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The birds sing happily, dancing from tree to tree like aerialists. Spring is early this year, though it feels like summer. The sun looms overhead, hot like a day for the beach, but if the calendar told time the way Nature oh so carelessly moves, entranced in nothing but its own way of life… I don’t know what season it would be.

“I think it’s close to my birthday,” I tell my friend.

He’s knelt down in the small patch of dirt we’ve made into a garden. He doesn’t like it when I disturb him. He doesn’t talk much, but I know he’s been through a lot. We all have. We all have.

It’s taken a long time to find anywhere as comfortably stationary as we are now. Three months may sound like a long time… and it is, but it’s also hardly no time at all. When you’re on the run for as long as we are, three months is a very long time to stay still. Almost enough time for us to stop holding our breath, almost enough time to allow ourselves to be as careless as the wind is as it brushes a soft hand through our hair. Just enough time to establish a garden.

L moves his hand through the carrot tops. I know he’s tried to garden before, we both have. This is the first time in the span that I’ve ever known him, he’s reached harvest. The moment of truth in our stock lies just beneath the hard-packed soil. Just beneath his bare, tanned toes. He hates wearing shoes.

With gloveless hands, he takes a weathered spade to the ground, carefully worming out the crop we’ve spent so much of our fresh water supply on, sowing with the roots, our hope with breathless nights & lonely, sun-clouded days. It’s been a cold winter. The rain has been refreshing. It doesn’t look like it will rain again anytime soon. Not here.

I feel his breath shift, and his posture exposes his chest, words bound within, though his back is to me. I’ve learned this to be how he responds. His words are buried, but he’s attentive & beckons to hear more.

I inhale, dislodging the heavy subject from the back of my throat. I carry on, “April. Was my birthday.”

“The entire month?” he asks, tone even, pulling one half-foot of carrot out of the ground & moving on to the next one.

I laugh & awe at the size of the carrot! It won’t last past a single meal, but that doesn’t matter. It’s food we’ve worked oh, so hard on! And the reward… The reward is astonishing! I’ve crept closer to get a better look at the dirty vegetable.

He shoulders me away from peeking, urging me onward. I have a tendency to distract myself from hefty topics. Opting to keep my mouth shut, or simply move on to more positive things.

Begrudgingly, I begin again, smiling, “No, not the whole month.” A chuckle merrily comes from my chest. I quickly become somber again. “It was… within the first week. Of the month.” I pause, remembering my birthdays.

“I remember always wanting to throw parties. I always tried to. They never went the way I hoped. I spent 9 years planning & hosting my own birthdays. I don’t know if it was the fact that I sucked at decorating, or if I was just too queer for the other kids. I never had many friends.

“I think the best birthday I ever had was my 13th birthday party. I had… mmm… Six friends? I think? My first ‘group of friends!’” I say, mimicking stardust in my eyes. Quietly, I mumble, “That burned up in flames…

“But I remember that birthday, I felt so surrounded & full of love that I could’ve cried! I was gifted art after art, we threw food and cake at each other in the garage my dad had cleared just for us, for me… we sang bad karaoke and they slept over.”

L is quiet, listening intently as he works out the third carrot, a little rotten at the top, but orange about half way down, still good!

“I’m thinking about it because… Well, it’s kinda stupid now,” I brush it off timidly.

He glances back at me, signature side-eye. He has many, his angry side-eye, his confused side-eye, his warning side-eye, his ‘I’m going to murder you, and I’m serious about it’ side-eye… This one is a warning & a gesture of encouragement. I swear sometimes he only speaks with his sideways glances!

“Okay, okay!” I say, hands in a retreat, but smile broad. Though he’s cold, he always makes me smile. “I’m thinking about it because, if my birthday is soon, or if it’s passed… I’ve had no one to celebrate it with.”

He looks at me again, more seriousness in his eyes. A little pain too.

I recoil, guilt lacing its way up my veins to my chest, tightening like a poisonous plant begins to squeeze the breath from your lungs. Before my heart can grow cold with panic, I explain.

