‘The “garden” was a patch of overgrown jungle. Seeing it for the first time Nayra felt as though inside a camouflage print. On her first day in from the city she laughed when they handed her gloves, rubber boots and a hat.
Did she want bug spray?
She never went anywhere bugs were so she didn’t know what to answer. It wasn’t long before she realized that yes, she did want bug spray. She also want out of that humid mess of a garden. She never knew how much work it must take for all the museums and churches in the city to keep their gardens growing. Never before had she held a saw in her hands to cut down four inch thick trees.
Once during that first day she thought about turning the saw on herself, but her thoughts disappeared when she was commanded to move away from another falling seedling. Her body reacted too slowly and she got bonked on the head. Strangely enough by the third day she liked the anonymity she felt when she walked into the mess. Her camouflage hid her sunken eyes and black circles, the hot, sweaty work helped her forget she would rather be smoking a joint or drinking whiskey with her coffee. Her muscles aches, but the fog was clearing from her head. Even when the bell rang she continued to saw away at the seedlings by the tenth day. When two weeks had passed by she realized her area was completely cleared of seedlings and ready for pretty flowers.
And her head was clear of the fog.
It was while Nayra nursed her callouses on the sixteenth evening the realized an entire day and gone by without her wanting a substance in her body. It was the first day in a decade she hadn’t been consumed with thoughts of where to get s fix, if she should get a fix, how to avoid a fix, or finding a place to get a fix. Little by little her very being was appearing from the camouflage and for the first time in her life she saw hope of becoming something more than just an addict. She saw hope of becoming a woman created for something “more”.’