The Vandals are Coming!

The Vandals are Coming!

By JOY DEEP SAHA

When Mr. Chan returned after a long weekend with Ms. Chan, he discovered that her garden had been damaged. The hooligans who had frequented the region at night had jumped over the gate and destroyed what had brought her in one night. His beautiful rose shrub was uprooted, Buddha's porcelain garden was damaged, pickets were smashed and goldfish in the pond were killed.

So Mr. Chan had done what anybody faced by siege would do and constructed a wall. He took a step back to study the new fence enclosing the tiny deck and what was remained of the grass. Since his pals knew him, he looked at him like he was insane, but Mr. Chan realized that halves don't work when it comes to bullies. He had had the carpenter construct a two-meter-high fence with concrete foundations and steel bars.

He wasn't a time-waster, he hadn't bothered to invite his neighbors to join. You couldn't depend on anybody to keep you going, and I knew the folks next door were too tight to pay for it. He constructed the fence to the left of the house on his own, extending it to the end of the garden where vandals had damaged the old one, and around to the right where the back alley of his property connected to the street. , creating a double fence on the three sides.

He glanced once more at the cement pond he had filled with his lonely surviving goldfish, handed the carpenter a wad of cash, carefully removed his shoes, and pulled white silk slippers to his feet before crossing the French doors to the cream-colored living room. Carpet in the room. There was a pause, then the vacuum began again as Mrs. Chan continued cleaning, and the glass doors banged shut.

Mickey the Chippy stared at the unhappy fish swimming in its cement bowl, then bent down to pick up his tools. Before departing, he urinated out of sight in the lane that divided the row of tiny back gardens from the forest beyond. He had only requested to use the toilet once before learning the home was prohibited. One day when she interrupted Mrs. Chan's vacuum cleaner after Mr. Chan had gone, she had appeared frightened to approach the door. Even though she had opened it just a few inches, he had seen the immaculate cream carpeting that went up the stairs and spotted a pair of white gloves neatly placed next to Mr. Chan's white shoes. I requested him for a quickie not to go to the restroom.

<2>

He was angry that he was being embarrassed by his filthy boots, and when he urinated in the back alley he was careless enough to spray the new Mr. Chan fence a bit. those white gloves when I get home, he thought. And run your fingers over the baseboards. Just to make sure she cleaned up.

The following weekend, Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker were assaulted next door, and Mr. Chan peered out the bedroom window and stared with pleasure at the destroyed garden.

Whitaker screamed at Mrs. Whitaker, who yelled at him for screaming at her. They had gone that night, but the vandals knew it nonetheless and had scaled the low hedge early that morning. A pot shattered, but he had hardly woken himself up in his self-satisfaction. Ms. Chan remained up the whole time, hoping her husband would not be home so she could walk to the window and watch.

The harm was done and the neighbors gathered up the shattered pieces. Mrs. Whitaker was attempting to put aside the one undamaged pot that was left and it had cracked in two and spilled dirt over the area her husband was cleaning. Gentleman. Chan hated Mr. Whitaker for his position as the bishop's secretary and thought his neighbors shabby, with their airs, elegance, and arrogance, their poorly veiled biases, and their filthy barking collies that chased the street because there were no sheep. Stupid individuals.

He glanced at the cleaning scene and wondered why they were bothered. Before the Vandals came, the garden was so unkempt that you could barely tell the difference. Maybe now they would switch the grass and tidy a bit. Those plastic pots were unpleasant to look at, and now they were useless. Good.

When Mickey's phone rang, it was the Whitakers.

"They arrived at night!" Mrs. Whitaker pulled off her apron at the front door. "For us of all people!" She examined his filthy boots. "You have to turn the back way." The carpenter asked whether he might use the restroom before beginning.

<3>

"No, you have to go someplace else. I'm late for Bible study." She closed the door, so he walked through the bush that had overrun the lane behind the homes and urinated on the compost heap the vandals had created in his yard.

Mr. Whitaker didn't want to construct a new fence, he said, and it wasn't very kind of Mr. Cheing to put one up without notice. It was obstructing the sun and since those bullies were shooting at it, a pious Christian instead ordered Mickey to relocate the compost heap to the forest side of the alley and put a row of barbed wire down the length in the ivy.

"That should keep her out," he replied. "And furthermore, the Lord will protect us." He glanced up at Mr. Chan's high fence. "Some of us trust, you know ..."