“Nah- I mean… I mean I always imagined myself having a big shin-dig, a party. With a group of people. Every birthday after my 13th was either with friends I really didn’t care about, just people filling the gap of every long year, every excruciating day… or less than a handful of people at all.

“I remember one year, sitting outside on the wall between my house & my neighbor’s and waiting hours for everyone else to arrive, leaving my only two guests to fend for themselves at the boringest birthday party without me. Man, I really sucked as a host that year,” I laugh pitifully.

“I’m turning 22 this year, L. I promised my younger self that I would have a Taylor Swift themed birthday party, and I don’t want to let go of that promise. I just wish… You know… I thought I would have more by now.” I stare at the ground solemnly.

T

here’s a great silence in the space between me and everything else. The air senses loneliness creeping into my belly & tossles my hair in reassurance. I can hear the leaves in the garden rustle & the trees remind me to breathe. A little spider, not even the size of my littlest finger’s cuticle, scurries down my arm & around my hand. Another worldly gesture of company. It travels over my bracelets, memories forever guarded around my wrists, reminders of life, like the scars on my arms.

“We can have a Taylor Swift party if you want,” L’s voice is the level of a poet’s whisper.

My heart aches and while I laugh, I feel my nose wince & tears trail my eyelids.

“I didn’t think you’d know anything about Taylor Swift,” I say, almost a question.

He shrugs minimally. He’s resting on the back of his ankles, having just finished removing the last carrot. Not all of them survived, but knowing us, and who else might still be out there, we’ll plant the dead ones again, in hopes that they’ll grow on their own come next rain & season. The world is changing, hopefully we can leave some seeds for the better.

“I don’t. But I can learn.” He looks back at me. His expression is always so stoic, his voice always so monotonous, but I can tell he means it. It’s in his eyes. How they meet mine. I don’t know if he intentionally controls his level of eye contact, but it speaks volumes, much more than any microphone could ever produce, much more than any words, written could ever articulate. I sniffle, face contorting ugly, trying not to cry.

His face is soft. His eyes are big and he looks past his foggy, unwashed glasses. His eyebrows are usually pressed close together, a permanent scowl. Now they are relaxed and I see his dark green eyes clearly. They tell me ‘It’s okay to cry.’

I burst into tears & my shoulders shake, a sob I’ve kept locked away in the cage of my chest for a very long time. I kneel on the ground, behind him a little ways. I know he doesn’t like physical contact. In moments like these, I wish I could hug him… He lets me cry. His silence isn’t as reassuring as a breeze, or a spider on my arm, but at least he’s there, and he doesn’t judge me. That’s for me to do.

I clean it up, just as quickly as I started, & wipe my nose with the cuff of my sleeve. I breathe dramatically, sopping up the wet ocean in my throat & behind my eyes. No point in wasting the salt now. I place my hands squarely on my thighs & fake a smile. A knee-jerk reaction I’m very used to now.

His eyes comfort me. I can practically feel a gentle hand upon my cheek. And just like that it’s gone again. L is looking down & collecting his crop. Not what I would imagine farmers would call a “bountiful harvest” but it’s one of sustenance, and clearly better than nothing at all! I’m certainly ecstatic about it, and I’m sure he is too, more than me! He stands & his eyes tell me to follow. I do. I instinctively put the bounce back in my step, focusing on the beauty of the food we have now in our hands.

We walk back to the shed we found abandoned out here. “Shed” is a small word for what it used to be. More like a small barn, it’s very dilapidated & rundown. It must’ve been tossed into storage the same way it served as holding storage before the world, or at least the US, became undead. Now it houses us, for as long as we’re able to stay here.

The door doesn’t close all the way, so we’ve used a tarp found in the back corner as a drape, and if we fear danger, from the wild or the feral, we have rusty, bent nails & extra boards we do our best to use sparingly. For now, we’ve made use of the tool wall & bench. L places the carrots onto the bench, a bucket of rain water underneath the table.

“If I had a house,” he starts, “I want it to be filled with plants.”

I grin. I’d expect nothing else from this ex-botanist. “Oh, yeah?” I ask.

He nods, once.

“What would be in it?”

