Quite the first month of the year. I’m fairly certain every part of the world has been the subject of abnormal weather (gee, I wonder why), and if you’re in my neck of the woods there’s a probable chance you had water in places water shouldn’t be. Which is ironic because there will inevitably be a war over water, and here we are dumping it out of our basements…

But whether you’re dripping with rain, buried beneath snow, or catching a tan when you should be wearing long sleeves and jeans, January is indeed reaching an end, and with that culmination comes some celebration. So, if you’ve made it this far – here’s a toast. I hope you’ve been up to something fun.

On the writing front, January was beyond productive. Nivalis, the forthcoming cyberpunk slice-of-life sim from Ion Lands is growing every day and I can’t wait for every one to see the final product when the game launches. The mornings I get to spend in the writer’s room with the rest of the team lead to the better days of the week. There’s something to be said about being creative first thing.

I’ve wrapped up several short fiction pieces and am in the process of sending them to different markets, hopefully providing you all with something to read sometime soon (as in as soon as you get to the bottom of this post…).

So what’s in store for next month? More words and less blank pages, though I don’t always mind staring at that blinking cursor. I imagine I get the same thought my dogs get when they stare at their food in its see-through container… How am I going to get this out…

Also, next month will bring the inaugural post of the Pallid Ponderings of Poe. The gothic master would have been 215 years old this January, and I hope you’ll join me for a trip through his short story catalog, beginning with Loss of Breath as published in Southern Literary Messenger in September of 1835. Look for the kick-off post the third week of February and I hope it’ll garner a few comments! Until then my friends, be safe, be well, be weird, and be yourself.

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January Books

The Guest by Emma Cline – a whirlwind look at class that left me wanting more from the ending – 3*

Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel – an obsessive look at the life of Melville – 3*

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January Films (streaming services were at the time of watching)

A Haunting in Venice (Hulu) – a well-done Agatha Christie mystery with some genuine jump scares – 4*

Self-Reliance (Hulu) – an amazingly funny gameshow concept (stay alive for 30 days while people try to hunt you) with an unfortunate lack of chemistry – 3*

Saltburn (Prime) – just watch it and have your mind fucked, yeah? 4*

A Knock at the Cabin (Prime) – when good acting and a great premise are just poorly executed – 2*

Somebody I Used to Know (Prime) – a trope-infused romcom that touches on identity issues and makes for an easy, enjoyable watch 3*

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Flash Fiction – Just for You

Thanks for following my posts so far and for reading this far down the page. Time is valuable and I truly appreciate it. As part of this refresh, I plan to offer some flash fiction every month (after this month they’ll be their own posts so I’m not putting a book in front of you each time), drop me a line if you enjoy it (and even if you don’t, constructive criticism is always good).

CW for this one: death, implied suicide

Verdant Lullaby

We found Aiden face down in his apartment with a rope at his side and dirt caked onto his hands. Kelly immediately rushed for the screen door, bumping into his awkwardly cocked coffee table and knocking over two empty beer bottles along the way. I closed my eyes as her vomit splattered the third-floor walkway. 

“I didn’t know he was depressed,” Jacob said. “Did you? Tyler?” 

“Huh?” I looked at him, unable to blink. “No, he never said anything. But I haven’t seen much of him lately, have you?”

He shook his head. “I think he was sick for a bit—head cold or something. But this? I mean he just got promoted, and his photography stuff was taking off. I don’t get it.”

Neither did I. Unlike Aiden, I was still working dead-end shifts, watching my late twenties blurrly pass by between happy hours. 

Later, the police ruled it a suicide even though the rope was next to him and not around his neck. There was no one to ask for an autopsy; his only nearby family was two cousins we all avoided because of their odd displays of affection toward one another. While the mortician prepared Aiden’s body, we helped clean out his apartment; the dick of a landlord insistent it couldn’t wait. 

I finished stuffing clothes into a garbage bag and found Kelly in the living room, her expression vacant. “Why don’t you head out, Kell? We can finish up here.”

She pointed at the floor. “What is that?”

I followed her gaze to where we found Aiden, the coarse fabric seemed to change from beige to green. Confusion crept through me like a maggot in a corpse.

My knee popped as I crouched down. The smell of damp grass drifted up from fungus-covered fibers. Before I could run my palm over the carpet, Kelly gripped my shoulder. “I don’t think you should touch it. I mean, he died there.”

The apartment settled into an uneasy quiet until a sudden pop and hiss caused Kelly to jump. Jacob looked at us from the kitchen, a freshly opened beer in hand. “What?”

Kelly grabbed her jacket. “We should go.”

“What’d I do?” Jacob asked when she was outside. “It’s not like Aiden is gonna drink it.”

I shrugged. “Come on.”

“What about the plants and stuff in the office? No pot…unfortunately. Most of them look dead, but there’s a few that could probably be saved. Some of them are pretty intense-looking. Not sure where he got them.”

“I don’t know,” I said. 

“Didn’t he have dirt on his hands when we found him?”

“Go out doing what yah love,” I said, yet the image stuck with me. What had he been doing? “Why don’t you make sure Kelly gets home and I’ll finish up the office? The landlord can chuck what we don’t take; fuck him.”

