Every now and then, I descend into my garden and slaughter everything in sight. Minus the three tiny fig trees I planted there myself a bit more than a year ago, of course. Ostensibly, I am protecting the figs from the onslaught of the weeds, but there is more to my descents. Much more. Carrying all sorts of gardening tools, all of them menacing, I am defending my turf, as it were. Whence the zeal that borders on wrath. I go at the weeds with such venom that I occasionally start laughing out loud. “Silly old man,” I whisper under my breath as I imagine watching myself from the terrace above, “slash it all to the smithereens!” Once I return to the terrace, I take pleasure at the last slaughter, for the garden is covered with dead plants. In a week or two, there will be not a trace of my last descent into the garden, though, and I am liable to go at it again. And again. Alas, defending my turf is a never-ending chore. If I were into gardening for true, I would have to battle with weeds every two or three days at most.