He halts to stare at me, eyes full to the brim with special interest information. I laugh, jovial. “Okay, okay. A lot,” I say.

“Mostly poisonous plants,” he corrects.

“Mostly poisonous plants,” I echo. I’d expect nothing less.

He looks back down, shaking the carrots one by one. Small bugs scurry from out of the leaves. The more rotted carrots drop pincherbugs & rollypollies. At least one, split down the middle, I suppose from overheating or waiting too late to harvest, L digs a slug out of.

“If I had a house, all to my own,” I say. “I’d want it to be in the middle of the woods.”

“Mm,” he grunts. He’d expect nothing less from me.

I chortle quietly & continue my daydreams. “It would be small. Like a cottage. I could paint the walls any color I want, it would be busy & maximalist, but in a way that feels homey, lived in & loved.” My eyes go glassy with stars.

“It would have a kitchen & a garden in the back. I could fill every corner with plants.”

L lights up at this, and I can tell I have his full attention.

“I would hold lavender & mint & basil & all kinds of herbs on my window sill, and have a garden in the back- Ooh! Or the frontyard! Oh! Or maybe the backyard would have all of my edible plants, like pumpkins & squash, cucumber & bell peppers, onions & beans, and the frontyard could hold all of my flowers! Lavender, roses, moonflowers… Maybe even broccoli!”

L’s eyes are bursting with life as he listens. I can tell he’s brimming with knowledge & interest, practically ready to burst at the seams!

“I would have a table & chairs somewhere amidst the garden where I could invite friends for tea parties, drink tea under the shade of a tree while we talk about whatever comes to mind, or nothing at all as we silently watch the birds fly by, perching on nearby branches or bushes, the butterflies & moths flittering with the wind, and all kinds of other critters moving about in harmony! Truly a garden for everyone.

“I’d want to utilize my kitchen not just for myself, but to cook for others too! I’d want my garden to be a source of Home, not just for me, not just for critters, but to also aid my friends. I could host dinner parties, and we’d eat on the ivy-covered patio! Lavender & candles to ward off mosquitoes.

“I want a place to host the parties I never could, with the kind of friends I didn’t have growing up.” Finally, I cease my babble & notice L shifting his thoughts uncomfortably. I wait patiently, eager to hear what my friend has to say.

With time, he tells me, eyes unfixed on anything in particular, “I’d also want a house in the middle of the woods. But not so people could visit me. It would be isolated from society & its hounding cars & obnoxious sirens. I wouldn’t hear a single shrill screaming leafblower or lawnmower for miles, because it would not exist for miles.”

It’s obvious in this moment that we have forgotten these things do not exist anymore. But there’s no point in waking a man from his daydreams.

“I would not need company from any person or animal, because my company would come from my plants. I could tend to them everyday, and no one would stop me from growing all of the beautiful monstrous plants I wanted. Plants aren’t monstrous.” He looks at me seriously, a hopeful glassy glint in his big green eyes. “They’re beautiful. Humans are the monstrosities.” He dulls & avoids eye contact again.

“I’d have a house that, like yours, is small. I’d have a house that, like yours, has a garden. But there would be no table or dining room. My garden would be filled like a Floridian swamp. No room for anything to grow that can’t handle the harsh climate of living.

“I like the idea of living alone, A. I want to live alone. I want…"

“Solitude,” I define.

“Home.” he declares. “And you?”

“I want a place to share,” I reply.

“Home,” he defines.

“Home,” I declare.

I help snip off the rest of the carrot tops & let both the roots & the leaves soak in the bucket.

If I were a smarter man, I’d think we have Home here too, right now, in this moment together.

The breeze cools the air outside, sun turning orange as it basks the leaves of our potatoes, still growing in the summer-spring’s heat, and the side of the bleached, brown barn, and all of the yellowing grass in golden rays. The chirping of crickets & all sorts of other dusk-dwelling insects begin their choir, the swaying of trees the alto harmony. The stars will peak out soon.

All things considered, this place really is beautiful, and I will be sad to see it left behind.

17.26

Mar. 27, 2026

🌔 Waxing Gibbous