Month: June 2021

Originally published in Village X Magazine vol. 4

by MacKenzie River Foy | Originally published in Village X Magazine vol. 5

They saw us. That was all the reason we needed to help them survive. They danced behind us like footprints, floated in us like we were the breeze and they, featherweight. These people could make music from anything, and the music they made was our mirror. 

Oh, what a joy it was to be seen! For a quick moment we could catch a glimpse of ourselves in a percussive embellishment, a vocal riff, the taught timbre of the trumpet. In the clarity of brass and sweet winds, in the purr of a bamboo reed. Coming from fingers and wet breath, we were beautiful. 

Still, there were people who could not or would not dance with us. But a snake you can see will not bite you, yes? We saw them, did not expect them to see us, and came to love those that did. 

We melted into their flesh. We became part of them as we are of all free things. We danced for thousands of years happily and could have gone on forever if it weren’t for the other people. The ones who didn’t listen.

The girlchild, Bennie, would be our last dance with the humans. 

+

Bennie would watch the older children play from the wide window of her sunroom, the sounds of their shrieking laughter spilling in from outside. Her grandmother hadn’t let her play with other kids since a deadly virus had flooded the city with grief the previous year. 

“Now you know you not going out there just to play,” she scoffed. “I’m seventy-fo. And I’m ‘sposed to die cause you got a crush on one of them crusty lipped kids? Shi-et.” 

Deflated, Bennie stopped asking. Instead she would watch from this window, committing to memory everything she could hear. The sound of thin white cords tap-dancing on concrete imprinted in her brain. We suspect this was the way she learned to dance. 

Bennie was a good listener, a natural talent as was her mother and her mothers mother and so on. She inherited the ability to hear music in everything, synthesize it out of the air and sunlight. Her rhythm was a natural fact, yet Bennie’s memory was scientific in its precision.

As years went on, she would watch her grandmother move through the kitchen and learned the sounds there. 

Another spoonful of ginger slipping from the lip of the spoon into a crowd of red onions squabbling in the cast iron. Another bunch of berries from juniper tree. Another three nights beneath the waning moon. Her grandmother would pick twelve flowers from the bush, dry them in sunlight, crush them beneath sacred stones, grind them to fine purple powder. All the while, singing a song passed to her through her mother, and her mothers mother, and her father, and his mother and then her aunt before that. The song was from everywhere. It was Gullah, Yoruba, Telugu, Swahili, Creole, Brixton, Kingston, Harlem. There were sounds not quite earthly, melodies for which there was no notation. 

Her grandmother would do each step with a distinct flair, in motions that seemed to sing along with her tune, a low hum that warmed her chest.

Dutifully, Bennie committed it all to memory, from the choreography to the moonlight glancing off her grandmothers smooth scalp. She knew each sound by heart – the whispering simmer, the crackling oil, the mournful tenor of the old oven door. 

After her grandmother had gone to sleep, Bennie would practice the movements in her bedroom, reaching on her tiptoes towards where the spice cabinet would be, stirring the pot on the stove as she imagined it before her. We did this dance til the girl became a woman herself.

+

It was the earth that changed first. You see, leaving was not easy. We could not help but wonder if we would ever be seen again. Avoiding the leaving was worse, and soon we could not deny that our time had come. The seasons and the sandy coasts were off-beat. Life in the sea seemed to expand, while forests were licked to desert by flames. Stress overtook our delicate, ancient dance with the soil, the rain. The surface became hard, cold, rock, and where rock wouldn’t hold, sand. The air seemed to either stand still or sprint by with enough force to lay a city flat. The edges of continents became quiet, save for the relentless drum of the ocean. We saw ourselves less and less. The people went into the earth by the handful, and gave us a warm shake of gratitude in their last moments. At least there was soil left for them to return to. Some would not be so lucky.  

