Two neighbours. Two fences. Two perfectly rude gnomes.
How a suburban boundary drama revealed hidden conflict patterns, biological shock
responses, and a few well-timed universal nudges that pushed everything into place.
By Ebony Twiss
A Gnome Sets the Stage
It all started with a drunk gnome.
One Christmas, I slipped a ceramic tipsy gnome clutching a wine bottle into Will’s pristine
garden. He would find it, squint suspiciously through the fence, and I would quietly laugh. It
became a game. Over time, more gnomes joined the rebellion: a doctor gnome after he had
a hospital stay, a sassy one after a yelling fit, and the occasional wildly inappropriate recruit,
because honestly, it was funny. Deliberately placed ceramic acts of sedition against his
immaculate lawn.
Will, an 85-year-old great-grandfather, had the stubborn charm of a village patriarch and
the surveillance skills of a neighbourhood alarm system. We had this unspoken
understanding: he ranted about how someone was out to kill his plants, and I smiled politely
over tea. Every morning, he would wave through the fence. So naturally, I thought I was safe
from the tirades.
I was wrong.
The Fence Line Fault Line
The battlefield was a skinny strip of land between our houses. The retaining wall sat 600
mm too low, leaving the fence perched awkwardly on top, buried by soil on my side and
floating on his. A long-rotted temporary plastic liner clung to the fence slats like a
monument to every shortcut that had finally caught up. Each downpour sent soil sliding
through the openings, as if it had clocked off early. Will detested it but rejected every fix I
offered. Raise the wall? No. Add sleepers? No. Offer to pay? Still no. He was being
completely unfair, and any discussion would ultimately end with what seemed to be his
mantra, “I paid good money for that fence”. His fence was “perfect.” All I had to do was
bend the laws of physics to suit it.
Then came the rain. Not a polite drizzle, but a six-week mudslide spectacular. Water from
higher properties turned our backyard into a slip-and-slide straight into Will’s pool. His pool
turned brown, his plants drowned, and Will morphed from chatty neighbour into a red-
faced foreman, wading through the mess like a man investigating a natural disaster I’d apparently masterminded.
When he yelled that it was my fault, the shock hit like a jolt. My mouth went dry, my
stomach dropped, and in that split second, it all hit at once. First came the fog of intellectual
inadequacy, my brain clawing for a solution that worked for both of us, and finding none.
Then the sting of injustice, ankle-deep in filthy water, blamed for a storm I couldn’t control
when I’d tried to fix it long ago. And finally, the gut-punch of betrayal and domination, the
neighbour who once waved like an ally now looming over me with the cold authority of
someone who’d decided I was the enemy.
I apologised, promised to fix the “problem,” and naively hoped it was over.
A week later, the council letter arrived, signed, sealed, and passive-aggressively delivered.
Enter Mother Nature
If the body had a scriptwriter, it would be Mother Nature. And she loves a dramatic plot
twist. What started over the fence wasn’t just an argument. It was the opening scene of the
pain that would come later, the instant my body quietly flipped the switch on its biological
survival program.
What happened in that moment is known as a conflict shock: something unexpected that
feels isolating and catches both mind and body completely off guard. It stamps itself,
precisely and simultaneously, into the psyche, the brain, and the organ, triggering specific
biological programs designed to increase your chance of survival. Every environmental and
emotional detail is filed away in the subconscious like evidence at a crime scene.
Here’s the thing about conflict shocks: the first time your world tilts, your body doesn’t
scream; it listens. From that instant, you enter a conflict-active state, locked in alert mode
until the threat is disarmed or the problem is brought to peace. The body wakes at 3 am,
not out of cruelty, but to create a quiet space to think, to search for a solution before dawn.
But symptoms don’t appear during that first shock. They wait. It’s only when life repeats the
theme, when a new event echoes the original conflict, that your body recognises the
pattern and presses “play.” That’s when the biological program you once stored comes to
life, replaying the unresolved story through physical symptoms.
