The King's Gardener

The King and the Gardener by Foutoux
All Rights Reserved Copyright L.Ivison 2013

There was once a very old King who had a gardener who liked to play jokes.  It was mid-summer and the gardener, seeing that the King was tired and in ill-health, decided to surprise the King.

 He went out just after sunset, with a pair of secateurs, a dozen paint brushes and six tins of paint.  With the help of a lamp he cut off all the blooms in the garden - the roses, the irises, the honeysuckle, the cyclamen - and with his paint brushes began to paint each leaf an autumn colour.  First they were yellow, then orange, then copper.  The gardener considered himself to be quite an artist and happy with his night's work he went to bed.  When the Summer Sun rose the next morning instead of finding his beloved roses and irises and lilies to warm,  he found an autumn world full of dying leaves.  The Sun was vexed because he liked the power he had to withdraw his rays gradually from the world and watch it shiver.  Nevertheless, he felt he had no choice but to continue to shine on this autumn garden.

At 8 o'clock the King was served breakfast on a silver tray and weary even before the day had begun, he pulled back the curtains.  He rubbed his eyes thinking that he had lost his senses and then ran out on to the lawn, kicking the leaves while his white hair was blown by a soft summer breeze.  The sun was already hot.
He stood astonished at what he saw - the soft greens of summer were gone and the westerly wind finding it had no leaves to rustle left the garden which had fallen into a strange silence.

Instead of finding the joke funny the King fell into a melancholy from which he never recovered. 

copyright L. ivison 2013