hydrangealora

[hydrangealora]

Earth’s Verdant Dreamers

A thumping in the upper left side of my chest awoke me from whatever dream I was having. Shiva stared down at me, approvingly, like the God she is. Or maybe I’m projecting. Even when she came to me as a kitten, I saw her. I saw who she was. She was so much larger than herself. Grey fluffy fur with white tuffs as a neck scarf and frilly paw socks. When I brought her home, she pounced and scurried around the sparse studio apartment. Her first prey, a giant dust bunny in the kitchen corner.

“Hello, goddess”, I say as she brings her nose close to my face, sniffing me as, she checks my vitals, one of her whiskers wispily grazes my cheek as she turns and departs. She heads back to her nightly cat business in the kitchen. She does this every night. They’ll be a dead bug or two, left out for me in the morning.

I live alone. No I don’t. I live with my medical pet, not with a human being, like so many others. So there is no person to tell, “The coffee pot’s ready!” or to ask, “Can you hand me the earl grey from the cabinet?” I stopped dating when the bone contortions had gotten too bad.

None of them were connections worth keeping anyway. If they could be called that. “Connections?” As I reach for my own tea box from the cabinet above the stove, I’m remembering a first date at a coffee shop. His name was Daniel. He had dark curly hair and light eyes, and for any given reason I did not think to inquire, his pupils were perpetually dilated. He

was nice, a high school principal. We talked about our jobs and the weather a bit and that was that. As he explained the intricacies of being a school principle versus any other public school administrator, I stirred cream into my tea, and let my mind wonder. What was his height? How easily would he have reached my box of earl grey? How resilient were his mitochondrial vitamin D receptors? How susceptive are his biotin and calcium intake? How much is left of his family line’s national vitamin and oxygen allotments? My mind continues to trail away into my favorite Haiku by an unknown author.

Sunlight's golden brush. Caresses blades, awakens

Earth's verdant dreamers

I’m sure if I had let things advance to a second date, he’d have questions for me as well. He’d be curious about my genetic DNA as well. I feel the same prick in my belly now as I did then. He’d deem me incompatible, just as I had already deemed him. So I just stopped wasting everyone’s time. Was it even connection we were both looking for anyway? Is genetic reparative coupling a form of connection? A way of connecting? I plop the box down on the counter and yank a mug off the dish rack, shaking my head and my thoughts away. I glanced at Shiva napping in her favorite sunlit spot, beside the ficus plant. Shade and sun swathed over her. I’m immediately recomposed.

Our national scientists tell us that the collective weakening of human DNA is directly related to the decreasing amount of oxygen our plant life produces. So we have our national allotments of houseplants and vitamins. The year 2054, marked the beginning of The Great Compression. Atmospheric oxygen levels had been notably decreasing since the 1970s, however 2054 marked the first time in history where the percentage of breath afflicted in the U.S. outnumbered the percentage of non breath afflicted. Our nation was unprepared for the implications this statistic detailed. However, the president and other important figureheads were becoming afllicted despite already having been regularly provided and treated with the purest oxygen, due senior age status. Bipartisan legislation was enacted speedily and seamlessly. Lumber harvesting was immediately halted and outlawed. The cattle farming industry was curbed indefinitely. That all occurred the year I was born, 50 years ago.

Although, I am a professor of Renaissance History, most of my lectures of late tend to take a turn into science class somehow. For instance, today. I was expounding upon the theory of Environmental Determinism and its effect on the European population at the end of the Black Death and thereafter.

“Environmental Determinism makes the claim that geological and ecological factors contribute and have contributed to a civilization’s government, traditions, and other institutions. If stretched a bit further, this same theory can be applied to the plague. The Black Death created a particular biological environment that caused changes in society such as the reduction in urban population, by way of those who could afford to relocate to the countryside, the implementation of a public sewage system, and ….”

One of the students raised her hand. She wore a blue sweater, and her hair in a high chignon, a nation pin securing its twists of locks. The metal glinted under the ceiling lights as she spoke,

“Professor Kieran, if I may interrupt!”

She didn’t wait for my permission.

“Don’t you agree that…” She continued after taking a quick, yet deep gasp of air, “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution would be more fitting towards the points you are making regarding the Black Death’s effect on European society as a whole?” She asked the question as if she was more so making a declarative statement.

I cocked my head, struggling with my shoulders a little, “That would be a valid point Ms. Jones, But the Theory of Evolution is a scientific one, not a historical theory. This is a history class after all.”

She looked a bit confused for a moment, while the rest of the class seemed as if they were becoming restless. She held her stylus up to her lips for a second, shot a glance at me, jotted something down onto her note taking device, and let out the faintest, “Hmmmm”, being careful not to expend more breath than necessary.

I, understanding that the exchange was over, walked back, albeit laboriously so, towards the smart board in order to input today’s end of class notes.

“But Professor, Kieran.” I recognized the voice. It was Ms. Jones again, but she sounded like someone else. Something else. More feeble and yet all at once, stronger, more secure, as if her courage was coming out on the tail end of her words. I hadn’t intended to cut her short, to dismiss her. Although I have to admit, that I knew that that’s what I had done. And I was just glad and relieved to have been over and done with it. I’m tired. So very tired. I am exhausted. We

all are. Or shouldn’t we all be? Somehow, she wasn’t. I could hear every time she quickly and sharply grasped for air, with every statement she saw fit to make. Does she not understand the concept of futility? I almost pitied her. However, I found myself respecting her instead.

Respect? What was that, again? A recognition of something I once valued, but had nearly completely forgotten about.

I finished inputting my notes, and sank backwards into my chair, letting it receive all the weight of me, and my disheveled bones, and heavy breathing. I looked up ahead at Ms. Jones, and nodded my head for her to continue.

“Professor, Kieran. It is my opinion that history and science are not separate, but often intertwine.”

I was intrigued. Or at least, I think I did the best I could to be. I gave Ms. Jones a weak smile, waved my hand in the air, and replied, “Go on”.