That day had triggered a series of self-devaluation conflicts: intellectual inadequacy,
injustice, betrayal and domination. But deep down, my body already knew this script. This
wasn’t the first time the scene had played out.
Mud, Madness and Midnight Blueprints
We dug trenches, laid drainage and moved enough clay to start a side hustle in pottery.
Progress was muddy but happening.
Then came the knock. A police officer.
Will had called the cops on my husband, accusing him of launching Will’s flimsy Temu
greenhouse into the pool. He hadn’t, of course, but Will loved official channels more than
conversation. Calling the police over something a five-minute chat could fix was peak Will:
theatrical, heavy-handed, and just dramatic enough to feel like a suburban soap finale.
The absurdity of it all snapped something loose in me. If I were already the villain in his
story, why keep auditioning for Mrs Nice Neighbour? A decade of fence limbo had officially
expired. His fury bulldozed every polite excuse I had ever made.
But boundary disputes don’t magically end with an epiphany. They slouch along, wrapped in
riddles and red tape, tied with a smug little bow of bureaucratic hypocrisy. Come 3 a.m., I
lay staring at the ceiling, building fences in my head like some sleep-deprived council
apprentice. I’m not a builder. But there I was, night after night, deep in online forums and
council regulation PDFs, teaching myself how to build a fence that wouldn’t get me a
demolition order. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a start.
Then, because the universe loves a punchline, the fence at my investment property
collapsed too. My tenant’s dad had already graciously fixed it, so it barely qualified as a
problem. But a week later, we found ourselves over at the property propping the panels up
again. Meanwhile, our fence was almost complete. I chuckled at the irony: one fence rising,
another collapsing in solidarity. It felt like the universe tossing me a pity-freebie, a brief,
ridiculous pause before the next round.
The Great Escape (of Fence Panels)
As we placed the last post in the ground, there was a sense of relief. Will’s plants were safe,
his pool was clear, and I was officially off the neighbourhood’s Most Wanted list. My
subconscious got the memo: threat neutralised. And right on cue, once the conflict was
resolved, the dull pain that had been all day staged its own mutiny. Not weakness, just
repair. That post marked the shift; my body finally felt safe enough to exhale.
But this time, I was paying attention. Each ache had a message. The pull in my cervical spine
muscles spoke of intellectual inadequacy. The ache through my lower cervical and upper
thoracic area carried the weight of injustice. The stabbing pain in my scapula and
surrounding muscles told the story of betrayal and quiet domination.
Pain might be a terrible co-worker, but it’s rarely random. If you know what to look for, it
tells you exactly what the problem is, and, luckily, German New Medicine speaks that language fluently.
And then Bob rang.
Bob, Keeper of the Fence
Bob, the neighbour and self-appointed warden of my tenants’ fence, declared the panels
had blown out again. A third time. At this point, they weren’t falling; they were plotting
their great escape
Twenty years earlier, Bob had refused to replace the rusted fence, calling his side “perfect.”
I built my own out of stubbornness and spite. However, more recently, I’d reluctantly
handed over my number after he had alerted me to a pipe leak on my side, which flooded
his precious garden. I fixed it fast. Honestly, if Bob hadn’t spotted it, it could have been
much worse.
But as he talked, I remembered the old hose incident. One sunny afternoon, he spun mid-
watering like an action hero and blasted a perfect stream through my car window, straight
onto my daughter. He didn’t even flinch. Just kept watering his lawn like he had completed a
side quest in his own private video game. Unbelievable.
Back in the present, I caught “get a grinder,” “cut every panel,” and “council letter.” I asked
for photos, hung up, and let history clear its throat. Then I went to bed for three days.
Lying there ignoring Bob’s texts, it started to make sense. My body wasn’t just exhausted; it
was speaking. It all traced back to Will. Making the connection helped ease the pain, but
something still held it open, like a door I couldn’t quite close.
