A Fairy Lingers in the Garden

Myra Rosebud was now living in my windowsill garden.

I couldn't deny it as a strange dream or a fleeting moment of insanity, because when I woke up on Friday morning, she was still in my garden. She'd woken up a little earlier than I had and was sitting on top of the old man cactus, looking out over the streets below us through the window. I was about to say something when a soft sound reached my ears and made me stop. It was a song, but it was so fragile and precious that I almost couldn't tell it apart from the silence. Myra's voice seemed to dance with the quietness of my apartment, and I felt like I was intruding on something sacred.

So I didn't say anything.

I sat down in the hallway and let myself get lost in the gentle intonations of Myra's surprisingly beautiful voice. The song wasn't in a language I could understand, but every time she moved on to a new part of it, it was like the previous part suddenly made sense. It was a song, I think, about the barren lands that permeated southern Texas. Every verse began with a lament about how green things used to be, in a time long forgotten, before the old sun and the cruel winds came and scorched the ground. I grabbed my phone and pulled out the recording app, then stopped myself. This was too special to record. I would just have to remember it as well as I could. Maybe someday I could ask her to sing it again. 

She stopped singing after a couple minutes, and I forced myself to stand up and go into the kitchen. She turned around and looked at me with a smug expression.

"Finally decided to wake up Guillermo?" 

"One of the perks of making your own schedule." I said with a shrug before opening my refrigerator and pulling out some sausages and leftover beans. I spared a glance back at her and paused for a little bit as she stared at me. "Do you want a taco or something? What do fairies eat?" I asked as I stuck the beans in the microwave and put two of the sausages into my frying pan. 

"Well, we don't need to eat. But we can eat leaves, seeds, and flower petals, plus the occasional really tiny bug that tries to ruin a garden." She said with a grin as she fluttered towards me and peeked over my shoulder. "Does that gross you out?"

"A little bit, yeah." I replied calmly as I watched the meat of sausages begin to ooze a little fat and start to coat the bottom of the pan. "I mean, why not try to eat candy or breadcrumbs or stuff like that? Real food. You're so small that you could probably get away with living in someone's house and occasionally stealing crumbs from them."

Myra crossed her arms and flew so that she was perpendicular to my face and crossed her arms. She looked down at the sausages in the pan and grimaced slightly.

"You say that what I can eat is weird; have you even seen what you've got there?" She pointed her left foot towards the sausages. "Those don't even look like animals anymore! It's just some kind of gross meat-tube."

"Fair point." I said as the sausages finished cooking. I took the pan off the heat and put one of my dish towels underneath it as I set it down on the little table that I had set up in the apartment. Myra hovered next to me and landed on the table as I set the pan down. "Forgot the beans." I said, then quickly ran back to the microwave to get the beans a few seconds before the timer went off. I sighed in relief before bringing them back to the table. I was about to start eating when I noticed something strange.

Myra was staring at me curiously.

"Do you mind not staring at me while I'm eating?" I said awkwardly. "It feels weird."

"Why? Have you got a complex or something?" She said as she sat down, crossed her legs, then put her chin in her hands. 

"No. It makes me feel self-conscious is all." I said, before cutting one of the sausages and biting into it. "I guess I can't stop you though." When I talked, I covered my mouth with my hand to hide the chewing.

"Huh." Myra watched me eat for a little bit longer before standing up and fluttering back to the box garden. I watched her start grabbing little strands of the old man cactus' hair and begin braiding them together. I blew air through my nose and smiled slightly as I finished eating. I put my plates into my sink and looked over to my plants. Myra was still braiding the hairs of the cactus.

"Myra, you said that you came here because my garden is the best one in the area? What did that mean?" I said as I started washing the dishes quickly.

"It meant that out of all the gardens around here, yours had the most care put into it. " She replied, not ceasing her braiding of the cactus. 

"All I did was water it occasionally and check on it twice a day." 

"Yeah!" She said as she climbed on top of the cactus and continued braiding it. "What's so confusing?"

"Isn't that just the bare minimum? Why does that qualify me for being able to see you?"

"You'd be surprised at how many people don't even do that when it comes to plants." The old man cactus was now completely braided and she flew off of it, landing next to it and taking a few moments to admire her work, then smiled. "There's a lot of people around here that have a lot of plants, but they don't take care of all of them. And then there are people that, you know, only have a few plants, and then those plants die." She sighed, shrugged, then shook her head and leaned against the rose. 

"If you say that makes sense. You're the fairy expert here." I finished washing the dishes and dried my hands, then checked my phone. I had a couple jobs ready for today, so I took a few steps toward the front door and bent over to put my boots on.

"You heading out now?" She tilted her head and watched as I checked to see if I had all my necessities. I nodded to her and opened the front door.

"Do you... need anything? I'm going to be out all day anyway."

"No? Thanks though." 

