Once upon a time in the City of the Angels lived a selfish lawyer. He was young, beautiful, healthy, and intelligent. He had everything. When he was a child, however, he had been very poor and powerless. This had scarred him so badly that his heart was closed to love.

Now that he was rich, he built a beautiful garden for his own enjoyment. He encircled it with a wall of glass so that others could see how rich he was and yet no one could enter. As he had neither the time nor the love to fill it with real trees and flowers, he ordered beautiful trees with trunks of gleaming copper and leaves of enamel, occasionally dotted with enamel flowers or fruit. “After all, droughts will come and kill the plants. Or rains will come and drown the plants. These will never die.”

In the evening, if he had put in his share of billable hours, he would sit on his balcony and contemplate the beauty of his garden, particularly when the setting sun would flood it with its warm rays. It was perfect. But somehow it was empty. It needed something.

From one of the tree limbs he had a swing hung, and he would sometimes go and sit on the swing and fly as high as he could. He had loved to do this when he was young. But it was more satisfying then. Something was missing. Surely it wasn’t the laughter of the other children!

As he labored in the vineyard of evil, his heart grew more and more cold and scarred. And then one day he found three children in his garden. They were strange children, of different races, who were blind and yet could see even better than he. He went down to join them.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“We came to see your garden before we left,” the first child said.

“It is beautiful,” said the second.

“How do you know? Do you have a VISOR like Geordi LaForge?” Watching Star Trek was about the only pleasure he had.

“We see with our hearts. It is beautiful, but it is dead,” the third child, and only girl, said.

“There are no birds, no insects. No life at all.”

“Please take us out of here.” So he led them to the gate where an angel who wore robes of black waited.

“Will you be safe?” the lawyer asked.

“We will now.” The children waved goodbye and left with the dark angel.

The lawyer knew they were right. He went to a shop which made music boxes and ordered beautiful enamel birds that would sing the music of Mozart. And he went to a jeweler who made enamel butterflies and ladybugs. The garden was filled with music, and the insects were placed on leaves. But it still wasn’t right.

Then a woman came to the garden. She was blonde and very beautiful. Although he shared his garden with her, she did not love him. He ordered her an apple made of rubies. She took the apple from him. “This will not nourish me, even though it is the color of blood. It will not keep me alive.” But the apple kept her from going back to her grave. However, she spotted the dark angel outside of the walls and left to join him. The selfish lawyer was left with nothing again.

He knelt in the corner of his garden and a miracle happened. He began to cry. Where his tears hit the ground, seedlings sprouted. Then he knew what he had to do.

He made one more trip to the place where he had given away his soul and took it back. “I have no more time for this; I’ve wasted too much of my life in your service.” Then he returned home. First he took a hammer and smashed the glass walls. Then he took the trees and plants of copper and enamel and pulled them out. He left them outside his walls for anyone who wished to help himself. Then slowly, using only his own strength and the sweat of his brow, he began to fill his garden with flowers and trees. He added small birdbaths and bird feeders to attract the songbirds and the butterflies. Along with them came mosquitoes and even wasps, but he realized that they, too, were part of life. Swings hung from tree branches, and in one corner he had a sandbox and some slides and seesaws, hoping that perhaps the laughter of children might one day fill this place.

At night he would be exhausted, but it was a good feeling. He would sit on his porch with a cold glass of water and watch as passers-by would stop to admire his garden. One brave little boy, who was dressed in shabby old clothes. slipped in and picked an apple. Then he saw the lawyer looking at him. He was afraid because he had not asked permission. “Please,” the lawyer said, “take as many as you want.” The boy looked strangely familiar. “Take some for your family. And bring your brothers and sisters to play. I promise I won’t bother you.”

The boy took off his shirt and filled it with apples. “Thank you.” He came back the next day with three other ragged children, all younger than he, two girls and a boy. They played a while and then picked a few apples. The lawyer had left a basket by the tree for them. They filled it, thanked him, and left.

That evening he bought strawberry plants that were bearing fruit and planted them near the apple tree. He left another basket nearby.

The children came back and eventually other children came to the garden and the playground. The lawyer was happier than he had ever been. But still it was not quite enough. Late one evening he found himself kneeling in the flowerbed loosening the soil and he began to weep, although he did not know why. In the morning there was a beautiful rosebush covered with white roses where his tears had fallen.

A woman with whom he had worked came by and tried to pick a rose, but the bush presented only thorns to her. She went away with a bleeding finger. A man from the firm also came by, telling him that he was violating the zoning laws, but he showed his deed to the property which gave him carte blanche to plant a garden, so he went away.

Another woman wandered by and saw the rosebush. She tiptoed in to look at it, and the bush presented all its flowers to her, hiding its thorns so that she would not prick her finger. He looked down from his balcony and saw a blonde head. “Darla,” he breathed. But when he came down he saw that it was not Darla.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to look at your roses. I didn’t touch them. I’ll leave now.”

“No, please. Take one. Take as many as you like.” And he picked a rose and handed it to her.

She inhaled its fragrance. She had never smelled anything so lovely. “May I come back?”

“Would you stay? We could sit on the porch and enjoy the sunset.”

She sat on the porch with him and sipped ice water. Later he brought out plates of apples and pears and strawberries from his garden.

When it was dark, she rose. “It’s late. I must go.”

“Please stay. I have a guest room. I’ll make breakfast for you.”

So she stayed in his guest room. After a while, she moved into his bedroom with him. And one day a priest came to the garden. He married them as they stood under the cherry tree. When he pronounced them man and wife, showers of blossoms fell on them from the tree.

As the years passed, the garden was filled with their children and then their grandchildren. One day as they sat on the porch, a ragged little boy came into the garden. “I know you. You were here long ago.”

“Do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “You are the boy I once was. You made me what I am today. You showed me how to be happy.”

“I came to you in the guise of your younger self. But that’s not who I am.” The boy held out his hands, which bore the marks of nails. The lawyer and his wife fell to their knees. “I have come to take you to Paradise with me.”

The next morning, when the children came to play, they found the lawyer and his wife lying under the cherry tree, smiles on their faces, their bodies covered with blossoms.

In his will, the lawyer had bequeathed his garden to the children of the city. And one day a statue was erected in the corner to the lawyer and his wife. And children came there as long as the city existed. And occasionally the dark angel would come by, remembering the selfish lawyer and the loving man he had become. And he smiled.