Mind Webs - Garden Of Time

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Welcome to a half hour of mind ways.

Short stories from the worlds of speculative fiction.

The story comes from the 12th series of the best from fantasy and science fiction edited by Avram Davidson.

The story's title is The Garden of Time by J.G. Ballard.

Toward evening when a great shadow of the palletian villa filled the terrace,

Count Axle left his library and walked down the wide Rococo steps among the time flowers.

A tall and various figure in a black velvet jacket.

A gold type in, glinting blow, his George V beard, cane held stiffly in a white gloved hand.

The Count surveyed the exquisite crystal flowers without emotion.

Listening to the sounds of his wife's harpsichord, as she played a Mozart rondo in the music room,

it echoed and vibrated through the translucent petals.

The Garden of the villa extended for some 200 yards below the terrace,

sloping down to a miniature lake, spanned by a white bridge, a flounder chivalian on the opposite bank.

Axle rarely ventured as far as the lake.

Most of the time flowers grew in a small grove just below the terrace,

sheltered by a high wall which encircled the estate.

From the terrace he could see over the wall to the plain beyond.

A continuous expanse of open ground that rolled in great swells to the horizon,

where it rose slightly before finally dipping from sight.

The plains surrounded the house on all sides its drab, emptiness emphasizing the seclusion

and mellowed magnificence of the villa.

Here in the Garden the air seemed brighter, the sun warmer,

while the plain was always dull and remote.

As was his custom before beginning his regular evening stroll,

Count Axle looked out across the plain to the final rise,

where the horizon was illuminated like a distant stage by the fading sun.

As the Mozart chime delicately around him flowing from his wife's graceful hands,

he saw that the advanced columns of an enormous army were moving slowly over the horizon.

At first glance the long ranks seemed to be progressing in orderly lines,

but on closer inspection it was apparent that likely obscured detail of a Goya landscape.

The army was composed of a vast confused, strong people,

men and women interspersed with a few soldiers in ragged uniforms,

pressing forward in a disorganized tide.

Some labored under heavy loads suspended from crude yokes around their necks,

others struggled with cumbersome wooden carts,

their hands wrenching at the wheel spokes, a few trudged on along,

but all moved on at the same pace, bowed back, illuminated in the fleeting sun.

The advancing drawing was almost too far away to be visible,

but even as Axle watched his expression aloof yet observant,

it came perceptibly nearer.

The handguard of an immense rabble appearing from below the horizon.

At last, as the daylight began to fade,

the front edge of the throng reached the crest of the first swell below the horizon,

and Axle turned from the terrace and walked down among the time flowers.

The flowers grew to a height of about six feet,

and the slender stems like rods of glass bearing a dozen leaves,

the once transparent fronds frosted by the fossilized veins.

At the peak of each stem was the time flower.

The size of a goblet, the opaque outer petals and closing the crystal heart.

Their diamond brilliance contained a thousand faces,

the crystal seeming to drain the air of its light and motion.

Of course, weighed slightly in the evening air they glowed like flame-tipped spears.

Many of the stems no longer bore flowers,

and Axle examined them all carefully.

A note of hope now and then crossing his mind as he searched for any further buds.

Finally, he selected a large flower on the stem nearest the wall,

and with his strong fingers snapped it off.

As he carried the flower back into the terrace,

it began to sparkle and eloquess,

the light crapped within the core at last released.

Gradually the crystal dissolved,

only the outer petals remaining intact,

and the air around Axle became bright and vivid,

charged with slighting rays that flared away into the waning sunlight.

Strange shifts momentarily transformed the evening,

subtly altering its dimensions of time and space.

The darkened particle of the house, its patina of age, stripped away,

loomed with a curious spectral whiteness,

as if suddenly remembered in a dream.

Raising his head, Axle peered over the wall again.

Only the furthest rim of the horizon was let by the sun,

and the great throng which before had stretched almost a quarter of the way across the plane,

had now receded to the horizon.

