Short story writer living in Washington, DC.
Email:
christopherwilliamchandler@gmail.com
Instagram:
@christopherwilliamchandler
Short story writer living in Washington, DC.
Email:
christopherwilliamchandler@gmail.com
Instagram:
@christopherwilliamchandler
Shield Potato Sprout Inhibitor
11-26
I am a dull ache pressing firmly into the backside of my brow, which I call mourning; "call" because I can't be sure, never having suffered this sort of loss. It is difficult to say whether I prefer this new me to the churning stomach I was earlier—all torn up by the November 30th deadline for a story bearing down on me. I suppose, while journaling here is an adequate distraction, I am still partly the wriggling ball of nerves I was before. But how can anyone be expected to write something worthwhile in my present condition? Thinking this, I bite suddenly into the gooey center of anger beneath mourning's shell, recoiling at my own bitter filling.
Outside the autumn sky is melancholy as I recall the morning's events which led to my grief. Dogged by writer's block, I had gone down for breakfast. My dad, hunched over the sink, was locked in a fierce battle with a pan I had let "soak" overnight. Too self-consumed for guilt to overtake me, I said a quick good morning and set to preparing toast. Sitting by the window, I coated the toast with a thin lubricant of butter before forcing it down my throat. While I ate, I was watching the birdfeeder nailed to the thick oak stationed in our front yard, when a bird I did not recognize alighted on its rim. It had a dark upper body and a white undercarriage demarcated by a horizontal, like a dirty schooner in crystal sea. A rotundity to its body, coupled with a pale beak, gave me the impression of botched taxidermy.
"What bird is that?" I asked aloud (my father—like all retired men—is an expert on birds). Gripping the obstinate pan, he leaned forward to get a better angle.
"A dark-eyed junco," he concluded, resuming scrubbing. "The first one I've seen this season."
"Is it rare?" I asked hopefully, noting its eponymous feature.
"Not especially," he shot me down, his eyes on his encrusted opponent. "You know, it's a shame," he added. "You used to be able to name all the birds at the feeder when you were a kid."
I let this information—of which I had been unaware—sink in. All the birds? I was suddenly feeling my pocket for my wallet in a busy station and not finding it. The crowd whirled around me in a dizzying frenzy. All the birds? I tried to pick them out from the crowd: bluebird, goldfinch, cardinal... I scratched my head. These were obvious; color-based. I thought harder. I knew the mottled look of some woodpeckers, but to name one from another was impossible. I knew too the coo of the mourning dove, but I struggled to call its image to mind. I was in freefall as the junco flitted out of view. How had the natural world escaped me? My deficiency was now apparent. I thought of the countless literary passages that I had read with descriptions of nature that I could never replicate. In Strindberg's autobiographical Legends, he is surprised when he fails to identify a fly, boasting to know all the winged insects in Sweden. I couldn't even name the birds outside my own window.
Worse was that—according to my father—I once had this sort of knowledge, and had somehow squandered it. My plight recalled the artists of the dark ages who painted flat, two-dimensional scenes, having somehow lost the linear perspective of the ancient Greeks. I racked my brain for the usurping information: news, entertainment, celebrity gossip—in a word, modernity; nothing more than a cheap disguise—a bastardization of nature. Constructions made of wood and metal; really trees and rock. It was no wonder I had suffered a lethargic pen: I had been trying to strike truth wielding falseness.
I found that I couldn't take another bite of my meal. Sensing my mood, my father—having apparently conquered the pan—asked whether I was going to finish my breakfast. I shook my head blankly and handed him my plate of half-eaten toast.
I open my laptop and search "junco" on the internet. I learn that despite being named for Juncus, a genus of rushes, Juncos are rarely found amongst these waterside plants, preferring dry earth. Reading this, I cast myself as the ironic junco, a "writer" in name only.
11-27
Emptiness consumes as I scribble this down. Emptiness is not such a bad thing to be, I would say, if it were not for—in this instance—expectation. Indeed, today had the makings of the first in a personal renaissance, where new knowledge would fuel artistic endeavor. But, in the end, instead of gas into a tank, I seem to have been pouring milk into a cone of newspaper.
To recount, I had ventured into the city for some retail therapy. In a Georgetown boutique I found a black shirt which matched my interior. Apparel in hand, I walked in the direction of my car down an uneven street, admiring the townhomes. I must have been sufficiently distracted, because suddenly I did not recognize my surroundings. Finding my way, I turned onto an unassuming street when I was accosted by a putrid smell. Looking down, I was a rush of cortisol and muscular reflex, leaping back onto the verge from what appeared to be (and certainly smelled like) dried vomit on the sidewalk. Upon further examination, however, I discovered that what looked like vomit was actually the splatter of smushed berries. Retracing their descent, I was greeted by a long stalk of kale—though its leaves were a green close to yellow and shaped like ancient Egyptian fans. I pulled out my phone and looked up "vomit tree," finding the culprit: the Japanese ginkgo tree.
