Writers Unblocked Magazine Volume 1/ Number 1

We paid a dear price for our naivete in March
2021 when the onions returned in force,
blanketing a third of our yard and three
quarters of the garden in dense thatches
that choked and shaded everything in sight.
Reinforcements were in order, but when we
called for a quote on what it would cost to
get rid of it all, the landscaper just shook
his head. “I can try to take them away, but
frankly, it’s contaminated. There is nothing
I can do to keep them from coming back.”
I would have thrown in the towel – the trowel?
– except for my singular wife, who dedicated
herself to the finer points of soil pH, bulb
removal, and growth prevention over the
course of sleepless weeks. I remember her
face lit by a laptop screen, grimacing over
YouTube videos and gardening forums until
she had united every conceivable technique
into one monolithic, scorched-earth strategy:
1) dig up the bulb; 2) remove the surrounding
soil; 3) scourge the hole with concentrated
vinegar; 4) fill and amend with peat moss
and black earth; 5) cover in eight layers
of newspaper; 6) cover the newspapers in
a layer of mulch; 7) repeat; 8) repeat; 10)
repeat.
As for me, I learned the importance of
learning to hate what your partner hates.
Hate bound us together when our backs were
tired and our nerves were raw. Hate was the
fuel that sustained us through weekends of
digging and weeknights at the garden centre,
through dumpster rentals and wheelbarrow
returns, through lifting and bending and
credit card spending. That same hate drove
me to trade the spade for the shovel, opening
a 5-foot crater in our front yard that the
roots of our maple traversed like tightrope,
hauling up a cluster of bulbs so massive that
I actively hid it from my wife. “I’m glad you
didn’t have to see that.”
I also learned that hate can breed a
generational feud. One day my son (then 5)
disassembled his tee-ball stand to make a
sword and shield, then pivoted to me on our
front lawn. “Dad. You will be the Evil Onion,
and I will defeat you!”
Please bear in mind that he hadn’t been
able to see his friends for ages, and I was
his primary playmate at this time. What could
I say except “Ok!”
“Now, where do you come from?” He was
worldbuilding.
“Evil Onion Land?” I was reaching for easy
answers.
“Well I come from Hero Land!” Nothing wrong
with easy answers. “And I will protect the
Garden Centre of Hero Land!”
Yes, the fabled Garden Centre of Hero Land,
which must be of tremendous societal
importance considering how many he’d been
dragged to. I questioned my parental fitness
as he transformed his sword into a vuvuzela,
buzzing Yellow Submarine into my ear until
I crumpled to the ground in defeat, which
was how so many of these games went at
the time. And he danced above me, striking
brave poses of triumph over the wicked onion
in a microcosmic re-birth of early ceremonial
drama.
Through the grind of April, we scoured every
speck of dirt within half a foot of any sighting,
plumbing down to the sand and hucking all
that soil into a lime green dumpster blocking
my driveway until, at last, we turned the tide.
By this time, the image of onion bulbs had
been seared into my retina, appearing every
time I closed my eyes. I stalked the yard,
scrutinizing every remaining blade of grass,
and when I did spot the odd straggler or
10 WRITERS UNBLOCKED • VOL. 1 / NO. 1