The Pattern Reveals Itself
A week later, still sore but technically upright, I reluctantly opened Bob’s “proposal” with
fence photos, sketches, and unsolicited instructions. My husband made the executive call:
forget the grinder. We would screw the panels in with roughly a thousand screws. If the
wind wanted them after that, it could lodge a formal council complaint like everyone else.
When I arrived alone to inspect the fence, Bob was ready. Hands on hips. He was barking
orders and explaining how to fix my fence like I hadn’t spent the past month practically
earning a trade. My neck began throbbing, my patience quietly quit, and every cell in my
body wanted to turn on its heel and walk away.
But I stood there staring silently, focused on the fence, trying to figure out why these stupid
panels kept falling out. It didn’t add up. The pain told me I was on a track. Then it clicked.
Screws were missing. The sheets hadn’t fallen; they’d been helped. And the original
boundary fence?
Gone.
That boundary fence had once drawn the line between “his” and “mine.” Here we were again. Same storm. Different fence. Bob didn’t want a shared fix. He wanted control. A Bob-
approved masterpiece. Shorter. Neater. Convenient. For him.
Then came the line: “I paid a lot of money for that fence.” The line landed like a well-rehearsed finale.
Tracks Lead Home
This was a pivotal moment. I already understood that the pain in my neck and upper back
had come from the resolution of the self-devaluation conflicts I had experienced, and I’d
managed to minimise it. I knew that pain only arrives the second time you encounter the
conflict. But without identifying the original event that started it all, I was still vulnerable.
Any situation my subconscious deemed similar enough triggered the same pain all over
again what’s known as a track.
In this case, that last trip to the property reactivated the same pain like a silent alarm. It was
my body’s way of warning me: you’ve been here before. Yet, I couldn’t figure out why this
particular fence was so significant, and that confusion was the clue; the memory had been
buried.
The chain reaction of moments and memories from twenty years earlier rose to the surface,
dragging everything with it. Then I remembered the specific event, the one that had never
been resolved. Neither of us ever spoke of it again; it was left suspended, unfinished. And
just like that, the same feelings returned: the sting of being dismissed, cornered and
outmanoeuvred. Intellectual inadequacy. Injustice. Betrayal disguised as neighbourly
concern. And domination, quiet and deliberate, standing right in front of me with hands on
his hips. Every detail of that old encounter with Bob came flooding back exactly as I had
buried it.
I had found the original programming conflict; the same conflict Will had brought back for
an encore. The instant I remembered and understood it, the pain in my neck and back
vanished: just like that. Not slowly. Instantly. And what followed wasn’t just relief, but a
strange, unmistakable clarity. I felt physically and mentally wide awake.
The Gnome Has the Last Word
A week later, my husband and I finished installing the new panels. I’d accidentally ordered
them in a colour just a shade too light; the kind of detail guaranteed to make Bob’s inner
fence inspector twitch. But this time, it didn’t matter. It was my fence. My choice. His
problem.
For years, those fences had been silent stages for other people’s control. Will. Bob. Old
ghosts of neighbours past. The pattern was named, seen, and broken. What had loomed so
large for so long suddenly felt small. Manageable. Powerless. And with those biological
adaptations behind me, I felt stronger in every sense.
Sometimes the universe doesn’t whisper. It shoves. But if you’re awake enough to catch the
push, you get to choose how the story ends.
I strolled toward Bob’s manicured garden, a delicious fizz of mischief and justice bubbling
through me. From my bag, I pulled out the newest recruit to the gnome rebellion. Not a
wine gnome. Not a doctor gnome. This one stood proud, chubby ceramic hands raised high
in a perfect double middle-finger salute.
I nestled it right where he would see it, a silent monument to poetic justice. Not a word. Not
a warning. Just a gnome giving the world exactly what I’d been too polite to say.
Then I drove home and gave Will the same treatment.
Two neighbours. Two fences. Two perfectly rude gnomes. And me, finally done playing Mrs
Nice neighbour.