The entire concourse abruptly flung back in a reversal of time,

now appearing to be stationary.

The flower in Axle's hand had shrunk to the size of a glass thimble,

the petals contracting around the vanishing core.

A faint sparkle flickered from the center and extinguished itself,

and Axle felt the flower melt like an ice cold bead of dew in his hand.

Dusk closed across the house,

sweeping its long shadows over the plane,

the horizon merging into the sky.

The harpsichord was silent,

and the time flowers no longer reflecting its music,

stood motionlessly like an embombed forest.

For a few minutes, Axle looked down at them counting the flowers which remained,

then greeted his wife as she crossed the terrace,

her brocade evening dress rustling over the ornamental tiles.

What a beautiful evening, Axle!

She spoke frequently,

as if she were thanking her husband,

personally, for the great ornate shadow across the lawn,

and the dark, brilliant air.

Her face was serene and intelligent.

Her hair swept back behind her head into a jeweled clasp touched with silver.

She wore her dress low across her breasts,

revealing a long slender neck and high chin.

Axle's surveyed her with fond pride,

he gave her his arm,

and together they walked down the steps into the garden.

One of the longest evening's this summer.

I picked the perfect flower, my dear, at a jewel,

with luck it should last us for several days.

A frown touched his brow,

and he glanced involuntarily at the wall.

Each time now they seem to come nearer.

His wife smiled at him encouragingly and held his arm more tightly.

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Both of them knew that the garden was dying.

Three evenings later, as he had estimated,

though sooner than he secretly hoped.

Count Axle plucked another flower from the time garden.

When he first looked over the wall,

the approaching rabble filled the distant half of the plane,

stretching across the horizon in an unbroken mass.

He thought he could hear the low, fragmentary sounds

of voices carried across the empty air.

A sullen murmur punctuated by cries and shots.

But quickly, he told himself that he had imagined them.

Luckily, his wife was at her harpsichord,

and the rich, contrapuntal patterns of a Bach feud

cascaded lightly across the terrace, masking the other noises.

Between the house and the horizon,

the plane was divided into four huge swells.

The crest of each one clearly visible in the slanting light.

Axle had promised himself that he would never count them,

but the number was too small to remain unobserved.

Particularly when it so obviously marked the progress

of the advancing army.

By now, the forward line had passed the first crest,

and was well on its way to the second.

The main bulk of the throng pressed behind it,

hiding the crest, and even vaster concourse

spreading from the horizon.

Then to left and right of the central body.

Axle could see the apparently limitless extents of the army.

What had seemed at first to be the central mass

was no more than a minor advance guard.

One of many similar arms reaching across the plane.

The true center had not yet emerged,

but from the rate of extension, Axle estimated that when it finally reached the plane,

it would completely cover every foot of ground.

Axle searched for any large vehicles or machines,

but all was amorphous and uncoordinated as ever.

There were no banners, no flags, no mascots, or pike bearers.

Heads bowed, the multitude pressed a hum, unaware of the sky.

Suddenly, just before Axle turned away,

the forward edge of the throng appeared on top of the second crest,

which warmed down across the plane.

What astounded Axle was the incredible distance

that had covered while out of sight.

The figures were now twice the size, each one clearly within sight.

Quickly, Axle stepped from the terrace,

selected a time flower from the garden, and tore it from the stem.

As it released its compacted light, he returned to the terrace.

When the flower had shrunk to a frozen pearl in his palm,

he looked out at the plane with relief,

saw that the army had retreated to the horizon again.

Then he realized that the horizon was much nearer than previously,

and that what he assumed to be the horizon was the first crest.

When he joined the Countess on the evening walk,

he told her nothing of what had gone before,

but she could see behind his casual unconcerned

and did what she could do to spell his worry.

Walking down the steps, the Countess pointed to the time garden.

What a wonderful display, Axle.

There are so many flowers still.

Axle nodded, smiling to himself at his wife's attempt to reassure him,

her use of still had revealed her own unconscious anticipation of the end.