Bennie lived much longer than any of the children that she used to watch play outside. She was a witness to the earth’s transformation, a listener til the very end. Her home grew from a web of trees whose young branches had grown together, woven into thick locs that hugged her while she slept, cupped a steady burning hearth for her to eat around and stay warm, kept cool a supply of clean water and medicines. She lived a seven day walk from the coast, and would prepare to take this journey before each full moon, sleeping periodically at her favorite rest spots: a small brook, a flat rock beside a rapid river, an impenetrable web of vines above a muddy swatch. Three nights before the moon waxed whole, she would make her way to her grandmother’s old house, which stood still on the dry edge of a dwindling forest. 

It was autumn in the year 2103 when she arrived to find that a burst of titanic wind had blown the house onto a slight angle, taking with it most of the surrounding trees and soil. She stared for a long time at the home sitting askew, placing her bare feet on the craggy stone surrounding structure. She wept silently, the stony tears of someone who has seen too much. She saw us as we marched melancholy across the jagged earth and into the flat horizon. She could see us leaving this house, leaving her earth, and the sight of it broke her heart. 

Bennie sank to the floor and stayed like this until sunrise, eyes crusted with salt and sorrow. She did not find sleep that night, but when the sunlight warmed her skin she began to come back to herself. She noticed she was thirsty, full of grief and empty houses. She was hungry for the music of her grandmothers kitchen. Having seen us leave, she must have known it wasn’t possible. No one had walked these halls in decades. The land was too quiet now to create such symphonies. The rhythm had all but faded away. 

Dragging her feet across the crooked threshold, Bennie danced in her grandmothers kitchen. Her footprints painted the floors as she waltzed to her toes at the spice cabinet, then sunk into her heels while stirring a pot she imagined simmering with honey and herbs and fruit rinds. The pot, rusted and broken in places, did not sing with her. The stove was dead. But still she sang her grandmothers song as the full moon rose and continued her journey to the edge of the water. 

She walked east from the house, crossing over black stones until they became pebbles, then wet sand. She was at the water, and even in our retreat from the planet we could hear her singing. Thirst swole her tongue and words poured thickly from her lips. They slipped from her and into the ocean, who roared in approval. That was the last time we saw ourselves. In all our magnificence and heavy with age and grief. We mourned the listening people when we left them. 

With the moon floating directly above her, Bennie sang one last note so clear that it cut through time and space. It crawled from her mouth and left her skin alabaster, a sharp contrast against the black coast. Coils and color washed from her hair, leaving it limp and white around her waist. 

The note lingered in the air, and Bennie’s footprints began to glow in the moonlight. The song was so beautiful we almost stopped our procession off the surface, a heart stopping jolt of rememory. We saw that we were the relationship between time and love, all that freedom ever was. But, it seemed, the earth had run out of time. And so we left. Following us, Bennie walked into the sea and did not stop. 

This was just the beginning. Bennie’s footsteps, trailing all the way back to the house one day’s walk away, glowed in the moonlight. The earthborn note that crawled from her throat picked each footstep up, rolling and twisting them along the edges until they formed scrolls, thick with black ink. Heavy with recipes and spells and other freedom songs. When it picked the last one from stone, the note sped into the night like a shooting star, traveling again through time and space. 

+

It was a full moon when Bennie’s note arrived in 2020, swirling through an eastside alley swamped with trash bins, machines, and other debris. Illuminated by a yellow streetlight, men in undershirts threw dice and drank from amber bottles. Spectators sprawled across the hoods of cars, tucked into folding chairs, and stood around with their limbs loose and never quite still. The smack of dice against pavement was followed by a snap every time someone lost, a burst of laughter if they won. It was a quiet ritual, a nightly prayer for good luck. 

If they had looked across the alley, and upwards, they would have seen a lighter dance alive, and bring with it a plume of smoke. Someone else had come to listen, for good luck. 

