Issue #6: BIG MAMA NATURE

Along the fruit streets of Brooklyn Heights, the few pedestrians walk quickly with pollen-dusted shades and scarves over their noses. A police officer wears a gas mask.

V/O, female news anchor: “The record pollen count continues worldwide.”

Fade to black. Someone sneezes.

0:16 – 0:17

Middle school classroom. Pockmarked teacher places a dead fly between the leaves of a Venus fly trap. Nothing happens.

0:18 – 0:23

Mars against a background of pitch black dappled with stars. Jupiter in the foreground, Saturn peeking over its horizon.

V/O, A: “Our planet is not red…or yellow.”

Earth as viewed from a window of the International Space Station.

A suited astronaut’s visor, the glass reflecting an emerald glow onto her fear-twisted face, tears flowing.

V/O, A: “Earth is green.”

When I was eight, I kept the house warm for five days after daddy’s job laid him off and we couldn’t afford the heating bill. I remember those days: Cassia and I snuggled under a Barbie TV throw with Cassia and her thick head of kinky curls tucked under my chin. She let me put my fingers in it back then, let me play in her hair because it was just so thick and strong. Momma and daddy whispering as we sat in front of the trashcan daddy had brought in from outside. All I needed was something to hold it, the fire. I could handle the rest.

Dying trees littered the orchard. The symmetric pattern of their spindly, decaying trunks reminded Lydia of a cornrow style she used to braid into her hair as a teenager. She appraised the damage in frustration. This wasteland of foliage didn’t make any sense, not so early in spring, even if the heat was already setting records again.

“It came out of nowhere,” said Devaun. “I even tried one of my own mixtures, but the ingredients must be off.”

As soon as the words left Devaun’s mouth, Lydia knew they would be the tinder to ignite yet another argument with Rob Kenworth. Dr. Kenworth, as he liked to be known around the University. She twisted one of her pen spring curls. Devaun seemed to have no idea what he had just started.

Lazarus Caruthers eased his skiff out onto the lake and rowed to a safe distance from the mountain. At this early hour, the surface of the water was a mirror reflecting the pink of the waking sun. He threw out the fishing line far across the glimmering veneer, watched the bait and sinker submerge as the bobber bounced easily on the currents. Fishing was one of the few times he could sort out his thoughts, separating the past from the future so he could settle into the now. Otto Mountain, the jagged monolith of black stone, absorbed the confessions he whispered daily across the water, his offering in exchange for its secrets.