The Night Gardener

In the forgotten part of the city, where streetlights flickered like dying fireflies, there was a garden that only grew at night. Old Man Hemlock tended it with hands that knew more of magic than of soil. He was the Night Gardener, though few remembered the title or the man.

The garden didn't grow flowers or vegetables. It grew dreams.

Each plant in his moonlit patch represented someone's sleeping thoughts. The vibrant, healthy ones with bright blooms were the good dreams—adventures, reunions, flying fantasies. The wilted, dark-twisted ones were nightmares. And the shriveled, near-dead plants were the dreams of those who had forgotten how to dream at all.

Maya discovered the garden by accident one sleepless night. She'd been wandering, haunted by recurring nightmares of her failed business, when she stumbled through a rusted gate she'd never noticed in daylight. There, in the silver moonlight, she saw him—an old man whispering to plants that glowed with inner light.

"You shouldn't be here," Hemlock said without looking up from a particularly dark, thorny plant that seemed to pulse with malevolent energy.

"What is this place?" Maya whispered, watching as a plant nearby showed a child dreaming of riding a dragon made of stars.

"This," he said, gently pruning dead leaves from a drooping plant, "is where dreams take root before they visit sleepers. And this," he pointed to the thorny one he'd been observing, "is yours."

Maya stared at the ugly plant, seeing her own fears mirrored in its twisted form. "You can... see my dreams?"

"I tend them," Hemlock corrected. "Nightmares like yours spread their roots and poison other dreams if left unchecked." He carefully clipped a particularly nasty-looking thorn. "But I can't make them healthy again. Only you can do that."

He explained that dreams fed on waking thoughts. Beautiful daytime moments became fertilizer for good dreams. Anxieties and regrets became the rot that created nightmares.

"For weeks, you've been feeding this one," Hemlock said, pointing at her nightmare plant. "Every time you dwell on your failure, every time you replay that moment your business collapsed—you're watering it."

Maya thought of her days spent obsessing over what went wrong, of her evenings scrolling through competitors' success stories while bitterness grew in her heart. "How do I stop?"

"Change what you feed it," he said simply. "Remember something good. Anything."

It was hard at first. Maya's mind kept returning to the failure like a tongue probing a sore tooth. But then she remembered the pride in her father's eyes when she'd first opened her shop. The plant shimmered slightly.

She remembered the customers who had become friends. A pale pink bud appeared on one of the branches.

She recalled the skills she'd learned, even in failure. A thorn fell away.

Night after night, Maya visited the garden, bringing memories like offerings. She didn't just bring business memories—she brought moments of kindness, laughter with friends, the satisfaction of learning something new. With each positive memory, her nightmare plant transformed. The thorns receded, the dark color lightened, and beautiful, strange flowers began to bloom.

One night, Hemlock wasn't alone in the garden. A young girl stood beside him, carefully tending a cluster of bright, colorful dream plants.

"My apprentice," Hemlock explained. "I'm teaching her the craft."

Maya understood. The garden wouldn't die with the old man. It would continue, helping people long after he was gone.

"That's my last lesson for you," Hemlock said, gesturing to Maya's now-healthy dream plant. "Nothing lasts forever—not failures, not nightmares, not even gardeners. But as long as someone tends the garden, there's hope."

Maya didn't become the next Night Gardener, but she carried the lesson with her. She started a new business, this time helping others recover from their failures. And sometimes, when she met someone particularly haunted by their past, she'd tell them about feeding their dreams with good memories.

The garden continued under the moon, a secret sanctuary where dreams were tended and nightmares were tamed, proving that even in the darkest soil, beautiful things could grow if someone cared enough to plant the right seeds.