The Gardener At World's End

He lives to garden. Merit Badge Magic assignment (July 2025).

At the end of the world, there’s a great big, beautiful garden. The entrance is through a stone archway secured with a sturdy wrought-iron gate, and it leads to a maze with meticulously maintained twelve-foot-tall hedgerows so vibrant that the greenery nearly glows as pastel flowers sprout from the spaces between the leaves. Warm sunlight filled the daytime hours here, and the nights offered a refreshing, cool breeze. Tom would sometimes wake up to the smell of rain from the night before, but it always seemed to be just enough to keep the garden freshly spritzed.

There was another identical gate just a few yards from the first one, presumably the exit to its counterpart’s entrance, but of all the individuals the gardener had seen enter the maze, not a single one had ever returned via the second gate. Tom figured there must be another exit somewhere on the other side of the maze. This one was probably just for the ones that couldn’t find their way out and, if that was the case, then it probably wasn’t all that difficult a maze!

Tom was an older man with gray, balding hair and well-worn age lines etched into the contours of his face. He had been the caretaker of these gardens as long as he could remember. Not that they needed much caretaking. His job was simple, really, and one that had been passed on to him from the prior gardener. It was merely to keep the entrance to the maze presentable for the visitors that would be stopping by to travel the maze from time to time.

There was a little one-room shack set off to one side that served as Tom’s home, and all of his basic necessities were provided for in the form of a grocery delivery that appeared on his doorstep whenever he found himself lacking anything. It was a simple life, and one that Tom had come to appreciate after spending most of his life working in a cramped cubicle in a nondescript office building in the middle of London. Much of that time had been spent wishing for a simpler life that was more in touch with nature, and now he had it. One of the only silver linings of the car accident that had spared him but taken his wife was that he had discovered this new lease on life and a desire to not waste another day doing something that didn’t bring peace and contentedness.

Other than trimming the hedges and keeping things presentable, Tom’s predecessor had left him with two additional instructions. First, he was to be kind, courteous, welcoming, and most of all patient to all guests who came to visit the maze. And second, he was not to go into the maze himself until a replacement was sent. Tom wasn’t sure how long that would be; he didn’t have any kind of clock or calendar to be able to tell how long he’d been here. It might have only been a few months. Or maybe it was years. Could it have been decades? He didn’t think so, but he had no way of knowing for sure.

Tom sometimes wondered what would happen if a visitor arrived while he was off the clock or sleeping, but they never did. It was always while he was tending to the garden that they happened to show up. Some were excited, others confused. A very few of them were even a bit afraid. But Tom greeted each one in turn, chatting with the ones who looked like they needed someone to talk to, and just gesturing to the gate for the ones who didn’t seem to need a lot of hand-holding. Most of the visitors were on their way within a few minutes, with the stragglers sometimes taking up to an hour or two before they too came to the realization that they were here because they were supposed to go through the maze.

One day, as Tom woke up and got about his day, he was surprised to see a little girl standing there watching him. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. She wore what seemed to be the uniform of a private school he didn’t recognize. Her blonde hair was tied back into a neat braid, and her bright blue eyes watched him with curiosity. It wasn’t often that children came to the maze, and it was even rarer for one to be here unaccompanied. The girl seemed unperturbed about it.

“Hello,” she said, offering a tiny wave as she greeted him.

“Hi,” Tom replied.

“I’m Milly.”

“Tom.”

“Nice to meet you, Tom.”

“And you, Milly.”

There was a long pause as Milly looked around and took in her surroundings.

“That’s probably what you’re looking for, over there,” Tom volunteered, pointing to the entrance gate to the garden maze.

“Oh I know what I need to do,” Milly said cheerily. “I’m just not quite ready yet. Do you mind if I hang out with you for a bit?”

“Suit yourself,” Tom said. “But I have to get to work.”

“Don’t mind me,” Milly said, agreeably. “It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

Tom shrugged and set about preparing for his day. Today he’d trim some of the overgrown parts of the hedges and maybe thin out some of the flowers that were growing out and threatening to overwhelm the leaves of the shrubs.

“What’s that?” Milly asked as he laid out his tools.

“Shears,” Tom replied.

“And what about that one?”

“A trowel.”

“Ooh, what about that one with the little teeth?”

“A handsaw,” Tom said. “You know, when you said it would be like you weren’t even here...”

Milly winced, a guilty look spreading across her face.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t often have someone to talk to.”

“Siblings?”

“Only child.”

“Parents?”

“Both work all the time.”

“Friends?”

