It’s not easy for me to write these words, even now hours after the crime was committed and the evidence is difficult to discern even for me, the mastermind behind this violent episode.

I’m not proud of the part I played. It was necessary, I’ll say that much, but the blood on my hands won’t soon come off.

As a great storyteller once said, let’s start at the beginning. For years, the wife and I have dreamt of rolling up our shirtsleeves, slipping on the garden gloves, digging deep holes in store-bought soil, and laying down roots.

For me, it was to be a mark of maturity. Somehow in my mind, planting and tending a garden would be a sign that I had finally put aside the selfishness of youth, enough at least to water a small garden once a day and keep some tasty plants alive. Every previous attempt on my part had ended horrifically, with the brown and dessicated branches of some poor bit of flora becoming yet another reminder that I still hadn’t gotten my shit together.

The efforts were few and far between, but suffice it to say, I’d been born with a black thumb. My reputation in the plant world was as a scourge, a plague upon the greenery, death in human form, genocide walking. I’ve been death’s unwitting assistant more times than I’d care to admit, and each time it was the same: I’d ride an initial wave of enthusiasm, taking great pains to make sure my greenlings were warm and comfortable, well-watered and sheltered from the worst elements.

But as time went on, and the incessant distraction of life reared its ugly head, the plants became less and less of a priority. I’d skip a watering here and there, fail to remove dead leaves, and generally neglect the things until, at some point, I’d forget them entirely for a prolonged stretch that usually proved fatal.

And then of course the guilt. It seemed such a simple thing to cultivate plants, yet I was seemingly incapable. This failure of character honestly haunted me until this most recent spring, when Amy and I decided to forego the disasters of the past and plant fresh hope.

Strawberries. Kale. Broccoli and snap peas. Lettuce. Thyme. Basil and rosemary. We searched through the shed and workshop and found several old crates and a wheelbarrow that we converted to planter boxes. We bought fine, mulchy soil from the store, spread a layer of stones and wood chips in our makeshift planters, and thoroughly thought out precisely where to knock holes in the plastic for drainage.

And then we bought starters from two sources: One the North Coast Co-op, and the other a corporate drug store in Eureka. The pharmacy plants have struggled mightily in the last few weeks, but the strong have survived and are now beginning to flourish, while the Co-op’s starters were predictably hearty from the beginning.

With my wife mostly in charge of watering, we’ve succeeded thus far and had every hope of bringing this harvest in successfully.

But then the assault began. Slowly at first, then in a rush, the insects and other critters in our vicinity took notice of our efforts and began their slow depradations.

First, the ants were seen to be climbing up and around varius stalks and leaves, devouring what they could and carrying off bits for later. A conga line of the diminutive diners was often found in the first splash of morning sunlight, the bugs still drunk and thoroughly debauched from the night’s adventures as they made their way back to their den to sleep it off.

Then the song sparrows were spotted in the barrow, picking at the nascent strawberries and issuing loud chirping calls to passing crowds of birdkind. Come and get it.

Perhaps most heinously, however, were the slugs. Under cover of night, they’d slither out from their dark catacombs and leave their sparkling wet trails on the cement as they mounted the planters and feasted on the greenery.

Night after night, Amy and I witnessed the once lush and green leaves of our broccoli suffer the slow and awful assault until whole stalks were depleted by the creeping crawlers.

Finally, we’d had enough. If I was ever going to shake off my garden curse, this had to be the last stand. Beer was considered. Salt, as well. But in our desperation, we went straight to the big guns.

Sluggo. Those white pellets of death seemed so inocuous, innocent almost, like the gently laid turds of an albino rabbit. We were generous in our deployment, like soldiers sewing land mines in the fields of our enemy. And then we waited.

That first night, I dreamt of death. Vast fields of viscous slugs and snails boiling away from the inside out. Whole hospital wards of 19-year-old snails trussed up and missing their antennae, gaping holes blown into their brittle shells, begging for water, for release from the pain. I woke soaked in sweat at first light, and stumbled down the stairs and onto the back patio, expecting a grisly scene.

There was none.

The leaves of our plants were much the same as the evening previous, yet no slug bodies lay stunted and writhing in the harsh light. Maybe some smart reconaissance saved slug lives, their scouts dutifully trained to spot the tell-tale white logs of Sluggo in the field? Or maybe Sluggo is more insidious than even I imagined, infecting those that pass with a sleeping disease that erupts only after hours have passed, an outbreak of lesions and death that attacks them in their homes when they least expect the danger?

I don’t know. Every night since has been the same. And while there are no carcasses to mourn, or mass graves to be dug, my conscience still reels. In my determination to grow a garden and keep it alive, I’ve become the arbiter between slug life and slug death, willing — in my desperate need for fresh vegetables — to kill or be killed.

And once that line is crossed, you’re never the same.

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James Faulk is a writer living in Eureka. He can be reached at faulk.james@yahoo.com.