"Right. Uh, see you later." I said as I walked out the front door and started checking all the jobs I had to do that day. There was a landscaping job and another basic piece of plumbing to do. I cracked my knuckles and hopped into my truck.
~~~
I walked into my apartment at around eight in the evening. The window behind my garden was open, and Myra was poking at something in the dirt of the garden with her hand. She was on all fours as she did so and looked a little ridiculous.

"What are you doing?" My boots came off quickly and I walked towards the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

"Getting the earthworms situated in the dirt." She said as she reached one of her arms deep into the soil and put her head on the ground.

"Earthworms?" I raise an eyebrow and take a sip of the water. "Where'd those come from?"

"I brought them in." She replied, turning away from me and reaching down with her other arm. "These guys are going to help your plants get even healthier and prettier. They're free too, so you don't have to buy any of that fancy plant food some humans use." She said with a hint of playful attitude.

"What's with the tone?" I said as I finished the glass of water and walked over to the garden. "I could buy some plant food if I wanted to."

"You could? That would surprise me, considering you don't have an actual job or anything." She stood up and dusted herself off. While she was still covered with dirt, she put her hands on her hips and smiled at me confidently.

"I enjoy what I do and it pays well. I think I've got it better than most people with actual jobs." I lean down and gently pet the newly braided cactus. "Nice work with the cactus by the way." 

"Thanks. I was actually working on it before you got up this morning." 

"Really? I thought you only started when I was making breakfast."

"No, that was just the side facing the interior of the apartment. I did the side that points towards the window before that." She laid down on the dirt in the box and sighed gently. She was so small, and yet I could see her chest rising and falling with each breath she took. "What did you do today?"

"Helped a married couple get a bunch of toys out of the toilet tank. Installed a new dishwasher for an older woman. Helped a bunch of guys dig a ditch. Did some repairs on some solar panels. Pretty busy day overall." I stretched and moved over to the couch, grabbed the television remote, and turned on the television. "Not bad though. I got a decent bit of cash."

"What's the deal with the ditch?" Myra asked as she flew over to the couch and almost landed on it.

"Don't sit on the couch when you're covered in dirt, please." I said quickly, right before she sat down. 

"What? Why not?" She said, quickly hovering in front of my face.

"Because you'll get dirt everywhere, and I'd rather not have to clean up my apartment every day." I raised my eyebrow and looked her in the eyes. 

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty small. No one's going to notice a little patch of dirt." She smiled and backed away with her arms raised and a slow shake of her head. "Plus, it's not like you ever have anyone over."

"You've only been here for a day! You don't know how many people I invite here!" I frowned and spoke defensively, which I realized too late was more revealing than if I had said nothing. As I settled into my spot on the couch, I sighed. "And I don't need to invite people to keep clean. I enjoy having my house be presentable and not covered in dirt."

"What's wrong with earthy tones?"

"Be quiet, this isn't the same thing." I snickered and relaxed a little bit, then stood up and went to the kitchen to grab a towel. Myra rolled over onto her stomach and watched as I came back with a small towel and set it on the armrest of my couch. "If you want to, you can sit on top of the towel."

"I don't want to sit on your dishtowel, that's gross." She replied quickly.

"It's one of the other towels. From the drawer. It's dry." My hand patted the towel a couple times. I turned around and looked back at the television, briefly trying to figure out what I wanted to watch. The next time I turned to look at the armrest, Myra was sitting with her legs crossed on top of the towel. Her body was covered in several patches of dirt, but she didn't seem to mind. Her black hair had some small clumps of mud stuck to it and instinctively I reached towards my hair and scratched at it. She looked up towards me and leaned back on her arms.

"What do you usually watch on television?" 

"Stuff like 'How Does it Work' and home improvement shows. I like detective shows and thrillers too. What about yo-." I rub my forehead in embarrassment. "Sorry, stupid question."

"What's stupid about it?" She said suspiciously.

"Well... I assume fairies don't have television."

"That's a stupid assumption. Assumptions are different from questions, Mr. Guillermo; didn't they teach you anything in your grammar classes?" She sounded a little patronizing when she spoke about my mistaken assumptions.

"Maybe; I was too busy paying attention to the fairies watching TV outside the classroom window." I shot back with a smirk. "So if you do have TV, what's your favorite kind of show?"

"I like dramas. Especially the ones where everyone is betraying everyone else at the same time that they're fighting for custody over the kid and the gang of drug dealers is getting more powerful while a new mayor is being elected." She giggles and puts a hand to her mouth, and her little white butterfly wings flap as she changes her position to be lying down on her stomach with her head propped on top of her crossed arms.

"Telenovelas? Seriously?" I cringed involuntarily.

"That's what they're called? Yeah, those." She actually paid attention to what was on screen. It was an old Mexican cartoon about a young boy who lived in a barrel and played with the other kids who actually had houses. The program showed the young boy telling a story to his friends and accidentally hitting the landlord of the vicinity in the face while he gestured dramatically. "Stuff like this is good too. I like comedies."

"This is a good show for that, yeah. It's older than I am, if you can believe it."

"They had TV back then?" She stuck her tongue out playfully and kept watching.

"Shut up." I shook my head and felt my stomach rumble. Without a word, I walked over to the kitchen and made myself another sandwich. I looked over to Myra who was enjoying the show. Every once in a while she would laugh; when she did, it was like she was a little villainess cackling about her latest scheme to take over the world. It took some effort not to chuckle whenever she laughed. "Do you want anything Myra?"

"I already told you. Fairies don't need to eat."

"Food is amazing though." I said as I put my sandwich on a plate and walked back to the couch. "I think your problem is that you've never had really good food."

"Oh yeah? What is 'good food' according to the single man? Prepackaged steaks? Some expensive fast food?" She sticks out her tongue and gives an exaggerated gag. "Seriously, some of that garbage shouldn't even count as edible. You humans are so weird."

"Single man? You're doing me dirty Myra. I'm a single Hispanic man. Good food to me is grandma's cooking. I'm telling you, when the whole family crowds into the kitchen and goes to put some nice caldo in their bowls... Then they take their seats around the house and everyone's eating and talking at the same time and second helpings blur into third and fourth ones, but nobody really cares because there's enough to go around for today..." I look down at Myra with a contented sigh. "That's good food."

Myra opened her mouth quickly, then stopped. She looked back at the TV and laughed softly. She only spoke after a few minutes of us watching the show together in silence.

"Strictly speaking, that doesn't sound like it's about the food." 

"It never really is."