Bennie’s note swept over the alley and electrified the air. All the dice players heard, all the rodents foraging heard, all the birds sleeping heard, the writer in the window heard too. Everyone stopped and looked at each other, not daring to voice the question they all had. Instead, a thin man with a round belly threw the dice down, and won. He hollered and hooted and the other men felt at ease. Well sheeee-it, one said. Finally, one said. On the balcony, the smoker said nothing, but remained uneasy. The note stayed in their head beyond the spliff’s ending. They slept fitfully, and rose before dawn.

Half asleep, the smoker came to their desk and pulled out paper, a favorite pen. Its smooth ridges felt cinderblock heavy in hand, and pushing it across paper required the force of every muscle from their shoulder to their fingertip. They wrote into exhaustion, with the sun just cresting above the city skyline. The ten pages sitting in front of them were in unfamiliar handwriting. The smoker frowned. These seemed like spells, instructions, choreography. Recipes that used the moon. A kitchen witch manifesto. She would call them the Village X.

Originally published in Village X Magazine vol. 2

It’s late, but on rooftops and from windows across the city, we watch the night sky expectantly. In a burst of light, the darkness seems to spill away from upturned faces, revealing toothy streaks on tanned skins. Embers glitter in yellows and reds across midnight blue and those watching feel briefly intimate with the stars. 

The streets these days are empty, weightless under the heavy sky. Most people seem adjusted to life indoors. They choose not to think about the people outside, connecting them to markets – bringing food, medicine, and clothes to their doorsteps. Inside Parents refer to them as “Expendables” in hushed, anxious tones. Inside Children, liking the sound of it, peer through barred windows longingly, wishing for one to appear.

Pop-pop. Poppoppoppop.

Tonight, the wish comes true. Children hold their breath, watching a womanish figure wade through rubble. She is flanked by burly pit bulls, two of them. She wears an automatic rifle over her shoulder, keeping a relaxed grip on the trigger. The woman doesn’t look to see the fire working in the sky, though she can hear it crackle in the distance. The nearest streetlight flickers precariously overhead as she passes beneath it, then goes out. One of the dogs stops to sniff its base, moonlight glinting silver off its coat. There is a sharp whistle, then:

“Clip. Heel.” Grinning doggishly, Clip trots back into formation with her owner. They walk to an alley at the end of the block. Before entering, the woman glances over her shoulder, making direct eye contact with the Children for a brief and chilling moment. She adjusts her gun, whistles lowly, then disappears into the alley. 

Swaddled in their dreams that night, the Children leave their bodies behind to soar across the neighborhood, descending into a sleepy cottage nestled between townhouses. They melt softly through wood, cement, soil, then sink into a cavernous room lit by a ring of lanterns along its edge. Nestled into the back wall, four propane grills sear smoke and seasoning into ribs, brisket, and chicken wings. The chef is heavy-set with excellent posture and a starchy apron, brushing moisture back into the meat while singing wordlessly under his breath. It is a regular night at The Grill. The chef flips vegetables, fire-roasts tortillas, and mesquite smoke billows up through a perfectly wide chimney overhead as the sky pulls a deep inhale. An oak table stretches from wall to wall, and around it gathers eight overlapping conversations. 

“Can you pass the hot sauce? No, that one. Yea—”

 “I don’t think you can get these anywhere else. Limited re—” 

“Miss Rona not welcome in my house, I don’t wanna see her, hear from her, no thank—.”

“—Waitwaitwait, I didn’t see that episode.”

“Mm. Mhm. Wow.” 

“I told you it’s self-titled, B-Day, then Lemon— 

“Awww shit, it’s EZ! Easy-peasy” 

A chorus of hey’s ease from the group. They offer her an obligatory glance in greeting but not for long, filling the room with their conversations once more. At the head of the table, a broad woman with sweat peppering her brow beckons to EZ warmly. She wears the same crisp apron as the chef, having just finished her own grill master shift. The Children recognize the image tattooed on her cheekbone — a stick of dynamite. A color contact makes her left eye bright blue against cinnamon skin. Her right eye is milky white, a wet scar floating on its surface like foam. Her mouth breaks open, releasing a wave of questions. EZ lets them wash over her, a salve:

“Now how you doin’ miss thing? Do you haveta get thinner every time I see ya? They not feeding you on the westside? You can always get something to eat at with us, okay? Now have you talked to Junior this week? I asked him to check in on you, didn’t I Junior? Junior!”

