I live in a small weatherboard house in Melbourne’s inner-west, my home for almost two decades. The week I moved in, there was a knock at the door. It was one of my neighbours, a bloke named Bob.
Bob offered to mow the nature strip at the front of my house. He mowed the lawns, throughout the year, for other neighbours in the street. All he asked for in return was one slab of beer, payable each Christmas.
I did the maths. I shook Bob’s hand. And that was our deal for more than a decade.
I work a lot, and write a lot, from a desk in the front room of my house. Bob lived across the street. We would wave to each other at sunset, as Bob drew the blinds in his front room.
“You work too hard,” he told me once. “I see you at your desk each night and wonder what you’re doing.”
I struggled to explain. I deal in words and issues, which anchors me to a laptop for hours at a time.
“I tend to the garden in my head and hope it yields a flower,” I said. Bob liked that explanation.
I learned to predict when Bob would be most likely to mow the lawns: three sunny days after rain, when the air was still.
Into that tranquillity, Bob emerged from behind his fence, pushing an old-school mower: a metal machine with a four-stroke engine, propelled by pure petrol, belching plumes of acrid smoke and roaring like a dragon.
Bob guided his mower with resolute skill, up and down a narrow length of adjoining nature strips. Then he crossed the road and did it again, working a stretch of overgrown lawn on my side of the street.
If anyone stopped to admire his work, Bob brought the mower to a shuddering halt. The air would fill with laughter and the sound of voices, united in praise – a uniquely pleasing dialogue, worthy of the stage – then the mower roared back to life and Bob resumed his mission.
Birds soon appeared, perched on power lines or assembled in the branches of nearby trees and shrubs. Sparrows and magpies were especially common. They waited for their moment, then descended in a rush to feast on the worms and insects exposed by Bob and his mower.
“How long does it take to mow the lawns?” I asked him, once.
“About three stubbies,” Bob replied. He drank those beers, standing in the street, surveying his achievements like an artist at an easel.
I would paint that scene, if I could. Picture a man in a quiet street, dressed in shorts and wearing a cap, his face turned towards the sun. Picture the birds at his feet and consider the light, all golden and warm. I would call the painting, Splendour.
And then came the day when Bob announced that he and his wife were moving to Far North Queensland.
I was offered the mower and when I accepted, Bob shook my hand and lowered his eyes, in a manner that conveyed something monumental.
I understood my inheritance. I was now Keeper the Neighbours’ Lawns. I occupy that noble office, even to this day.
Once a month, when the sun is out and the lawns are dry, I wheel the mower into the street and top its tank with petrol. I take hold of the starter chord and yank it back with force. When the mower erupts into glorious life, I am God creating Adam.
I guide the mower through swathes of grass, delighting in the symmetry of the patterns I create. The catcher fills with clippings. Sweat and dust define my face. I cease to fret or ruminate on unrelated matters. There is only lawn and effort. I mow, therefore I am.
If I think at all, I think of Bob, who passed away last year after a brief but brutal illness. The news spread quickly through the street. Bob seemed indestructible, as fixed and constant as a mountain range. My neighbours spoke of him in quiet tones, with a mix of sadness and disbelief.
And me?
I can summon Bob with just a thought, every time I mow the lawns. I hear his voice in the dragon’s roar. I see his face at sunset. I sit in the shade, when the lawns are done, and we drink a beer together.
A strange, consoling silence settles on the street. Time itself appears to stop, suspended in bright air.
I pack away the mower and return to my desk. The weeks go by. The work piles up. I watch the weather. I count the days.
First published in The Big Issue, Australia, 23 October 2026
Featured image: Paul at work, 2026
Image insert: Bob at work, 2022
