When You REALLY Hate Your Neighbors

Making my way back to Kamakura Station after tossing a  few plates at the Dish-Breaking Shrine, I was walking through a totally normal-looking neighborhood when I chanced upon this.

A hedge. But not just any old hedge – isn’t this the freakin’ unfriendliest alt picket fence you’ve ever seen? I mean, it’s all thorns, all the time. No leaves. No flowers. Just thorns. And wicked sharp too!

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From a distance, it didn’t look that scary…

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…although if you came upon it from the creepily overgrown garage door side, the sheer size of the thing might make you think twice about popping over to borrow a cup of soy sauce

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And up close? Yikes! And this sucker isn’t just long – it’s at least twelve feet high and four feet thick. It’s no joke!

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Kinda makes you wonder what sort of evil overlord lives here, doesn’t it?

I admit, I had to kind of admire the cussedness of whoever owns the house. If nothing else, growing this thing took huge dedication, and a near-legendary level of anti-neighborliness. We’re talking years of nurturing and pruning. Which kind of suggests it’s not just a case of the casual paranoia that might inspire a homeowner to zip over to Prison Surplus Razor Wire Inc. for a little fence topper.

Kind of perversely made me want to loiter around and see who lives here. Or better yet, who lives next door?

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Jonelle Patrick writes mysteries set in Tokyo

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When Tokyo Detective Kenji Nakamura’s phone rings with the news that his mother’s death ten years ago wasn’t an accident, his world begins to unravel. New evidence links her to…read more