As the wind picks up the leaves at mid-fall, the sun casts a ray which bounces off a leaf. This creates a golden leaf, an occurrence that has never happened before in the small town of Oakland Grey. Oakland Grey is one of many towns to have a cornucopia of houses that spread from various spaces and heights. When you enter Oakland Grey, you will see that this 1950’s town has a bright sign which reads, “Oakland Grey: Founded in 19. Population: 6,300.” Beyond the sign lies a neighborhood where a dog barks on a front stoop next to a bright red door. When the little stumpy black and white dog sees its owner, he barks louder and louder. The dog has a silver collar which is engraved with the word “Buster.”
The door swings open and a woman with long blonde hair strides towards the kitchen as she talks. “Hey honey, I got a rose for the garden,” says Penny.
John never responds and he is focused on his work.
Penny replies to herself, “Alright, then.” As she places down the rose and admires it, she calls out to John. “I can make you something?” Penny has always tried to make John happy, but she never seems able to do it.
“YES, you should make me something,” John exclaims sarcastically. He presses his hands against his head in frustration.
“Alright dear, I won-”
“Can’t you see I’m busy!"
“I’m sorry dear, I’m try-”
“Play with your plants, Penn!” He insists.
Penny responds, “Yes, darling,” but she thinks to herself, “How did my life get to this?”
She treats her garden with a fresh hose down of water, carefully watering one plant and the others with the precise amount needed. Then she fills a water can with the same water hose, tearing off the paper on the rose container and placing it ever so gently into the garden. She sits down and slowly pours the water on the rose. Then she starts singing to her plants a random tune, “My little darlings, go to sleep, and you will feel complete. My little darlings, grow from bottom to top and one day you will blossom.” After her gardening session, she goes inside to prep the dinner for that night.
While prepping dinner, Penny goes outside to pick out some freshly red tomatoes. Her eyes widen in disbelief, and she screams.
“What?” asks John in an annoyed tone.
In return she says, “Nothing, darling.” She brushes the trim of her white skirt with her hands. The garden has been ripped to shreds and only splotches of holes remain. There were no green herbs in sight, and the roots were all violently pulled out. In a complete state of awe, she decides to fix the current state of her garden by patching to filling the holes and then watering the entire garden. All while the thoughts in her head are screaming and repeating, “Oh, my! Oh, my!”
She takes a deep breath and storms into the house where John is dozing in the living room lounge chair. She stutters, “Di… Di…”
John looks up and raises his eyebrows in frustration, “What!”
“Did you rip up my garden?”
“Maybe, I did… Or maybe I did not.”
In a mood of frustration, Penny screams, “Answer Me!”
John jolts up and pins her to the wall with his bare hands digging into her neck. “STOP,” John demands. He tilts her head back so that it hits the wall behind her. With his loud firm voice echoing in Penny’s ears, “If you ever… scream like that again.” John catches and clears his breath, “we are going… to have… a problem!”
In a distant panic, she croaked “Al-right.”
He then turns around and swiftly leaves while dropping her to the floor. Her body slumps to the ground with her legs all sprawled about. As her head jerk down, she moans.
After a long hot bath and a nice cup of brew, Penny comes to John’s lounge chair. She apologizes, “I’m sorry, my darling.” Once again, she wants to please John and have a better marriage, but no matter what she did, it always seems to get worse. John sat there unimpressed and tired. In the brief silence, Penny asked John “Where’s Buster?”
“I told you to take him for a walk,” John replied, in an unsatisfied tone.
As she shrugs her shoulders, Penny goes off to find Buster as night approaches. All the while John reads a magazine with a smoking pipe in the same burgundy lounge chair. Penny slowly heads towards the front to look for the dog. She calls out, “Buster!” She is surprised when he is not in his usual place by the red door on the porch. She hears a humming noise coming from the back yard. She decides to investigate only to discover it is the generator. Penny sees some movement in the near the bushes. That has got to be Buster! “Get out here!” she whispers. Pushing the bushes, she is startled by a squirrel. She jumps back on the ground and notices a muddy paw print. She follows the trail of prints leading to the road and carefully observes the street and its surroundings. Suddenly she grows worried, and her body begins to shake in fear. “Where could he have gone? I hope he is alright. I better go tell John that Buster is missing.”
John is snoring as loud as a hog when Penny forcefully pushes the front door and wails, “JOHN! JOHN! Buster is missing!”
John angrily hops out of his chair and says, “Woman! Jesus Christ! You can’t take care of a simple dog. I'm so glad we do not have children!” He shoves her out of the way with his shoulder, “I’m going to Hilbert’s Tavern for a beer!”
It was two in the morning, and the car lights illuminate the night sky. It was almost dawn, and John stopped to a halt when he felt a thump under his tire. He sluggishly opened the door, steps out of the vehicle and hunches down to see the mutilated animal, “Roadkill, huh” sighed John. As he stood back up, he saw something shimmering by the curb. Out of curiosity, he went over to see what it is. In his hand, he held a dog tag with the word Buster engraved on it. “Good. He was a no-good dog anyways. I never liked him.”
When John arrives back at home, he straggles his way out of the car and heads towards the front door. He stumbles to find the house keys. After he enters, he swiftly turns around and closes the door with a slam. He moves his staggering body up the stairs while tripping and falling on some of the steps.
In a worry, Penny calls out, “Honey, are you home?”
Without saying a word John peers into the room where Penny is standing there shaking nervously. Penny asks nervously,
“Where have you been all night?”
“I don’t have to tell you where I’ve been. You’re not my mother. You will never be a mother.” In his drunken rage he forcefully shoves her to the ground. He slurs his speech saying something that sounds like, “I can’t believe that little shit died.”
“Buster?” she cries.
“Who do you think?” John mumbles.
She gets up from the hard wooden floor and bursts into the closet bawling. From the other side John can hear her echoing cries. He locks her in the closet to make the crying stop. She holds her soft hands on her eyes as she cries, as she sits on the ground clasping her hands around her knees while repeatedly wiping the tears from her eyes. Her voice quivers as she softly wails, “Buster, my baby, Buster.”
John kicks off his shoes, as he is about to pass out on the bed. He feels an angry breeze coming in from the window. As he starts to yawn, he feels something sharp piercing the skin on his ankle. Unexpectedly, he is pulled to the ground by a force unbeknownst to him. His head is pushed to the ground, and his body is jerked up and down, until he is unconscious. On the last motion, he is tossed under the bed. While the sounds of cries continue to echo in the closet, haunting sounds of flesh being devoured and the snapping of bones fill the cool damp air.
Meanwhile, Penny falls asleep on the laundry pile and is woken up by the sun’s golden rays. She is surprised to see the closet door open. She squints her eyes as the sun is so bright that she cannot make out the small shadow on the floor. A trail of rose petals leads toward the light. When her eyes come into focus, she sees a beautiful baby girl on the floor. As she heads towards the baby, she passes John’s shoes and does not look back at them. Instead, she is consumed by this miraculous creature.
“Hi, little darling,” she says.
The baby starts to whimper.
“Hush, Hush, I’ll take care of you.” She stares into the baby’s brown eyes and says, “I’ll call you… Rose.” She puts the baby on her chest with hands clasping her tiny back. In a daze of happiness, she starts singing a familiar tune, “My little darling go to sleep, and you will feel complete. My little darling grows from bottom to top…” As a reflection of a golden leaf is cast on the baby’s brown eyes, she ends the song with … “and one day you will blossom.”