In fact, a mere dozen flowers remained of the many hundred that had grown in the garden,

and several of these were little more than buds,

only three or four were fully grown.

As they walked down to the lake,

the Countess's dress rustling across the cool turf.

He tried to decide whether to pick the larger flowers first

or leave them to the end.

Strictly, it would be better to give the smaller flowers additional time to grow and mature,

and this advantage would be lost if he retained the larger flowers to the end

as he wished to do for the final reports.

However, he realized that it mattered little either way.

The garden would soon die,

and the smaller flowers required far longer than he could give them to accumulate their compressed cores of time.

During his entire lifetime, he had failed to notice a single evidence of growth among the flowers.

A larger bloom had always been the tour,

and none of the buds had shown the slightest development.

Crossing the lake, he and his wife looked down at their reflections in the still black water.

Shielded by the pavilion on one side in the high garden wall on the other,

the villain the distance,

Axel felt composed and secure,

the plane with its encroaching multitude and nightmare from which he had safely awakened.

He put one arm around his wife's smooth waist

and pressed her affectionately to his shoulder,

realizing that he had not embraced her for several years,

though their lives together had been timeless,

and he could remember as if yesterday when he first brought her to live in the villa.

Axel, before the garden dies,

may I pick the last flower?

Understanding her request, the count nodded slowly.

One by one over the succeeding evenings,

the count picked the remaining flowers,

leaving a single small bud which grew just below the terrace for his wife.

He took the flowers at random refusing to count or ration them,

plucking two or three of the smaller buds at the same time when necessary.

The approaching horde had now reached the second and third crests,

a vast concourse of laboring humanity that blotted out the horizon.

From the terrace, Axel could see clearly the shuffling, straining ranks moving down

into the hollow towards the final crests,

and occasionally the sounds of their voices carried across to him,

interspersed with cries of anger and the cracking of whips.

The wooden carts lurched from side to side until he wheeled their drivers

struggling to control them.

As far as Axel could tell,

not a single member of the throng was aware of its overall direction.

Rather, each one blindly moved forward across the ground,

directly below the heels of the person in front of him.

The only unity was that of the cumulative compass.

Pointlessly, Axel hoped that the true center,

far below the horizon,

might be moving in a different direction,

and that gradually the multitude would alter course,

swing away from the villa,

and receive from the plane like a turning tide.

On the last evening but one,

as he plucked the time flower,

the forward edge of the rabble had reached the third crest,

and was forming past it.

While he waited for the countess,

Axel looked down at the two flowers left,

both small buds which would carry them back

through only a few minutes of the next evening.

The class stems of the dead flowers

reared up stiffly into the air,

but the whole garden had lost its bloom.

Axel passed the next morning,

quietly, in his library,

sealing the rarer of his manuscripts

into the glassed top cases between the galleries.

He walked slowly down the portrait corridor,

polishing each of the pictures carefully,

then tidy his desk and locked the door behind him.

During the afternoon,

he busied himself in the drawer

on a trussively assisting his wife,

as she cleaned their ornaments

and straightened the faces and busts.

Wife, named as the Sun, fell behind the house.

They were both tired and dusty,

and neither had spoken to the other all day.

When his wife moved toward the music room,

Axel called her back.

Tonight, we'll pick the flowers together, my dear.

One for each of us.

He appeared only briefly over the wall.

They could hear less than half a mile away,

the great dull roar of the ragged army,

the ring of iron and blush,

pressing on towards the house.

Quickly, Axel plucked his flower,

a bud no bigger than a sapphire.

As it flickered softly,

the two malt outside momentarily received it,

and then began to gather again.

Shutting his ears to the clamor,

Axel looked around at the villa,

counting the six columns in the cortical,

then gazed out across the lawn

at the silver disc of the lake,

its bowl reflecting the last evening light,

and at the shadows moving between the tall trees,

lengthening across the crisp turf.