“Fewer than I’d like, and the ones I do have aren’t all that interesting,” Milly replied as she peered through the window of Tom’s little shack.

“I’m afraid I’m not terribly interesting either,” Tom said.

“I suppose that depends on what I find interesting.”

“Gardening?”

“Better than maths exams, if you ask me.”

Tom chuckled. “On that we can agree.”

Milly watched Tom work in silence for a long while, as he went about maintaining the garden. She seemed genuinely interested in all of the tasks that he involved himself with.

“How long have you worked here?” Milly eventually asked.

“As long as I can remember,” Tom replied as he used the trowel to unearth a clump of weeds at the foot of one of the hedges.

“Do you like it?”

“Better than maths exams.”

The callback to their earlier conversation made her smile.

“Any friends? Family?”

“Not anymore.”

“That must get awfully lonely,” she commented, as much to herself as to Tom.

“It’s not so bad,” Tom replied, tossing the weeds in a nearby compost heap. “Unless you’re a ‘people’ person.”

Milly made a face and stuck out her tongue in disgust.

“Yeah, I’m with you on that,” Tom laughed. “But it is getting pretty late. Shouldn’t you get going?”

Milly looked at him strangely.

“What is it?” Tom asked, confused.

“I’m not the one who needs to get going.”

Tom felt the pit of his stomach lurch as Milly nodded toward the gate. “Go ahead, Tom. It’s your time.”

“No...” Tom trailed off. “You’re supposed to go through, just like everyone else.”

“It’s not going to work for me, Tom.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Milly shrugged and headed for the gate.

“See you in a minute!” she called out cheerily as she flung open the door and raced into the maze.

Tom stared after her for a long while. He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath and counting until a minute had gone by.

Then another.

Just as his nerves started to settle and he’d written this all off as a weird, surreal experience, he heard the sound of the other gate swinging open. He watched as Milly ran through it and returned to their little clearing, huffing and puffing.

“Whew!” Milly said between gasps of air. “That maze is a lot bigger than I thought it would be!”

“But... how?”

“That’s the way it works, Tom. I could run through that maze a hundred times and I’d come back each and every time. Because this is where I’m supposed to be right now. Which means the place you’re supposed to be... is there.”

Milly pointed and Tom’s gaze followed in the same direction until it settled on the gate to the maze.

“But... if I don’t have this job... no, I need to be here.”

“It was never about the job, Tom.” Milly said, her eyes full of more compassion and understanding than should be possible for a girl of her age. “At one point, this is what you needed. A safe space to grieve, to process.”

“I already grieved and processed my wife’s death.”

“But have you grieved and processed your own?”

A rush of memories came flooding back. Tom fell to his knees as he was overpowered with all the images that he had repressed.

The mangled car.

His wife’s empty eyes staring at him from the passenger seat.

But also, something he had buried deep down. Something he’d forgotten until now.

Glimpses of being pulled out of the wreck.

Put on a gurney.

The ceiling of the ambulance.

And finally, everything fading to black.


Tom looked up at Milly, who smiled down at him.

“You weren’t ready to see it before,” she said. “But you are now.”

Tom nodded slowly, in shock.

“Which means now you can finally let go,” Milly said reassuringly, helping him to his feet. “She’s been waiting for you, Tom. Waiting until you were ready to join her.”

Milly nodded toward the maze. Tom stared at the entrance for a long time; an entrance that he realized he had been afraid of. That he had avoided at all costs, because he hadn’t been able to come to terms with the unfinished life he was leaving behind.

“The garden gave you purpose,” Milly said, as if reading his thoughts. “But now it’s time to move on, rather than continuing to live in Purgatory.”

Tom let the full weight of everything sink in. He recognized the truth in Milly’s words, and the need to finally close this chapter. The garden had been a distraction, a refuge in which he could have the space and the time to come to terms with what had happened, but it also made him complacent. He needed someone like Milly to come along and nudge him to take the next steps, both physically and metaphorically.

Milly helped Tom as he moved toward the gate, which seemed to open of its own volition as he neared. Milly patted him on the shoulder as he took his first tentative steps through the stone archway and into the maze. With every step he felt lighter, freer, and more reassured that he was heading in the right direction. Soon he was almost sprinting through the maze, taking every turn and fork in the road as if he had the route memorized. He felt the warm sun on his face and the slight breeze ruffling his hair as he ran, the sunlight getting brighter and more intense until he was completely enveloped in white light.


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1,914 words

Written for: "Merit Badge Magic" 

Prompt: The Thoughtful Gardener. The main character is a gardener who's garden is especially important to him/her to the point of obsession. Why is it so important?