Junior, tearing into a massive burrito with what seems to be love, snaps his head up at the tone of his mother’s voice. His mouth pauses mid-chew, hanging ajar as if to say, what?

“Child if you don’t close your mouth like you got some damn sense. Didn’t I ask you to talk to EZ on Wednesday? Y’remember that?

Junior nods his head yes. 

“Did you do it?”

Junior shakes his head no. A vein pulses dangerously in his mother’s temple. 

Junior shrugs defensively, swishing around a cheekful of carnitas to choke out three words: “She right there.” EZ chuckles, covering it with a cough.

“Thanks, Auntie. I’m actually not staying for dinner, I just wanted—“

“Aht aht, you gon’ be hungry later so you better take a plate to go.” 

“Well—“

“Gary! Get up fool, you done finished every last lick on that plate.” Gary, sauce scattered like jazz across his chest, sneers back at her but cannot deny this observation. “Go on now, this is a grill not a living room.” 

Gary makes his way out, muttering something rude but inaudible, and throws the soggy paper plate in a trash bin. At the door he stops to pull from a sticky-looking flask then smacks his lips loudly. The room sings goodbyes out behind him, their harmonies spitting him out on the street with the hazy glow of a full stomach. 

Inside, EZ takes his spot and accepts a plate of tacos from the chef, who pretends not to hear her polite refusal. He also leaves a warm tinfoil parcel at her elbow, which Junior eyes longingly from across the table. 

“Auntie, I thought a lot about what you asked me last week.”

Auntie’s demeanor does not change, but EZ again notices the vein pulsing steadily at her temple. “Now, I don’t mean to worry you—“

“Child, just about everything worries me. The police kill anything that moves on these streets, and those dogs outside —what do you call them?”

“Clip and Nine.”

“Mm-mm, yeah, Clip and Nine won’t stop but one bullet each for you. Pigs never shoot once. You and your cousins crawling around this city at night with no protection just don’t sit right with me. During a war? Don’t make no sense.”

“I know, Auntie.”

“And now this disease…they say if you get it you eat yourself alive. Say you can catch it on the wind if it’s hot out.”

“I know.”

“And this the hottest July in—“

“Auntie. I’m not gonna change my mind. I’m sorry — I can’t — I won’t make deliveries anymore.” An exhale. A silence. Auntie leans back from the table. The roll of conversation in the dining room reduces to a simmer, and guests watch Auntie and EZ from the corners of their eyes.

“You too good to work for me?”

“Naw, we talked about this. Making money off a war just ain’t right. You want to sell your weapons — that’s your business. Not mine.” Auntie scoffs. 

“My business. The same business that puts food on your plate and keeps this grill hot. My business is to keep you alive.” EZ sucks her teeth. “You sitting here strapped up in a piece I gave you, eh? That Ruger on yo’ back came from me. Now why wouldn’t you want to help our people keep safe outside? You got to remember, I didn’t create this mess. They wanted to turn our city into a sanctuary from the disease. “A Safe City”…ha! Then aaaall these white folk started coming. More of them than there was homes. They wanted us, who been here, quarantined outside the city limits. They threatened a war on those who stayed, but no – they wanted to wipe us clean out. Calling our babies sick, calling everyone who refused to evacuate “viral” so they had license to kill. ‘We killed the virus!’ ‘We cleaned their houses!’ ‘Come forget the blood on your hands and live a long life!’ No. I say hell no. That ain’t no war. War is an armed struggle. A war has two sides. They took our homes at gunpoint and we gon’ return with firepower or I’ll be damned.”

