Desmond Philips

Properties

Type Person

Title Desmond Philips

State Seed

Also known as Desmond

Created 2026-05-09

Desmond lives two doors down in a house he has been slowly restoring since before the narrator moved onto the street. He is retired from surveying, lives with an elderly beagle, and grows more tomatoes than anyone could eat. He talks little at first and then, once a subject catches, a great deal. The narrator’s neighbor, mostly met at the fence line or on the sidewalk in the evening.

Linked mentions · 6

2026-05-09 1 Desmond Said hello over the fence while I was dragging the bins out. He has a beagle that is clearly older than it looks. I realized I have lived here two years and not learned his name until today.

2026-05-17 1 Desmond He handed me three seedlings over the fence without being asked and told me exactly where to put them so they would not shade the beans. It was a very specific instruction. Nobody gives instructions like that unless they have been wrong before.

2026-05-30 1 Saturday got away from me in a good way. I ran into my neighbor, Desmond, while taking out the trash, and we struck up a conversation in his driveway that ran most of an hour. He explained how he used to find property corners from old deeds.

2026-06-13 1 Desmond / Porch Restoration He came over to look at the rotted step on my porch and ended up redoing the measurements twice with a tape he keeps in his back pocket. He would not take anything for it. I left a jar of the jam on his step and felt I had not repaid it.

2026-06-27 1 Desmond His beagle was not on the walk this evening. He said she is sleeping more, and then talked about something else for a while. I had thought of him as gruff and self-sufficient. I think now that he is lonely in a way he does not say, and that the seedlings and the measuring were the way he says it. I do not have anything to do with this except to keep stopping at the fence.

2026-07-05 1 Desmond First ripe one from the plants he gave me. I took it over and he ate it standing in the doorway with his eyes closed. He asked me in for coffee. It is the first time I have been inside his house.

Local graph · 7