A handful of fresh earth filled the space between the roots of the flowers placed there and the newly crafted, clay pot with a geometrical pattern of reds, yellows and blues. The colours were complemented by the orange chrysanthemums, coated in a red blush towards the bright yellow centre. Tankie placed them on the table, which originally came as a dusty, old addition with the house, but which was recently revamped by the hard working man to look somewhat decent, and now one could touch it without fear of getting splinters in every little bit of skin.

He looked around the cleared out space, taking in his work from the past few hours. The backyard was now beginning to fill with bright colours of the planted flowers. The communist got Ancap (maybe through threats, maybe not) to get his hands on as many different flowers as he could. From simple daisies to daffodils, marigolds, peonies and orchids, they all stood in hand-painted pots along the pavement and on any surface that could be found. There was even a dawn of a small rose bush, although he wasn’t sure whether that would give any meaningful results. He hummed with satisfaction, which abruptly stopped when he spotted his comrade passively aggressively scoop up dirt and throw it into a pot with a sloppily put in flower.

Qi was surrounded by black spots of dirt all over the pavement, which fell out of qis hands when qi wasn’t careful enough with qis work, which was almost always. Commie noted it was the same flower from an hour ago, which qi was struggling with getting out of the tiny plastic container it came in from the store, and refused to get any help from the other leftist. Qi tramped the earth only to find it wasn’t enough to cover all the roots of the plant, growling with anger and reached out for more, knocking over the bag and spilling most of its content onto the floor near qimself. Tankie could see qi was about to rage-quit, so he quickly strode over in order to help, earning a couple furious glares.

“You’ve been dealing with one flower for an hour?” he asked, scooping up the mess qi made.

“Shut up,” Ancom responded, yanking the bag away from the communist, and spilling some more earth in the process.

“You know, it was your idea to set up a garden,” he pushed the flowerpot closer towards them, and held the plant upright and steady.

“First of all, I was high,” the anarchist responded, pouring earth into the pot, with more care put into it now. “Second of all, I’m pretty sure I meant like a couple weed plants, not whatever this is.”

“Come on, Anarkiddie, what use do your drugs serve to society?” Tankie stood up, and placed the newly planted flower with the rest, lined up on the lawn surrounding the path back to the house.

“If I had my own weed plants I could get high without getting into more debt with the capitalist,” qi hopped up to qis feet, still holding onto the bag of earth. “Plus, what do your flowers bring to society anyway?”

“They look and smell nice, way better than your cannabis.”

They stood for a moment, looking at the flowers they had planted already. There was no denying, they did look nice. The communist took his eyes off of them to look at the amount of anticipated work. There were six more pots left, with six more corresponding plants. Looking at the pots, he noted they had utilized all the clay pots he painted himself, which were discernable by the clear focus on geometrical, abstract patterns, and the six left were all the ones decorated by the other leftist. One had a rainbow flag on it, with uneven stripes drawn on with clearly shaky hands. There were two more with, what he assumed were also pride flags, which he didn’t recognize. One looked familiar, with light blue, pink and white lines, which he had seen before but never really bothered to learn the meaning of. The other one was completely unknown, with purple, yellow, dark grey and white stripes.

Two more were left unfinished, almost completely blank aside from one or two splashes of paint, which he was almost certain were accidental. He frowned at his comrade’s unproductivity, but the pot that caught his eye was the last one. It was also striped, this time with pink, yellow and blue, and there was a weird splash of red, almost caught in a deliberate shape, but indistinguishable because of the angry scribbling over with an ugly purplish-brown colour a kid gets when they try to mix all of the colours available to them in hopes of making a magical rainbow utopia, disappointed with the bitter reality that combining all the good things in the world doesn’t work in reality. If only they had given up some things, they would’ve gotten a beautiful orange, or a pretty purple, or a fascinating, deep dark green.

The anarchist looked over and followed Tankie’s line of sight, ending up on the pots, and immediately looked away in shame, and what could be interpreted as anger. He saw, but decided not to comment, even on the unfinished ones.

“Would you like to plant three more and then have some rest?” the communist slid over the three striped pots, allowing Ancom to pour some earth into them while he went over to get the flowers. He picked out a handful of bright red tulips which he thought would look really nice if properly distributed along the colours of the other plants in the garden.

They carefully planted all the flowers, helping each other out with each pot. After they were done, Ancom placed one on the table, next to the chrysanthemums, while Commie was free to put the others wherever he saw fit. Qi leaned on the table, looking at the beauty they’ve made. Qi liked collective work, eve though qi wasn’t too good at the whole “productive member of society” bit. Qis depression and bad coping mechanisms often made a mess of qim, unable to constantly work on something like Tankie did. Was this what it was all about? Getting qim a distraction? The communist approached qim and ruffled qis hair with a content smile on his face. The anarchist smiled back. Even if it wasn’t about that, it was still nice while it lasted.

***

The noises the shovel made because of the friction with the earth were the only sounds disrupting the chilling silence. It was harder to maintain the garden now that there was one less pair of hands, but it was okay, the communist didn’t mind manual labour. It helped distract him from any emotions he felt.

He tossed the shovel aside and went over to the table. One of the three pots with tulips stood there, on the place where qi placed it that day. He fondly remembered the good old days, when they were on the same team trying to eliminate the center, back when he used to be the only force stopping qim from constantly fighting the Nazi, back when they were united in their goal.

Present reality caught up to him, and he frowned. He glanced at the sac laying at his feet, about the size to fit one person. He dragged it into the newly dug out hole, and picked up his shovel again.

It was fine. It wasn’t like any of the extremists were actually friends anyway. It was all tactical, political, with ulterior motives to every move. Anybody who didn’t understand that would be inevitably destroyed.

The more of the sac got concealed by the black void of the ground, the better the communist felt. He just did what needed to be done.

He tramped the ground with his shovel and then with his feet. He looked at the tulips once more. The pot had the purple, yellow, white and dark grey stripes. He still had no idea what that flag meant.

He moved the tulips over to the impromptu grave. Looking around, it was still as colorful as ever. Anybody buried like this should be thankful.

“Farewell, comrade,” he took out the former Ancom’s bat and bandana. He looked at the two items for a few seconds, composing his thoughts. Shortly after, the bat was stuck into the ground, with the bandana tied to it, wavering in the wind like a flag.

Tankie stood in front of this display, trying to think of a eulogy. He didn’t know why he bothered, since he left all the other centrist and right wing scum rotting wherever they got killed, but for some reason he felt more guilty about this one than anybody else. Maybe if he gave qim a proper goodbye this weird feeling would go away.

“I’d say ‘I hope you end up in heaven’, but no gods no masters and stuff so... uh...” he felt stupid. He was talking to himself like some lunatic. The voice of Nazi creeped in the back of his head, saying something about being weak, Ancom’s degeneracy and losing his respect. Jesus Christ.

“Nothing personal,” he settled on throwing that before turning his back to the garden and walking away.

Before he left, he couldn’t help but admire the flowers one last time. They sure are beautiful.

At least now, Ancom can forever look at the flowers.