“I didn’t sign up for all that. I want to live without always looking over my shoulder.”

“So go out with your cousins. They’ll look over your shoulders for you. Junior and Big Kev just went down Old Bronzeville with some boys and took back the block, right baby?” Junior dipped his head yes. “Over where me and ya mama grew up. Had all them crackas screaming and running, didn’t you? Prolly their first time outside in they life, some of ‘em.” EZ purses her lips. 

“Y’all asking for trouble. Cops didn’t come?”

“We was in and out ‘fore they could call,” Junior reports, sitting up a little straighter. “Just came in to let ‘em know whose house they was in. Threw they shit out the windows. Smashed the phones. Told em stay out my house. Then we bounced. Yo’ rose bush still there, mama. Lookin’ good.” Auntie smile trembles with the weight of memory. Her fingers clasp themselves, grasping for soft velvet rosebuds. Longing for her gardens. 

“So much has failed us…this grill is the only thing that hasn’t.” EZ gestures toward the tall sloping ceiling, muddy and sturdy. She opens her arms to span door to door, as if to say, and you. Auntie leans forward, placing a set of green matte acrylics on the table. 

“So then help us keep it. We got a lock on the street, if we just —“

“I’m not – I can’t be keeping up like this. It don’t sit right with me Auntie, I can’t sleep at night thinking about how backwards this shit is. We need to build more. Build spaces where we don’t have to fight for shelter, for food, to gather. We could move our people underground if –”

“Underground?” Auntie throws her head back and releases a cackle. The laughter ripples through the rest of the table softly. The sound makes the Children uncomfortable. EZ stands up, pressing into the faded tablecloth with her knuckles. 

“This is not the only structure with underground space in the city, okay? They might be connected. My friend Art and I have been mapping them. We could all move underground. Leave the streets as they are.” 

At this, the corners of Auntie’s mouth glance downward. The laughter fades away quick as it came. 

“Being inside is a privilege most people don’t have, Ease. Not our people anyhow. If we leave our streets they’ll take em. They’ll say we were never there. Leaving is not an option.” EZ continues, drunk with audacity. “Is this…the lowest level of the house? Or does it go deeper? Is there somewhere you keep files, like blueprints—“

“Enough.” The room is completely silent except the smacks of grillfire eating wood chips. ”In this world, as we know it, wars are built on three things: Knowledge, power, and oil. You don’t need to get to knowing too much, y’hear me? Trust, you’ll be safe on the surface s’long as you’re working with me.”

“I trust you. I don’t trust what’s out there.” EZ looks at the door darkly, seeing beyond it.

“You are protected. Eat your food.” EZ opens her mouth, then closes it again. Turns back to the neglected taco in front of her. She picks at it thoughtfully. After a moment the conversation in the room starts back up, but the air sits cold and dead between the women. The Children watch from the sky, where they can see every detail of the room. They can see the faces of masked figures standing guard at the door. They can see the dogs outside sitting at attention, waiting for their alpha to return. 

Distracted, the Children float down in front of the dogs, admiring the velvet slope of their ears, wet twitches of their noses sniffing the summer air. The dogs growl lowly, then whine. The Children, startled, wake up from their sleep. One rolls over, sprawling in the middle of the shared bed. The other blinks drowsily in the darkness, shifting into a more comfortable tangle of legs and arms. They return to sleep, rejoining EZ on an unlit street.

She keeps one hand on the trigger and in the other she holds the tinfoil parcel packed by Auntie. The dogs flank her as usual, dutifully scanning the area for threats or places to use the bathroom. The one named Clip growls deep in her throat as the trio slinks around the corner, but EZ doesn’t respond to the warning in time. 

Pop. Popopopopop.