“Alright man.” He nudged my arm with his fist. When the door swung closed behind him, I swear I caught a faint foresty smell, like I was walking a dirt path through the woods.

#

They buried Aiden in a cemetery on the eastern side of town. The service was small. Friends from college. Aiden’s ex. His cousins unashamedly held hands through the entire eulogy. 

I hadn’t been feeling well since the day we found him, but I couldn’t bring myself to just go home and rest afterward. It didn’t feel right, not honoring his memory and all. So, a few of us agreed to meet at a nearby pub. In retrospect, I think it was more for us than it was for him. Funerals are kind of funny that way. Jacob and I ordered beers and listened to people talk, regale the good times. To my dismay, it didn’t take long for them to start whispering about how he hanged himself.

“Shit way to go.” Jacob winced and slugged back half his beer. 

I picked at the label on mine. “Yeah, except he didn’t though? Hang himself? When we found him, he was on the floor and the rope was next to him.”

“Jesus, Tyler.” He finished the rest of his beer and put the bottle down heavily. “Does it matter?”

I pursed my lips and thought of the green-tinged carpet. The soil on his hands. “Probably not.”

#

It only took a week for all but one of the plants to die. I kept the survivor and chucked the rest. Their brittle, brown bodies were left to rot in the dumpster behind my building. Outside, the air seemed stale. Coarse even. I sneezed into the crook of my elbow and winced. I couldn’t shake this cold for the life of me. 

Back inside, I slumped into my living room chair and tried to find something to watch. I drifted off at some point, woken by the overwhelming smell of wet bark and pine needles. 

The room was bathed in a reddish tinge from the floating N on the TV screen. In the corner, swaying slightly under an air vent, was the plant from Aiden’s apartment. Its ferns spread out like rays from a verdant sun, their tips curling downward like the earth called to them. 

I pinched a yarn-thick midrib between two fingers. Pollen rubbed off and I rolled it together in a little green ball. Never in my life had the smell of plants and soil seemed so perfect. I could feel it in my throat. Taste it on my tongue. Everything cleaner.

#

The following weekend I met Kelly at a local playground where she unequally balanced watching her nephew and scrolling through her Instagram feed. 

“How you holding up?” I asked. 

She didn’t look away from her phone, just thumbed the screen and jettisoned images away. A scratch rose in my throat and I began to cough. Kelly watched from the corner of her eye. 

“I’m good,” I said and raised my hand, the words half-choked. The truth was the last few days were worse than ever. Leaving my apartment seemed increasingly difficult each time I did so. Like my legs were rooted to the floor. 

Kelly stowed her phone and put her head in her hands. “I can’t stop seeing him lying there.”

“I know.”

She stared at me, her eyes lined with tears. I rested a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t shake seeing him either. He was in my dreams. My thoughts. The outline of his body appeared like a tree that had been felled, Kelly, Jason, and I walls in a house crushed by his weight. Maybe if I visited the cemetery again it would put things to rest.

My chest tingled like pollen was floating in my lungs.

#

I parked my car on the street and opted to walk into the graveyard. I thought the fresh air would be cleansing. Cool and refreshing in my lungs. 

I was wrong. 

Anything outside my apartment, away from the crisp clean air inside, was torture. Each breath caused me to wheeze, and each wheeze made me want to cough. Just shy of Aiden’s plot, I rested my hand against a slim white birch and hacked blood onto the ground. My nerves buzzed and for a second, I was afraid. I told myself I’d call my doctor when I got home, I just needed to talk to Aiden, tell him again that I wouldn’t forget about him. 

From far away it looked as though someone had left a potted plant on Aiden’s plot—no, not potted, straight out of the ground. The same fern-like plant that sat in my living room rose out of the freshly dug dirt. My hands started to shake but I couldn’t turn back. The closer I got, the more the scratchy, hard-to-breathe feeling in my chest began to dissipate. A breeze blew through the cemetery and I stood there, watching the knee-high plant move, sway like an alluring dancer amid moonlight.

As soon as I stepped away, the congestion came back even worse. By the time I got home, pink-tinged saliva coated my teeth. Each breath I took was sandpaper against the inside of my throat. I collapsed through the front door and bathed in the purified air inside. It only took seconds for my lips to moisten. For the heaviness in my lungs to lighten. 

I pushed myself to my hands and knees and stared at the tan ceramic pot I’d inadvertently inherited from Aiden. The ferns sprouted from the soil in exuberance. Thread-like roots curled over the pot’s rounded edge. My muscles began to relax. Every cell inside my body relished in the fact that I was home; I never wanted to leave again. Never wanted to breathe the dirty air outside and feel that gritty sensation in my lungs. 

Seated on the floor, I dug my fingers into the potted soil. My skin ran cold with the sensation of life. Of roots and nutrients and food inside the dirt. I could feel the plant curling beneath my nailbeds. I thought of Aiden, lying in the ground, his body now serving a purpose, a greater meaning. Something I could do as well. 

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and kneeled in front of the container. I pressed the serrated edge against my wrist but paused. The ferns wavered slightly, the sound of them rubbing together the sweetest lullaby I’d ever heard. I felt the saplings underneath my skin, their baby roots swimming through my veins. I laid down on the floor, and inhaled deep, smiling at the fact that I’d never again have to breathe the dirty air outside. 

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