Waste Not

Death hung in the acrid, cloistered air—the heat outside rising, the humidity increasing by the second.

I stepped into Bertie and over the carefully organized pile of repair supplies, and then removed the cabinet door beneath the sink.

The trap worked. Glazed, cold eyes stared back. Lifting the sprung lever, I extracted the field mouse and deposited the body in the high grass; I whispered an apology, and scraped the remainder of the blood-splattered peanut butter from the activation plate before re-setting it.  

With Bertie airing out, I took a seat on the rusting front step and tossed my gloves onto my ad hoc deck—the remnants of broken deer stand platforms I’d collected from the woods. I rubbed together the calloused valleys that bisected my palms and gazed ahead over the growing garden: a pastiche of thick okra stems, glistening tomato tendrils, leafy bush beans, and leggy carrot tops. Very few components of my plan to return to the Deep South had unfolded successfully—but the garden did. And there, I often found myself contemplating the alien context in which I found myself—the frustrating liminal stage where I continued to be thwarted in making inroads toward my goal of off-grid tiny living. 

***

A few weeks after arriving in Alabama, and following a series of torrential downpours, I lay inside Bertie—feeling the comforting familiarity of my tiny home. Given the recent spat of severe weather, I’d opted to stay with my parents in their off-grid home—with Bertie parked uphill. I welcomed warm showers sans flip-flops and running water; JoJo became an immediate fan of consistent air conditioning.

But as I rested my head on my pillows, I recognized something was off—an unshakable dankness seemed to pervade every breath I took.

I reached behind my makeshift foam headboard, and down to a storage nook where I’d stowed my collection of journals. My fingers pressed into spongy, soggy paper and rotted wood. My heart sank: I ripped off my sheets, and tossed the headboard to the floor, recognizing the unmistakable mold stains streaking its backside.

No, no, no.

Fully exposed, the bunk wall appeared water-buckled and bloated. The journal nook had been completely inundated with water—a moldy film formed over the warped covers, random pages sloughed from the bindings.

One by one, I opened my most precious possessions. And the ink bled. And my world grew deathly quiet—save the low moans from the past, clawing out of my throat, drifting into the present. Pages saturated, moldy—streams of consciousness blended together: palimpsests of cherished memories—where my nine-year-old self met a teen met a twenty-something, met me in that fractured moment.

Frantic, I flipped to life-anchoring entries; I thumbed to September 11, 2001—the pages disintegrating beneath my nails.

Bordering water stains, few lines were legible: “Something terrible happened”; “I don’t know what’s next.”

I repeated the lines over and over—their resonance painfully acute.

Something terrible happened. I don’t know what’s next.

Over the ensuing weeks, I tore the bunk area apart. Cold, corrugated metal heaved with each tug; pink insulation fluttered down from a rotted hole in the ceiling. I had no idea how I’d piece everything back together, or if I could. All that remained of the walls were splintered, jagged edges. I couldn’t shake the sense that I was literally deconstructing a dream.

So, this is where the end begins.

Days later, deep in the woods, Beyoncé thumped through my headphones as strawberry-coated Pocky dissolved across my tongue. My relationship of nine months had just been ended over email; as the pandemic unfolded and my plans unraveled, it’d been a crucial emotional anchor.

Angry, depleted, and spent—I leaned into the heavy sobs boiling out, my nose running, crows feet deepening—as the weight of the full moon rested in the crook of my neck. Midnight’s darkness seeped into my heart as I pissed into the woods—hearing, over the melody, coyotes yip and yowl: conjuring mischief.

Closing Bertie’s door, I lay along the dinette bench, and stared at the skeletal bunk above.

Solitude encapsulated a strangely romantic loneliness. And I couldn’t shake the sense that I had a homing beacon for worn out, empty things.

That life itself might be the nexus of intractable endings. And this was just the beginning.

***

Bertie heaved slightly as I propelled myself up from the step and ventured into the garden. Slowly, I untied the string hugging snap peas to their posts, and yanked the towering stems from the soil; virtually overnight, blight had spread through the mature peas. I draped the stalks over my shoulder, and tossed them into the woods. 

As I tidied the empty beds and stowed remnant plant ties, I scanned the upturned depressions where the peas had been, and snatched a dried seed head from a neighboring pot of marigolds.

I peppered the linear, sleek seeds into the furrowed ground, and glanced over at the withering pea strands at the woods’ edge. Just beyond, the high grass rustled from the beat of wings—and in a flash, the mouse’s body disappeared. 

From loss comes life—a vessel for change.

I smoothed a veil of soil atop the seeds—to let the earth decide if life might spring forth again.