EZ comes back around the corner, sprinting a step behind her dogs. She throws the parcel behind her, freeing her hands to pump quickly at her sides, tucking her head down. A prayer for more speed, for fast enough. Red and blue lights flash behind her, four police motorcycles roaring to life in the distance. Behind her, one of their bullets knicks the aluminum casing. It hisses and begins to smoke. Hearing this, EZ widens her stride. Her lips peel back, teeth meeting the wind with glee. It is both smile and grimace. Each gulp of air a triumph. Each step pulling her towards the morning. She is unafraid. 

Auntie’s words echo in her head and if her lungs had any spare volume she might have laughed, realizing that the to-go plate was never meant to be a meal for later and feeling protected. Behind her, the motorcycles approach the corner, guns ablaze. They don’t notice the parcel whiz to life, nor do they see it shoot sixteen small missiles into the sky, into nearby windows, to ricochet off of crumbling brick. The force of it blows them clean off the road. Some missiles make it to the sky, where they swirl around then fizzle out in red and green. 

Krrr. krkrKRRR. 

Across the city, someone on their rooftop feels briefly intimate with the stars. 

The Children wake up crying. The sound of the explosion still vibrates in their bones. Sniffling, wobbly, they search for their parents. They find them staring out the window in their pajamas, shaking their heads. Complaints leak from their mouths in a cloud of stale breath. 

“No decency. Absolutely no decency.”

“I’ve heard it’s a conspiracy, you know.”

“Now who is conspiring against my peace of mind?”

“Hell if I know.” 

They hear whimpers behind them, and turn with open arms to scoop the Children up. 

“It’s okay baby. They can’t hurt you. Hush now. Go back to sleep.” 

Originally published in Village X Magazine vol. 1

This column from the Post-Washington Post offers gardening advice from a local seed librarian, Michael Clay. This week, Clay did not submit a column. Our publication did receive this (damp) letter regarding his whereabouts: 

Editors,

I saw it all. Saw the whole thing from the muddy floor of the Anacostia. Above me, the surface was white, running swiftly with the summer current. But I could see beyond the surface, into the city. Northeast, down by Rhode Island Avenue, on the outskirts of what had been a magnificent University sits a cathedral, shrouded by forest. Vines take back the marble, and swamp water has risen to meet the top of a grand staircase extending from its entrance. 

The cathedral is properly deserted now. People haven’t gathered like that in decades. The pews still sit as they always have, at attention in the main hall, hugged by a thick layer of dust. Surrounding offices that once saw the daily business of priests, now know only the intimate lives of snakes. As far as I’ve seen, the serpents conduct their business lazily, coiling in a colorful pools of light flowing through stained glass, or tucking neatly into the empty bookshelves. 

Most of the books that once loaded the air with the crisp smell of unturned pages have been relocated, though some still sit on the shelves. Moved underground by the last human resident of the cathedral. Michael Clay. 

He lives in the system of tunnels and bunkers built beneath the supposedly hallowed grounds, and rarely ventures out. Below the surface, his primary companions are Trumpet and Sandy. Not much opportunity for human interaction except for hair cuts. 

Cutting hair is the first thing that boy remembers doing, and I know because I’ve heard him tell it to every client he’s ever had at least twice. Nothing, not even the sour smell rising from the water whenever the door cracked open could stop him from taking the occasional client. Ain’t many who would or could pay a barber, but the ones who did were loyal to the bone. Mike had his barber chair set up in one of the former priests’ offices on the main floor. Vacant shelves and non-venomous snakes populated his workspace. 

Familiar and friendly faces would maneuver their small boats to his front door, stuttering out only half a knock before he answered. He was always ready for them. 

His favorite client seemed to be someone he called Ms. Striking, a woman who came only for a low fade. They didn’t have much to say to each other, but she never tipped less than 200%. She had been his first client when he started years ago, after having her hair braided twice by his mother. Nowadays, she came like the breeze — as often as she could but never quite enough. Her last visit was the first in a long time. Atop high cheekbones and broad forehead her hair stood stiffly, needing attention.

