First stroke: symbiosis. Draw the straight line of tensions and bonds that comprise a system of many organisms living as one.
Every time I write the word lichen my first impulse is to put an s at the end, because even if there’s only one, the truth is that every single lichen is itself a multitude. Lichen: plural turned singular. I have to take a moment here, to appreciate the beauty of symbiosis in this era of mass extinction, to be more than a body pervaded by death. ››
My best memories are memories of water. Hydrogen iceberg: a failed star plunging through the solar system. Sitting on the futon, unable to move my arms, I take stock of my broken bones: radius, humerus, scaphoid, ilium. The fractures match my mother’s, and my grandmother’s. Before the accident, I would have tried to find a common thread, a logical connection from one sentence to the next, but now I can only think in simultaneous fragments. Calcium precipitation, diatomic respiration, fish song. ››
My best memories are memories of water. Hydrogen iceberg: a failed star plunging through the solar system. Sitting on the futon, unable to move my arms, I take stock of my broken bones: radius, humerus, scaphoid, ilium. The fractures match my mother’s, and my grandmother’s. Before the accident, I would have tried to find a common thread, a logical connection from one sentence to the next, but now I can only think in simultaneous fragments. Calcium precipitation, diatomic respiration, fish song. ››
Señora and Señor B had two children. Señora B’s children liked to pull up my flowerbed. This was infuriating, and I scolded them every time, but they never learned to behave. They just pulled up the flowers and ran away when they saw me. Señora B’s children looked like a couple of rosy-cheeked little cherubs, so charming and pleasant it was almost hard to believe what little demons they really were. They went against the grain of our neighborhood of modest houses and nice people. Yes, Señora B’s children were different. I suppose they owed it to their mother: Señora B, clearly, was a different kind of mother. ››
Sometimes you’re able to function in what we call the present, but sometimes you get lost within yourself. The ATKIN-5 launch countdown begins and you, on a bench in the botanical garden, are struck with an unfiltered awareness of the sea of green surrounding you. In every chloroplast, a miniature thunderstorm. ››
When Salvador asked Eilín to be his girlfriend, she said no. Girlfriend/boyfriend: no. Relationship: no. She was interested in questioning paradigms. ››
