The New Arrivals

Neighbors are at it again. Wandering around the garden, totally naked for all to see. No sense of decency or good taste, simply none.

You’d think they didn’t know right from wrong.

I told the Developer how much I value my privacy. It was supposed to be my own private garden so I could keep to myself. Go for walks around the park, work on my scales, that kind of thing. But then he let those two onto the property and I haven’t had a bit of peace since. They had a few extra limitations in their terms and conditions — nothing really major, you know, just the kind of thing the Developer likes to do to flex on new arrivals.

It’s his way, really. Of course he says he has plans and there are good reasons for everything he does, but if you ask me that’s a load of bull. He’s making it up as he goes along, same as the rest of us. You should’ve seen it when he was first having the place built. The workers were supposed to come in at six in the morning, but usually most of them didn’t show up till at least seven-thirty and work never got off to a serious start till eight. Plenty of equipment lost in the streams — mostly small stuff like screws, shovels, and hoses, but now and then a crane or a whole section of fence would get lost in one of the streams. Of course there are four streams running through the garden, so what do you expect? The project was originally meant to take seven months, but ended up running to a year and three months.

You’ll say it’s easy for me to criticize. I just live here and the Developer’s the one doing the hard work.

Fair enough. But I do live here.

And it’s clear enough to me that for all his bluster, the Developer has no definite plan or vision for the garden. You know the kind of thing. The project was planned to take seven months but actually took fifteen — well, naturally by the end of month fifteen the Developer’s making great speeches about how wonderful it was that they were able to finish everything up on the original fifteen-month time frame. Simple enough leadership principle. No matter what happens, you have to act like it’s what you intended to happen all along, and that’s what maintains the illusion that you’re actually in charge. Of course everybody sees through it, or at least everybody who’s not an idiot, but nobody cares enough to raise a protest so what’s it matter?

Not that I blame him really, but so much of what he does seems so arbitrary. The design of the fence, for one thing, or that little grove in the park he made off-limits to the new arrivals, or the way this whole enormous park has only one point of entry. I’ll never understand the way he thinks.

The new arrivals are idiots. They walk around on two legs and barely have any fur except on the top of their heads. The male is a little bigger than the female, with fur all over his face too, and a floppy little thing between his legs that looks even stupider than the rest of him. The female is nice enough to look at, with long hair and a couple of round bulges just below her shoulders. The problem with her is that she’s always emitting a high-pitched whine that almost seems like it could be meaningful if it wasn’t annoying enough it’s easier just to tune it out.

The male makes noises too, of course, but not nearly as often and not nearly so shrill.

They make a harmless enough pair, but it’s annoying just having them around. The place was so peaceful before they got here. Now they’re clambering through my part of the park at least two or three times a day, and you can hear them yammering half the day, no matter where they are.

I’ll have to get back at the Developer for all this. What’s the use of making that little grove of trees in the middle of the park off-limits to the new arrivals? He has no problem with me being here, and the fruits here are no different. He might as well be waving a red flag at a bull.

And maybe he knows it, too. Obviously, I like to think of myself as a pretty slippery serpent. But you gotta give the Developer his due, after all. Maybe he’s not quite the insufferable idiot I’d like to think he is. What if he’s faking me out — forbidding them from eating the fruit because he wants them to eat the fruit?

He might have me caught in a double-bind. Either obey his command and keep them away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — or break it and play into his plan.

He may very well actually have a plan.

Bastard. I’ll find my way around him somehow.