Mickey the Chippy stirred up the dirt and scraped the wire. It will do a lot of good.

His mood only brightened when Mrs. Mahmoud phoned from next door and gave him a cup of sweet tea with a touch of coriander. He anxiously observed the damage as he approached the freshly wired hedge, but he maintained a grin on her face. Face.

"It's terrible ... they have no regard for people's property." He let the tea flow over the barbed wire. "Do you suppose they'll come to us later?"

The carpenter glanced at the inadequate barrier that divided the well-maintained garden, with its square of grass and herbs neatly tended in blue-glazed ceramic pots, from the lane and the forest beyond.

The main gate, he thought, but said: "Oh, you will certainly grow bored and go on." He scraped the barbed wire again because the dog continued wrapping itself around his legs as he worked and attempted in vain to lure him to the rear entrance.

The sun was sinking through the forest trees when she knocked over the fence to return the cup and spotted Mr. Mahmoud standing at her French door, gazing at the immaculate row of flowerpots that bordered the lawn. I go and place it on the porch.

<4>

Mr. Whitaker was arguing over the previously agreed fee, and when Mickey asked again if he could use the bathroom, he seemed like he was about to say no, but he was conscious that it would sound unchristian to tell him he's not a carpenter. So the worker cleaned his boots on the already filthy mat and walked on the old carpet.

"Be cautious with your jackets!" Mr. Whitaker shouted from the kitchen, and the carpenter half ducked, half crawled beneath the pile of coats hanging on a railing in the small bathroom.

Mickey the Chippy was sitting on the toilet, his head jammed between old jackets that smelled like mothballs. Mr. Chan with his white gloves hadn't truly attracted him, even though the home was out of reach for the filthy boots. they were with him. The dog scratched the bathroom door.

He had put the tool in his vehicle and was a block and a half from the house when he saw the head of a howling dog leap up next to him, drawn by the rattling of the hubcaps and attempted to bring him home, and he thought: one Accidentally ran over for a second. But he turned and drove the dog home.

Ms. Mahmoud phoned a week later. Could come? The vandals attacked! She was delighted to see him and, disregarding his filthy footwear, persisted in inviting him to a home that smelled like curry. He didn't care if I went to the restroom, he replied, placing a cup of tea in her hand and pointing through the glass door.

You arrived at night, he said. It was awful for her husband and son, but she wasn't frightened herself. The hooligans had tossed the pots about in the garden and dumped the buckets with the herbs he used for cooking on them, everything that he had so painstakingly planted and cared for was gone. She begged her husband to contact the police, she claimed, but he demanded that they not come. You wouldn't believe it was significant enough. Also, her son had been extremely angry when the nasty Whitakers next door contacted the police the previous summer about vandalizing his rose shrub.

<  5  >

    Nobody damaged the rose shrub, he told her. It had grown so huge and heavy across the garage, and they had been so nasty to their husband when he knocked on the door and gently requested them to cut it out. He, roses grow anywhere they want in England! When a storm blew through the shrubs on their porch and light burst out when they were on the Isle of Wight, they believed we made it, he added. And I phoned the cops! No, contacting the cops wasn't a smart idea.

No, contacting the cops wasn't a smart idea. Mr. Mahmoud shook hands with the carpenter and nodded at what his wife stated. "We peered through the curtains for an hour last night," he added. “And it was very frightening. It wasn't enough to turn and shatter every pot and break every plant into bits. They fled and shouted at the top of their necks! You have no respect! They are nothing but cheap terrorists! "

Mickey the Chippy repaired Mahmoud's fence but knew he would come back. Before departing for the day, he knocked on the front door and Mrs. Mahmoud quickly welcomed him and took him upstairs to the front bedroom. Mahmoud folded up a mat and stood up.

"I wonder if you come on my land, am I permitted to murder you? The carpenter didn't like the thought of ​​killing unlawful. "

"But who should know? I would simply bury them in the garden. Or maybe in the forest." "I'm not scared!" Said Mrs. Mahmoud excitedly. "I could smack them over the head with a brick! " Well, what should we do? ", Pleaded her husband.

<6>

The carpenter shook his head. " You are protected by law, Mr. Mahmoud, sir Mahmoud bowed excitedly, passed swiftly, and went down the steep steps in a rustling of colorful silk. Pots banged in the kitchen as her voice filled with the smell of ginger and cinnamon.

"Mr. Chippy! Could you kindly tell me these badgers enjoy curry?"