By David Malcolm Rose
Do you remember that house your parents told you not to trick-or-treat at? Well, in my neighborhood, that’s my house.
I’ve been here quite some time now and, although they put up some resistance at first, my neighbors are now nicely broken in. They no longer give me side-eyes when I leave my garbage can out by the curb for days after the garbage truck’s arrival becomes less a memory and more an anticipation. I recently noticed that a few people on the block are following suit.
As for my hedges, the few that haven’t given up the ghost go untrimmed. Vines creep up the bricks and intertwine in the soffit vents. When it grows so dim inside my house during daylight hours that I have to turn on a light in order to read, I go out and pull some of the creepers down from the window screens.
As for mowing my lawn, the people on either side of me lap me several times during the season. If they ask, I tell them I’m leaving it long for the pollinators. I use a similar excuse for not raking my leaves.
One neighbor came over and asked me about my habit of leaving last year’s Halloween pumpkin on the front porch rotting down on top of the pumpkin from the year before, and the year before, and so forth.
“It’s pumpkins all the way down,” I told her and launched into a lengthy oration about the significance of turtles in Hindu mythology and the theory of infinite regression. She broke off eye contact, backed slowly away, and retreated across the road.
David Rose is an author and artist. His artwork can be found at Collective Arts Gallery, upstairs at 620 Central, in downtown Hot Springs.
