CHAPTER 1 I fear that I was hiding in my own basement for the duration of the war and cannot think more about my fallen comrades dying. So I have undertaken this journey away with my many worded fiction stories in hand that I wrote inspired by the glutaneous treachery of the enemy I heard feasting above at my table for many years. Would you be ever so kind mister Gardener to tell no one of these papers and thanks ever so much for the tidbits and scraps to eat all these years. The war seems to draw on. I and my loyal dog must simply leave along the path onto the seas edge and make my way north. If anyone should see my back, tell them I was a salesman trying to sell you hand trowels. But you hurried me along because they were rusty and rubbish. And pray tell not a single soul, I was here for three long years listening to Germans grunt and belch at my sumptous dinings above.. Should the publishing house accept my manuscripts and me watching them bind and count pages, I will get word back to you that I am coming home to reappoint my estate with wealth and live in the style with which I have so previously richly deserved. Of course, that is subject to repulsing these invasers. If they should win and you find it necessary to increase you knowledge of the German language, be it so. I will still for the hope of your loyal sight once again, slip word to you from America and let you know my whereabouts. This will give you a destination to travel once you slip from the tryrannical grasp of our oppressors. Travel light like I am now with a sachel and don the clothes of travel. Such as the fine wool tweed heavy coat and flop hat I have on. Make your way along the oceans edge until you find a fisherman who will take you across the channel as I plan to do. Be wary of the gun emplacements along the sea cliffs edge with observers watching the channel. Should their field glasses glance down out of boredom and deference to the sea, you will be spotted. If the false authorities should accost you, just tell them you have strayed from your kind German masters service after finding a bottle of peppermint schapps and drinking it. Add that apparently that the German spirits you appropiated were more than you could handle and you fancied yourself a child on the beach collecting seashells. Ask them if they would kindly direct you back to the Antwerp Ant Farm of some such nonsense, tell them that in your muzzy state now you have vague recollections of growing cabbage for sauerkraut. Tell them you think you were walking in the right direction. Maybe if luck prevails they will let your almost lost soul wander on its way. If not, don't despair. Endure what beatings they may have in store for you being a drunken gardener and be glad you can again resume the duties of gardener. Again farewell, and bid me luck for I take the steps of a dull witted sot myself down this lonely rain beaten shore with the same plan in mind. The difference being I have no home and these rusty garden implements in my sachel were only a way to live by until I sell my stories. That is why I have written them as fiction inspired by the ghoulish tales of mayhem spouted off by our loud raucous guests. There be nothing so terrible as to have to live under your own house because the finer floors have been inhabited by parasites. Thank you my Gardener for your help in hiding me in this basement all these years. Keep those plants growing and the basements windows clean. It is very green in here, but I have to stroll into the sun now and live a different life. Good bye. You may do with my bedding in the tool shed in the corner as you like. by Honor Seed