He lingered over the bridge,

where he and his wife had stood arm and arm

for so many summers.

Axel!

The two malt outside roared into the air,

a thousand voices bellowed on late 20 or 30 yards away.

A stone flew over the wall

and landed among the time flowers,

snapping several of the brittle stands.

Accountess ran towards him

as a fritter barrage rattled along the wall,

then a heavy tile,

whirled through the air

over their heads and crashed

into one of the conservatory windows.

Axel!

He put his arms around here,

straightening on the silk provide

on her shoulder,

brushed it between his lapels.

Quickly, my dear, the last flower!

He let her down the steps

and through the garden,

taking the stem between her jeweled fingers,

she snapped it cleanly

and cradled it within her palms.

For a moment, the two malt lessened slightly,

and Axel collected himself.

In the vivid light sparkling from the flower,

he saw his wife's white frightened eyes,

hold it as long as you can, my dear,

until the last grain dies.

Together, they stood on the terrace,

the Countess clasping the brilliant dying jewel,

the air closing in upon them

as the voices outside mounted again.

The mob was battering at the heavy iron gates

and the whole villa shook with a massive impact.

While the final glimmer of light spread away,

the Countess raised her palms of the air

as if releasing an invisible bird.

Then, in a final axis of courage,

put her hands in her husbands,

her smile is radiant as the vanished flower.

Oh, Axel!

Like a sword, the darkness swooped down across it.

The wind blew through the window.

Heaving and swearing, the outer edge of the mob

reached the knee-high remains of the wall

and closing the ruined state,

hauled their carts over it

and along the dry ruts of what had once been in or they'd drive.

The ruin, formerly a spacious villa,

barely interrupted the ceaseless tide of humanity.

The lake was empty, fallen trees rotting at its bottom.

The old bridge rusting into it.

Weeds flourished among the long grass in the lawn,

overrunning the ornamental pathways and carved stone screens.

Much of the terrace had crumbled

and the main section of the mob cut straight across the lawn

bypassing the gutted villa,

but one or two of the more curious climbed up

and searched among the shell.

The doors had rotted from their hinges

and the floors had fallen through.

In a music room, an ancient harpsichord had been chopped into firewood

but a few keys still lay among the dust.

All the books had been toppled from the shelves in the library.

The canvases had been slashed

and guilt frames littered the floor.

As the main body of the mob reached the house,

it began to cross the wall at all points along its length.

Jostled together, the people stumbled into the dry lakes

warmed over the terrace, pressed through the house

towards the open doors and the north side.

One area alone withstood the endless wave.

Just below the terrace, between the wrecked balcony and the wall,

there was a dense six-foot-high growth of heavy thorn bushes.

The barbed foliage formed an impenetrable mass

and the people passing stepped around it carefully,

noticing the balladana entwined among the branches.

Most of them were too busy finding their footing

among the upturned flight stones

to look up into the center of the thorn bushes,

where two stone statues stood side by side,

gazing out over the grounds from their protected vantage point.

The larger the figures was the effigy of a bearded man

and a high-colored jacket a cane under one arm.

Beside him was a woman in an elaborate, full-skirted dress,

her slim serene face unmarked by the wind and rain.

In her left hand, she lightly clasped, a single rose,

a delicately formed petal so thin as to be almost transparent.

As the sun died away behind the house,

a single ray of light glanced through a shattered corner

and struck the rows,

reflected off the wall of petals onto the statues,

lighting up the gray stone so that for a fleeting moment

it was indistinguishable from the long-vanished flesh

of the statues' originals.

The story this time was The Garden of Kind

by J. G. Ballard.

It appears in the book edited by Avram Davidson,

the best from fantasy and science fiction,

twelfth series.

This is Michael Hanson speaking,

technical production for mind-webs by Leslie Hilsenov.

Mind-webs is a production of WHA Radio and Madison,

a service of University of Wisconsin Extension.

The Garden of Kind

by J. G. Ballard.