Blackberries

The blackberries had overgrown Wayne’s entire yard, twining their malevolent thorns between fences and over trees, consuming the patio furniture and even reaching into the house.

Weed killer did nothing, and his pallid attempts to trim it only resulted in broken clippers and a severe rash. He found a Craigslist ad for yard clearing and told the man his problem.

Wayne expected him to bring some kind of heavy clipping machinery, but what arrived was a pickup truck full of machete-wielding Hondurans. They leaped out and attacked the blackberries with warlike efficiency, immune to the scratches, laughing as they worked.

 

Friday Fictioneers

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  1. Iain Kelly

    Good opportunities for those Hondurans in the UK now, all the cheap EU labour brought in to pick fruit has disappeared thanks to Brexit – someone needs to fill the gap, apparently, like your protagonist, we can’t do it ourselves…

  2. Fatima Fakier

    In Botswana, instead of using machines, the government employs similar labourers armed with machetes to clear the roadsides of grass. Less laughter is involved but the work gets done, jobs are provided.

  3. 4963andypop

    We know the evils of the blackberry bush around here! As for the manual labor, its just another embarrassing example of how cushy we expect our lives to be. There are people in this world who are much tougher.

  4. gahlearner

    Hah, I love that they enjoy their work. This must have been a sight, too. I think we better speed up with robot helpers if we want everyone to live a better life and not have to do the hard work for the ones better off.

  5. rochellewisoff

    Dear Josh,

    And somewhere is a white American complaining that immigrants are taking all of our jobs. Unique and evocative take on the prompt. As always, you’ve used the prompt as a jumping off point as opposed to writing a story that illustrates the prompt. Well done.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

  6. jillyfunnell

    Highly original take – I loved the imagery. It could be a metaphor for the mess the people who believe they can run the UK are making of everything at the moment.

Don't just stand there.