Hummingbird

A neighbor tends the garden in the courtyard: tomato plants, herbs, cacti, succulents, large agave growing upward and outward, deergrass spilling onto the sidewalk. To cultivate it further, he placed a birdfeeder or two, nestled among them. At first, the birds didn’t come. Instead, neighborhood squirrels climbed the plastic poles and stole the birdseed. Then, the coyotes lurked in the tall grass and caught the squirrels at dawn before the sun’s rosy hue enveloped the courtyard. 

Now, at dusk, a lone hummingbird’s hovering body can be seen, flitting among the plants, landing at the birdfeeder before disappearing into the night.

Bees

Before I rounded the corner, I heard them: the dull hum of dozens of bees fluttering from flower to flower. From the winter rain came budding growth, and the hillside trail became overgrown, flowering weeds sprouting into the thin, dusty trail. I apologized to the bees as I pressed forward, rocking stems with my shins. In forgiveness, they decided not to sting.

Apes

Sticky notes arranged along the base of my computer monitor offer me a reminder of all the clouds hanging over me. For focus, to overcome feelings of overwhelm. Then, it’s noticed. A coworker does the same beside me, hanging his own row of signal flags. Mimicry is a form of flattery, or like apes can act as the foundation for connection.

Airship

A man wielding a machete passed the living room window. Thinking nothing of it—city living, film shoot, raccoons and skunks and coyotes, overgrown agave—I returned to my work. Then, the startling din of helicopter blades began, repeating like a stuck record. Louder and louder the sound grew as the police chopper lowered into the neighborhood.

“Drop the weapon.

“Go to the sidewalk.

“Hands on your head,” came from a megaphone-toting cop. The officer could’ve been standing beside me in the living room. Three cars, sirens blazing, raced down the road, one after the other, adding to the cacophony. As they passed, the sirens dropped low, then receded. The helicopter rose into the sky, leaving in its wake only empty tree limbs. 

I tried to search online what had happened, but there were no articles about the incident, nor any posts on the community surveillance apps. For a moment, quiet returned to the neighborhood.

Transfers

“Hello, my name is Spencer Greenwood, date of birth July 12, 1999. My primary care doctor ordered me some replacement parts for my pump, and they were shipped to a V.D.L. Enterprises warehouse, which is you guys. I want to know where it is, and—No, don’t transfer me. I’ve already been transferred four times. Please—Let me explain—I was traveling and damaged the reservoir on my pump, my primary doctor ordered me a replacement one, but did not send it to my home address. He sent it to your medical warehouse. I need to know that it arrived, and I need to make sure that it’s being sent to my correct address.—Yes.—Yes.—Do you have a tracking number?—And this has expected delivery on Wednesday?—Okay, because I cannot receive it after Wednesday.—Do you have a tracking number for me?—EightEightTwoThree….—Maybe let’s switch that to overnight. So it can arrive on Tuesday,  and even if it’s late it will arrive by evening Wednesday latest, when I need to switch it out.—Yes.—Yes.—July 12, 1999. The address is FourSevenEight….—Yes. Thank you. I need to receive the shipment by Wednesday, or I’ll need to go to the hospital. It was a horrible mix-up. I’ve already spoken with my doctor. Yes, he feels horrible, but, really, I feel even worse. Thank you for understanding and helping me out. Do you have a phone number so I can call back if there are any problems tomorrow?”

Disposal

An overturned Christmas tree juts out of a garbage can in the middle of April. I give them the benefit of the doubt: it can be easy to lose track of time amid everything else. In haste they left the string of lights and garland that shimmered in the spring sunlight. An uncanny shiver runs down my spine: I wonder where the April Christmas trees are in my life. Perhaps it’s too late to dispose of them.

Echoes

Moisture hovers in the air around me, a suffocating, heavy stillness. Hair stands on the back of my neck—tactile electricity, like running my feet along my grandparents’ carpet. Eyes on the horizon: I’ve stood here before, there’s no reason to worry. Thunder echoes across the sky caused by lightning unseen.

Call & Response

Whispering questions to cascading water. Watch it come to a boil, and pour it into a mug to clear this days-old congestion. When it’s finished, I hope to find the answers in the leaves.

Contraband

My grandparents lived beside an orange orchard for a time. In my memory, I hopped the fence and strolled the neat rows of fruited orange trees, scoping routes through their branches. Choosing one, I lifted myself to the lowest-hanging branch, then the next, and the next. Reaching above me, I grabbed a plump fruit from the highest branch, then plunged my nails beneath its flesh, ripping the peel off in large chunks and letting them fall to the ground.