“I want it all off.”

“How low?”

“A one.” She said, pointing to the clipper blade that would leave the finest sheet of hair over her scalp. Mike looked at her from under his eyelashes shadily. 

“Let’s do a treatment first. Looks like its been a while since –”

“Fine,” She snapped. “What kind of treatment?” In response, he pulled a thick volume from the otherwise empty bookshelf, cracking it open to display the contents. Inside, the pages were carved out to form a nest for six vials of oil.

Olive, Castor, Almond, Tea Tree, Mango, and one unmarked vial. 

“What’s this one?” She asked of the nameless amber vessel, turning it over in her hand. 

“A good choice.” Mike sang, plucking it from her hand and whisking the book back onto the shelf in one movement. She laughed despite herself, taking a seat in the shiny chair at the center of the room. He cloaked her in a black smock, pinning it neatly at the nape of her neck. Ms. Striking watched him in the mirror mounted in front of her as he cleaned his razors and warmed the oil with a lighter. 

The sound, the space, the playfulness — the atmosphere seemed to calm the woman. She leaned back in the chair as he ran a rat tail comb across her scalp. 

Mike dipped the pads of his fingers into the oil, testing the temperature before gliding his fingers across an exposed length of skin, tucked between beds of tight coils. A chill ran down her spine. It was not a romantic moment, but the tenderness with which he did this brought tears to her eyes. 

Mike did not look in the mirror to see them, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have strayed from his methodical oiling. He plowed on, rubbing scalp, dipping into oil. Repeat. It was meditative. 

The meditation was interrupted by a bump in her scalp. Mike frowned, running his thumb over the spot again. 

Something tiny and brown peeled off her head and whispered to the ground. Looking more closely and with concern, Mike saw a row of seeds planted firmly in the follicles of his clients head. His assessment of the situation was quick. The woman hadn’t yet noticed this discovery, no doubt lost in the meadows of her mind. 

Mike skillfully plucked the seeds from her hair, four of them, and placed them in his breast pocket, running oil over the place where they once laid. He finished the treatment and cut without further mystery.

As always, his favorite client left him with a 200% tip, and a gentle embrace. Her hands did not linger on his wiry frame, as if she could sense his unease. 

The second the grand wooden doors clicked shut behind her, Mike pulled a thick volume from the shelf, leaving it to protrude like a crooked tooth. A deep rumbling filled the hall as the entire structure slid open, revealing a Mike-sized tunnel. He strode into the darkness with the confidence of light. Muscle memory led the way through stone passageways and stale air. 

The labyrinth opened into a cavernous room, shelves stretching to cover every inch of wall. These were stocked not with books, but with jars, each packed with a different breed of seed. Some were originals of his, some older than he or I. His archive included the work of many generations of seed keepers, collectors who preserved the food cultures of their time, trading seeds with local farmers and with each other. With a clean water shortage throughout the country, many of these seeds couldn’t survive on the surface, and waited patiently on their shelves for the sweet comfort of soil. This library was the largest of its kind in the region, and the last left protecting native seeds. 

There were of course books elsewhere, organized into stacks across the room that formed tables, chairs, and a bedframe. The only structure not made with books was a greenhouse, the centerpiece of the room. It’s glass panels were fogged with climate. The soil inside was a rich brown, supporting patches of vibrant, tropical looking foliage. There was enough space inside for Mike to stand up and take a couple strides in, and enough space in the rest of the room for his two short coated dogs to play around in, though they occasionally hung out inside the greenhouse as well. There was a bed tucked into a loft above the entrance where Mike would sleep cuddled between his pets. 

At this depth, he felt as vast and permanent as the ocean floor. 

He added the seeds to his collection, but the thought of them kept him from sleep that night. His mind would not rest, and questions of origins and properties cycled behind closed eyelids. Just before dawn, he left the swaddle of blankets to sit in the greenhouse, bringing the new seeds with him. The dogs watched with red-eyed concern. 