As I laid my eyes on the ginkgo, its leaves rustling in the cold breeze, my previous alarm broke down and was replaced by a buoying satisfaction; buoying in a way that I could hardly call myself, for instance, the chill in my exposed hands. The smell of the tree grew sweeter, ripening in my nose. The moment passed, but my mind was left surprisingly clear (perhaps this was emptiness without expectation), and I found my lost car without effort.
However, bumper to bumper on the drive home, curiosity struck. "Why plant a tree that smells like vomit?" I thought as a pair of brake lights blinked at me. In my room, I found the answer in the ginkgo's history: six of them had survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima i.e. they can withstand harsh conditions. This made the ginkgo unlike myself, I thought, having still written none of my story. Crestfallen by this comparison, I buried myself further in my reading, seeking to unseat modernity with knowledge of this foreign tree. I learned that the source of the ginkgo's smell is the butyric acid found in the fruit of the female trees. Nothing sprang forth from this. But then I came across the city's two-fold method to address the ginkgo's stench:
1. Only plant male trees.
Aha! This botanical sexism stimulated thoughts of allegory. Gears turning, I tried to ignore the all too familiar need for control that I recognized in the city planners, acquitting myself thanks to my earlier appreciation for the ginkgo's odor. I read on.
2. Hose down the preexisting females with Shield Potato Sprout Inhibitor.
Shield Potato Sprout Inhibitor—a name insidious on its face. The obvious villain! Its purpose: prevent fruiting—ovary formation. "Tree spaying" turned the gears faster. Some sort of commentary on reproductive rights...? I recalled the defiant berry-producer by the boutique—perhaps our hero. Simultaneously, the fire of urgency was lit beneath me. Like the scream of a kettle, the thought rang out in my head: "Name them now, before they're gone."
But as I sat down to write, ideas swirling in my head, nothing came out. I tried to grab one and wrestle it onto the page, but it flitted away like the dark-eyed junco, dissolving into thin air. One by one my ideas made their escape, until none were left.
11-29
I am back in this journal, but I don't know when I'll be writing again. I had set out to write a story of truth, but I am no longer convinced that such an achievement is possible...
Following a few more pained attempts at starting my story, I had latched onto a new idea: that the inorganic method in which I had tried to learn was the reason for my block. Learning about nature on a computer, I concluded, was wielding falseness all over again. So—upon my request—my father and I headed to a nature sanctuary to look at birds. I would've preferred a wilder venue, but I had deferred to the expert. We parked outside of a brick mansion in a small lot with a few other cars. Through one of its windows, over a crop of blue flowers, I spied a taxidermy room. A ratty owl—mid-flight—eyed me knowingly from its mount amongst the other birds.
We walked in silence down to a wooded area with a dirt path. My father had fitted me with a pair of binoculars, which he had shown (retaught?) me how to use in the car.
"You spot the bird first, then lift the binoculars like so..."
It was an unseasonably warm day, and I was warned that, between the weather and the time (it would have been better to go early in the morning, but I had objected to such an early rise), the birds might be hidden, resting. It seemed that his assessment was correct: activity was low. We saw a pack of robins flaunting their orange bellies in a patch of grass, the less vibrant females giving a diminished impression. A pair of crows swooped into a ditch along the path beside us to sip from the creek, hopping beady-eyed from rock to rock. However, not much else happened. My previous enthusiasm was soon whittled to impatience. Scanning the tall trees, I couldn't help but notice the manicured look of the small tract. My deadline was tomorrow.
Suddenly, there was a rustling in the ivy to our right. Desperate for intrigue, I leapt off the path, pursuing the noise. I chased it up to a rotting tree that bridged a small ditch where the noise abruptly stopped. On a nostalgic impulse, I stepped up onto the log to get a view from above. The soft wood depressed under my feet as I balanced on the thin beam with both arms. The ivy was still, so I assumed that the creature was still down there. I stepped backward up a narrower section of the tree to change vantage point when, suddenly, I heard a creak beneath me, then a snap! A whoosh of air flew past me.
When the thud came, however, there was no pain. Instead, the jostle imparted to me a profound assurance. Simultaneously, as I hit the ground, disoriented, my eyes on the cloudless sky overhead, the tree limbs encroaching the blue pool like fissures on a pane, something flapped amongst the foliage and a flash of scarlet entered my field of view. Tracking the color thoughtlessly, I perceived too a majestic white breast beneath charcoal wings. And, as the flash exited, I found no longer the instinct to chase. Instead, cozy in my ivy blanket, a smile formed naturally on my lips. I was sure that I could lie there for an eternity, when, suddenly, a crude mixture of rustling and breathing disturbed my peace.
"Did you see that!?" my father asked, breathless. "A red-headed woodpecker. Talk about a rare bird!"
My mouth arched involuntarily into a gasp of horror. His words, like Shield Potato Sprout Inhibitor, spewed into the air. As he hosed the bird down, chemical detritus descended into my open mouth, and—choking—I recognized my own face in his.