Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

In the Beginning

In the beginning there were birds. Small birds; "cheep-cheep" birds. Nameless, faceless little birds that came in small gypsy groups. Then came the blackbirds and magpies and wood pigeons. Then came the rooks and crows. (And the seagulls, but we'll pretend like they don't exist since they always crash and ruin the party. AND THAT'S WHY, FOLKS, THERE ARE TWO SEPARATE BIRD MALLS - THE SEAGULL MALL, AND THE NON-SEAGULL MALL WHOSE PATRONS HOPE, WISH AND PRAY THAT SEAGULLS VISITING THE NON-SEAGULL MALL ARE NOT //REAL// SEAGULLS, BUT ED-YOU-MAH-CATED SEAGULLS WHO ARE TURNING THEIR BACK ON THEIR PARTICULAR BIRD SPECIES TO EMBRACE THE CULTURE AND LIFESTYLE OF THEIR FORMER BIRD OPPRESSORS.)

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Slugs and snails arrived and decimated my container vegetable garden. And when I say "slugs and snails" I mean GIANT RADIO-FUCKING-ACTIVE MONSTERS FROM A FORGOTTEN HELL DIMENSION IN SPACE INTENT ON TAKING OVER THE WORLD STARTING WITH MY DWARF EGGPLANTS. (You may think I'm exaggerating for the LULZ but, truly, honestly, I am not. In the slightest. The size of these fuckers would make you think twice about eating escargot; it's completely unnatural and not of God.) And so I lamented, and I despaired, and I wailed and keened like an honorary banshee as my potted garden slowly crumbled to ruin, one slimy, hole-infested leaf at a time.

On Chippy's first "birthday" with us he was collared (it wasn't a ritual of ownership as much as it was a promise to love and take care of him; that he now had an "owner" and a home and I was prepared to undertake the responsibility of helping turn the wild, junkyard dog into a member of our family) and we presented him with a leash and a set of stainless steel dog bowls engraved with his better known name. ("Pazuzu" - you've seen the Exorcist, right?) Chippy was treated like any other member of our spiritual menagerie but also as the family dog, which meant he always had a fresh bowl of water out, and his offerings'n'treats were placed in his food bowl.

Chippy's method of incorporation came through a keen interest to be involved in whatever we were doing. When planting time came around and I began Papa's chilli peppers Chippy was at my heels requesting responsibility over his own personal slice of vegetation. (I KNOW, I KNOW - LOLOLOLOLOL DEMON OF PLAGUE AND FAMINE WANTS TO GARDEN!) I had visions of locusts swarming over already slimy, hole-infested leaves thanks to our resident slugs and snails and the mental image did, for real serious, make me internally wince. But, BUT! But I placated him and told him he could have the cherry tomatoes and carrots, but he was responsible for their well-being.

Gastropods fear nothing - even ancient demons of plagues, famines and almost all means of a very uncomfortable death. In time Chippy joined the honorary banshee movement and was howling with me as death personified crawled through our bucket garden and left its slimy trail of destruction in its wake. Despite gardening and vegetable growing not being his forte I officially enlisted his help to combat the infestation. (And when I mean "enlisted his help" I mean "got some Burger King and threw it in his food dish outside and explained to him that snails and slugs were V. V. V. bad and he had to get rid of them because they were killing our plants".)

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Not long after we began hearing strange noises outside. Alien, not-of-this-world noises. Noises that convinced me, 100%, that we were being visited by a monster and it was very, very important that I never, ever let the monster know that I was aware of its recurring presence. The heavy, stainless steel dishes got pushed around on the concrete slabs of the patio. (A CAT DOESN'T DO THAT SHIT.) Weird grunting and heavy breathing and loud, pig-like eating sounds emanated from beneath our window - OUR OPEN WINDOW - in the middle of the night and I'd lie in bed, petrified, breathing shallowly until the slithering, wet sounds scuttled further and further away.

A strange but not-so-strange thing happened (STRANGE BECAUSE I COULDNAE FIGURE OUT THE SOURCE, BUT NOT-SO-STRANGE BECAUSE I DID ASK FOR SOME SORT OF INTERVENTION SO I WASN'T SURPRISED THAT SOMETHING WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING) - the gastropod population suffered an apocalyptic decline. The multitude of intersecting, gossamer trails disappeared. Like the ocean's tide the glistening sea of vegetative death withdrew, and suddenly you could actually walk across the patio at night without invertebrates exploding beneath your bare feet.

So there was an unseen, but definitely heard, monster roaming our small subdivision garden in the middle of the night eradicating our snail and slug problem. And we lived with this phantom monster, sacrificing the night to its devilish deeds while keeping our eyes turned away so we never had to witness the unspeakable horror that moved, thrived and killed in the darkness. It was a silent, unspoken pact made with the Devil. It was a grotesque monstrosity created out of the very worst of man's heart. It was...well, it was a hedgehog, actually. Multiple hedgehogs, in fact, that would get rowdy as fuck and bang on Chippy's empty, stainless steel food bowl, moving it around the patio in the hopes that, somehow, it'd magically fill with MORE FOOD.

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Chippy, rather than fighting fire-with-fire, enlisted the help of nature's indigenous gastropod killer - the hedgehog. (OH, THAT CHIPPY. HE ALWAYS GOES FOR THE CUTE, THE SOFTIE.) Within weeks the heaving, plant-destroying population plummeted, and we had very happy, very well fed nightly visitors who came for the treats in Chippy's bowl but stayed for the slime coated angels of death. And, in time, Italics and I were able to pick up our little prickly visitors and take them indoors, briefly, to pull out any tics or fly larvae with tweezers, check for wounds and give them a very quick bath in the bathroom sink before releasing them into the wild.

Once the hedgehogs came they brought Scotland's wildlife with them. The "cheep-cheep" birds turned into blackbirds, magpies and wood pigeons and the blackbirds, magpies and wood pigeons turned into rooks and crows and then the rooks and crows turned into field mice and hedgehogs and bats and the field mice and hedgehogs and bats turned into neighborhood cats and a pair of foxes that very nearly ate out of my hand and the neighborhood cats and a pair of foxes that very nearly ate out of my hand turned into deer.

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And to think that it all started with just a simple set of stainless steel dog dishes given out of love to something that desperately wanted to come in from the cold and bask in the warmth of belonging.

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