Death of a Gardener

He was on a mad rampage again, the fourth time in the last 30 minutes. He was just trying to clean the microwave, but nobody told him you were supposed to unplug it before putting it in the sink. These are the kind of things he wish his father had told him years before, although his father had written in bold lettering telling him to to do exactly that.

His name was Gary. His house consisted of several couches, all pushed neatly against each other in a way that you couldn't actually get in them to sit down. He also had a small portion of the corner dedicated to the kitchen, and next to that the bathroom. It wasn't often that he cleaned, mostly because he was too busy working in his lab.

Gary's house

The "lab" was actually a stove pushed into a closet. The stove wasn't even plugged in. A large cloud of moldy dust emerged from the closet as Gary opened it, using some effort as he pushed 46 copies of last June's newspaper out of the way on the floor in front of the closet. The newspaper's headline read "Local Man Receives Recognition for Wearing Jacket". It didn't have anything to do with Gary, but he thought he needed 46 copies for some reason.

Gary was now becoming increasingly angry for some reason. He decided to take a walk through the street, but not before he did a bit of much needed remodeling. His uncle never really taught him any remodeling, but he read up a bit in the library for a few minutes one time. That was back when he was just a boy, and the governor hadn't banned him from all the state buildings yet. The only tool he had was a large wooden mallet (missing the handle, so basically just a heavy chunk of wood) so he threw it through the thin front door, successfully turning it into a satisfying splintery mess. Gary proudly stepped through his newly replaced door, which closely resembled a large smoldering hole in place of the door.

He stepped out into the street. Children ran frantically to their mothers, and the fathers glared at him with the ferocity of several dying feral cats. Gary was used to this. He didn't quite understand the concept of clothing at the time. He much preferred the sensation of warm iguana milk, so he headed towards the morgue, which was a 55 hour stroll to the island paradise of Borgleton.

After many painful lengths of walking on land that shredded the skin off of his bare feet, Gary was glad to wade into the warm ocean water. He had a vague idea of where he was going, as his grandfather passed down a mysterious legend to him while he was on his death bed. The doctor said he was hallucinating from the pain medicine after the brain surgery, but Gary didn't buy into all that rubbish. His grandfather's exact words were "Right at the Moon, left in the floating Borgle Platoon". It might've been the other way around, but that probably wasn't important. He began his long journey.

Gary walks

It didn't last very long though, because Gary thought he saw a man pour some fruit juice into the water, and Gary might have had a severe allergy to fruit juice. He didn't know this for sure, which is why he decided to visit the local clock store to find out. Quite unsurprisingly, he found little more than a broken stopwatch, which was the last piece of merchandise the strange man at the clock store had left. Gary left 3 dimes on the man's desk as payment, because he was sleeping. Gary went to shake the man's hand, as is customary to settle any deal, but the man's arm suspiciously fell off and turned to dust as Gary touched it.

Gary visits the clock store

For some reason Gary wanted to sing. He didn't know any songs. But he knew a man who might. They called him Old Jim. He hadn't seen Old Jim since the big exorcism of 79 incident. He was pretty sure he was dead. But Gary decided that he needed to find Old Jim. He found a large phone-book looking book; it might or might not have been a phone book. Under the "G" section he spotted Old Jim.

Gary finds a phonebook

After a 15 minute ride in his friend Dennis's homemade hang-glider made out of tissue paper and shoe string, Gary finally made it to Old Jim's house. Old Jim was not excited to see Gary. "You're that damn pesterd that wrecked my orange cob!" Gary wasn't very educated in elder slang, but he was pretty sure this was some kind of friendly greeting. It wasn't. Old Jim got out his slingshot and fired a large chunk of decaying matter at Gary. Gary didn't even have time to scream before he hit the ground and died instantly. It was about 4 hours of loud screaming later that Gary finally took his final breath.

Gary will never forget how Old Jim betrayed him. Also he remembered about the time his great Uncle Ragtie threw a big hunk of slime at him when he was a boy. It is for these reasons that Gary now roams the lands of Ghumada as a disembodied entity, spending his days stealing barbeque and strike anywhere matches.

Gary the Ghost