Cross: it is unfortunate that they cannot just relive those 78 days when he was gone but no one seemed to notice.
Complications began the day Mr. Frost learned that compost happens to be the final product of a complex organism buffet. While watching television in a burgundy robe and absurd yellow sweat pants, Mr. Frost heard that composting took more than throwing half the garbage into a pile in the back of his yard — an idea that he thought was a blight on his manly yard — but was actually a feeding pattern involving hundreds of different bacteria, fungi, worms, and insects. According to the Sunday morning plant expert on the local news, there was actually some work that needed to be done achieving some sort of balance. Work that his wife had certainly not done.
Mr. Frost was a plump man. With age, little skin pillows had begun to form under his beady dark eyes. His mouth drooped and his skin was a worn ash color. His hands were the hands of a man closer to his death than his birth, but Mr. Frost was certainly not yet too old to work, and certainly not to old to maintain his yard. Since the invent of the Internet he had taken to cheating on the New York Times Crossword puzzle and seldom read the paper in any form but online. He spent his time at home being civil to his wife. But he knew he married the wrong woman — she was not put on this earth for him. She was not his Eve, and some days he felt overwhelmed by the thought that she was supposed to belong to someone else.
That morning, following the advice of the television gardener, Mr. Frost took the initiative to check on the heap of leftovers that his wife had been throwing into the grass clipping in the corner of their yard. After putting on some pants that were not yellow, Mr. Frost first poked at the pile a bit. Let out some thoughtfully placed sighs and went inside to tell his wife that she had just not created the compost pile correctly. It was time to give up on this liberal crusade to save the environment one apple core at a time. Mrs. Frost, however, was in the shower and his words were drowned out by the running water. He considered that removing the pile might be easier if she were to see that he had already begun the process. He returned to yard and began to scope the compost pile and relocate it to a blue tarp that he planned to drag across to the recently abandoned house down the street. The owners were nincompoops, he thought, as he began to shovel the rank smelling material. They deserved the remains of the failed compost pile on their property. But after only a few minutes of wedging the rusty shovel into the pile and transporting the waste, Mr. Frost saw a toe. Not just any toe — but the toe of artist Gavin Cross. The toe of Gavin Cross was, as one would suspect, attached to the foot of Gavin Cross and the leg, and thigh and so on. In his compost pile Mr. Frost had found a prominent artist dead, and after vomiting on his shoes Mr. Frost was going to get fifteen minutes of fame.
