The sky was an abnormal purple-blue tonight, and he noticed it as soon as the sun had finally sunk beneath the horizon. The moon shined beautifully despite the peculiar hue, glinting off the shovel as he dug. He was sick of it. Absolutely sick of it. He had lost count of how many times he had to shake his fist at the Johnson’s poor excuse of a seven-year-old, shooing him out of his yard along with all of his mangy, scab covered friends. Nothing solidified his decision to never marry and kids like those losers.

The man paused his hard work to wipe his brow and gaze around his backyard. The street lights couldn’t reach back here thanks to his high wooden fences, but it sure made it hard to see where he was digging. He was thankful that it was a full moon tonight, but then he was reminded that the Johnson’s four-story house was partially blocking his only source of light, and he grew irritated again. They’re getting what they deserve, the man thought bitterly, this revisited hatred inspiring another bout of energy to put towards the hole he was digging.

It wasn’t a secret that the man hated his neighbors. He constantly had his blinds lowered and curtains drawn, opened only a centimeter on rare occasions when he felt the urge to judge the people across the road. The Willbrights kitty corner to him had made the well-mannered mistake of attempting to bring him a pie a few days before Thanksgiving three years ago. That visit to his front door resulted in a bruised cheek for Mr. Willbright and a rather rational fear in the oldest girl of the family after he chased them away with a rifle. No one asked him where he found one of those, which was fine by him. It wasn’t anyone’s business.

The hole was now so deep that he could no longer reach his arms, though statistically longer than average, far enough to remove any dirt. He didn’t have the intention to climb in the hole himself, no sir. Only one thing was ever going to enter that hole. He peered at the black bag that lay to the left of his back door, the same bag that he frequently used for gardening. He would miss that bag; it had been quite the useful companion all these years. But no— now it would be used for something ultimately more important. It was key to keeping the poor man’s sanity in check. That’s what this was —the digging, the late night, the sacrifice of something of value— a sort of remedy to the mess that had accumulated in his head. Yes, that’s what he would call this. This was his own kind of therapy. The thing that his neighbors always told him to go to whenever he would try to get people to stop leaving their crap in his front yard. The man wasn’t really a fan of wasting money on something he could do himself. That’s what got him into gardening in the first place. He was fully capable on his own.

He knew this next part would take the longest. He never was the strongest and asking for help wasn’t really an option. The man didn’t have any friends and that was how he liked it. The less friends a person had, the better. No one understood just how much money he saved not going out for a beer on the weekend or seeing the latest movie. He didn’t have to compromise anything; he just did what he wanted. His parents always told him that independence was the single most important thing a man could obtain. Most of the people he was in frequent contact with, the ones that tried to be his friend over the years, always tried to make him do things he didn’t want to. No friends, no one around to disagree with him. It was music to his aging ears. People whispered about him when he picked up his groceries, but he didn’t care. He had yet to meet someone who knew better than he did.

The man bent his knees as he reached down to pick up the black bag, and with momentous effort he dragged the black bag and its contents across his dewing lawn, trying his best to not grunt loud enough to create a scene. He knew how much Ms. Gilland liked to stick her nose in his business. But jokes on her, the man had been watching her right back these past few weeks. He knew when she took her sleeping pill. After she locked up her yapping, poor-excuse-of-a-canine rat in her kennel and before she turned on the late-night paid programming shows. He would make her pay someday for the number of late nights she caused him to have, because she just wouldn’t go to sleep like a normal person. The Johnsons accused him of snooping, but the man argued right back. What gave them the right to snoop on him?

The man spat at the thought of the family. Of all his insufferable neighbors, it was them he hated the most. It started out with the tall house and grew as the popped out more and more disgusting children and bought two ridiculously annoying cats. Those devils always prowled into his yard with the kid, coming into his yard at every ungodly hour of the day, the boy sticking his greasy fingers in his garden and leaving his cheap plastic toys in his flowerbeds. The cats loved the kid and the man’s flowers more, rolling over them and destroying all his hard work. The audacity. The black bag hit the bottom of the hole with a satisfying thud, and the man looked around to make sure that no lights had unexpectedly turned on while he was distracted. Luckily it was still a purple-blue shade of darkness, which is exactly what he wished he could get all the time. He sniffed approvingly at his luck. It took him a long time to reach this point, to get to this hour of peace. He didn’t regret it. He always heard those sayings that told him to “trust the process” and all that mumbo jumbo that’s plastered across those pamphlets he used as kindling in his fireplace. Maybe they weren’t so dumb after all. He threw the shovel into the hole beside the black bag. It had done its duty, but he wanted to finish this job with his own hands. The only thing he could trust these days.

The man’s fingernails were beginning to become blacker than the sky, and he knew that he was almost done. The purple hue was disappearing and being replaced with a baby blue, which he wasn’t so fond of. But it didn’t matter.

The man washed his hands deeply in his kitchen sink, washing off the dirt and hard work, scrubbing the night away and letting it swirl down the drain. As if nothing had happened. Turning off the water, he looked through the open kitchen window that revealed the scene of his backyard.

The rising sun had just entered the backyard, and the freshly planted lilies shown a vibrant crimson against the dirt. The lilies really were the finishing touch to his marvelous garden, something straight out of the magazines that sat on his coffee table. It was perfect, the man thought. If only Mrs. Johnson would quit her screaming. It was way too early for that nonsense.