Mike pressed one seed into a pot filled with deep red clay, and another into the fortified Virginian soil that sustained most of his plants. The other two seeds sat idle on the edge of a work table behind him, longing for their day in the mud. Too close to the edge. Close enough that Sandy could, and she would later, shoot them off the table in a curious sniff. Unnoticed by Mike, her tongue delicately chased the displaced seed off the ground. Sandy decided to leave the other one alone. The seed tasted unimpressively nutty, and besides, she was a good girl. Satisfied with herself, she barked softly at the last seed and trotted back to bed. 

Mike’s head jerked up sharply at the sound. He looked first to the dogs curled meekly on the bed, and then to the seeds. Counted one where there should be two. Counted again. 

“Damn it,” he swore, snatching up the seed as if it had tried to plot the escape on its own. Glaring at the dogs for good measure, Mike tucked the last seed into his own hair, reminding himself not to forget and forgetting in the same thought. 

The next day, Mike cracked open his eyes and dreamland slowly left his body behind. Immediately he tasted moisture in the air, drawing him quickly to alarm. Vaulting out of bed, what he saw made him wet his pants almost imperceptibly. 

The greenhouse was fucked. Totally fucked. The glass panels had all been shattered, webbed fragments hanging onto the steel frame like meat on a rib. The moisture was crawling from the controlled climate to fill the room, and he would have felt relief if not for the massive mound of soil spilling out of the gaping greenhouse panels. The pile nearly grazed the roof of the greenhouse, and Mike wondered aloud how much it weighed. He reached his hand into the dirt, finding little resistance. Inside it was cold and when he withdrew his hand it’s even brown was streaked with black earth. 

He studied the soil ravenously, for what seemed like eternities tied together by cups of sweet coffee. Somewhere in that sleepless mania he heard barking, a great distance away. He paid it no mind. The sound grew to a deafening pitch before he finally looked up. Drowsy legs took him to where Trumpet was yelping. 

“Damn it,” he swore. In Sandy’s bed, where Sandy had sat was now a mound of soil, even more massive than the first. 

Mike would have cried but his eyes seemed to be rusted dry. His tongue felt heavy and thick in his mouth. Trumpet cried out mournfully, his calls bouncing off the packed earth above them. 

Searching for water, Mike began to move toward the kitchen. But he swam through the air at a glacial speed, straining against an invisible force. The kitchen seemed so far now. The warm lights glinting off his bamboo cabinets blurred in his vision. He wished, in this last moment, that he could feel the soft pressure of his woven palm kitchen mat once more, to stand above the stove with a plan and a pot, and make dinner. 

Instead, his movement slowed to near stillness. His body began to expand, swelling to double his size, then crumbling from the feet up into a mountain of soil. Larger than the greenhouse. Larger than Sandy. Mike filled up the whole room, burying everything in it. 

If you dig far enough beneath the cathedral you will find his tomb, complete with barbershop and library. A lost classroom. A buried knowplace. Thought you should know that your gardening advice columnist would not be returning. And I’m the only one who saw it all happen to boot. 

No need to thank me, no. It’s the least I could do.

Kindly,

King Arthur

Editor’s note: The last known resident at the return address on this letter was Arthur Clay, a rather popular bluesman in the late 2020s who died over thirty years ago. We do know that he was the estranged father of our former columnist, Michael Clay. Still no word from Michael.

We are hiring a new seed expert to run our gardening advice column. If this sounds like you, please see the job posting in the previous section.

A pilot for an animated film concept developed for the Sesame Street Fellowship application.

A short film inspired by the novel “White Tears” by Hari Kunzuru

Developed in partnership with Preetham Chippada. Based on a true story.

This play was developed as part of my American Studies Thesis project in 2019. The work is currently still in development. Don’t judge.

This play was written in a Playwriting Seminar with Christine Evans in 2019.