The Arcane Arborists

"Oh, what now?" muttered Frank, looking out into his backyard. These were, by far, the worst landscapers he had ever heard of. He had listened closely to all of the stories from his neighbors; Coniro and Sons would waste your water and watch your cable, Major Mulch planted sickly trees, and so on. He had never heard anyone complain about the Arcane Arborists, but after three days, he could only guess this was because no one had hired them before.

He'd been pleased with them on the first day; the day they brought out surveying equipment, and went over his yard making diagrams and graphs and plots. Then he realized they weren't making maps so that they could plan his new yard with architectural detail. No, they had been mapping out the ebb and flow of the ley lines in the area, for some dumb hippie reason.

They didn't even work on the second day. They phoned him up, five minutes before they were supposed to show up, and told him that they wouldn't be able to make it to work that day. When he asked why, they told him that it was the peak day of Mars sitting in a house unsuitable for work. Nothing he could say could convince them otherwise, not that he didn't spend a good half hour trying.

And now, here he was paying out of his pants for the four of them to be here, and only one guy was working. It was simply unbelievable. He stormed out into his yard, ready to let them have it. "Can I help you, sir?" one of them had the guts to ask.

"You sure can!" he shrieked. "You can get your lazy butts back to work! Just what am I paying you for?"

"I'm sorry sir, but that's not how it works," he said, patiently. "Jim here is the Mover, so he's digging up the dirt. I'm the Giver, I'll be ensuring your plants get the nutrition they'll need. Steve is the Grower, he'll... well, I bet you can work that one out. And Ben here is our Condemner. He kills weeds and harmful pests. Obviously, we can't all work at the same time."

"Oh, you can't, can you?" commented Frank, crossing his arms. "I must have you guys confused with able-bodied young men who I've hired to landscape my lawn. Clearly I'm mistaken. So either get back to work, or get off of my property!"

"Sir, do you really want us to do that?" asked Ben, raising his eyebrows as he stared from behind his coffee mug.

"Of course I'm sure! I am not paying you to stand around! Now grab a shovel and get to work!"

"If you insist," replied Ben, shrugging his shoulders. He reached forward and tapped him lightly on the forehead. Frank was dead before his body hit the ground.