Returning to my grandparents, juice still dripping from the sides of my mouth, my grandmother told me: “You’ll get caught one of these days.”

Focus

To focus on a run, I’ll go without my glasses. Some may call this dangerous, but there’s a freedom in turning the world around me into passing blurs of pastel motion. The action turns meditative. Then, returning to stasis, I place the glasses on the bridge of my nose. In the corner of my eye a flash of movement. I turn my head—a neighbor leans against his balcony, blowing vape smoke into the air. His eyes are fixed on me, dripping sweat in the courtyard.

Rule of Three

I am superstitious only when it comes to the rule of three.

One: an SUV comes onto the highway and begins to merge, missing my front bumper by inches.

Two: a homeless woman stumbles backwards into the street.

Three: a truck backing out of a driveway does not look before accelerating into the street.

By the third, I considered myself lucky—I wouldn’t crash this week.

Caught Staring

A man my age sat on a mound of grass against the trunk of a palm tree. With his hands he caressed a dog, shaking its golden-auburn ears and making faces at it. Caught staring. I rounded the corner quickly, and the man caught sight of me, suddenly leaning backwards, dropping his arms, and returning his expression to a blank stillness. An intimate moment disturbed. I would not judge him, though I could not blame him the impulse to think so.

Gossamer

Round the corner and past a pole—unseen by my eyes a thin gossamer hangs taut between a stop sign and a streetlight. Caught on my glasses, I wiped it away hurriedly, brushing the web in frantic movements. It’s one of my pet peeves, breaking them. There’s the worry I didn’t remove it all, or had a spider in my hair, and the knowledge that I alone destroyed its creation.

Clatter

Stepping out of my truck I carried a water bottle, a thermos, my sunglasses, the keys, my phone, and swung my legs out onto the pavement. At that moment, the sound of falling items: keys crashing, water bottle striking the floor, vibrations thundering off the parking garage ceiling. And for a moment my heart stopped—looking down, I had dropped nothing. I stepped forward, and saw a man crouching behind my truck, clutching at his things that had fallen onto the newly painted pavement. A relief, then, that clumsiness comes to others and not only myself. 

On Patience

All around me the sound of ticking clocks. An alarm set, a goal established, a timeline created. In this constant time-awareness a pressure builds within me. It’s in this way I am always impatient. I’d resolve to remove myself from this time crunch, but I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Iguana

“I like the way they creep,” the woman beside us said.

Behind her, an iguana, nearly four feet long (tail included), sauntered along the edge of the pool. Its dirty yellow claws scraped along the pavement as its reptilian limbs arced along the surface, barely a centimeter above the ground, step by step. Then, in a rush of movement, the iguana became vertical and stuck its claws into the bark of a palm tree. In a few quick strides, it climbed up to the canopy above. The tail caught on a browning, dead palm frond that swiftly fell to the ground below. 

Streams

For ambience, as they put it, my parents prefer to watch security camera live streams on YouTube. We had planned a family trip to the Florida Keys, and in anticipation, they watched, daily, the live footage of Duval Street. They knew which bars left their TVs on all night. They knew how often the public trash cans were emptied. It became a part of their routine to monitor the routine of a town and people they did not know.

Presence

In the corner of my eye I saw them. Two children sat perched on a staircase, shrouded in bushes and trees. Their muscles taut, they sat inhumanly rigid out of fear of being seen. And yet I saw them through the dark green leaves. I kept walking, allowing them their desired secrecy, but knowing their presence nonetheless. 

Punch-Down

Pummeled grapes: the floating cap of skins and stems atop the fermenting wine is submerged again in a rotating process. This deepens the flavor and color, enhances the tannins. As the sugar converts to carbon dioxide, again the solids return to the surface, and again they are punched down into the liquid, until finally the skins rest along the bottom. It's essential, some say, to the creation of a full-bodied wine. 

Seamount

Some bad news, or a minor inconvenience: start the clock. Ninety seconds.

An earthquake—then, an undersea volcano, jostled from slumber, erupts. Lava deposits, a seamount forms and climbs higher and higher. Eruption after eruption it rises until it breaches the surface of the ocean. An act of creation: an isolated island appears. 

I will find myself alone there in a place that I created.