One Mom Army by Martha Carr & Michael Anderle

Author:Martha Carr & Michael Anderle [Carr, Martha & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-04-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Heather and Nathaniel sat on the edge of a fountain in Exposition Park. The falling water made the air around them almost clear, despite the layer of pollution that had been settling ever more thickly over LA for the previous few days. The two Tolderai watched as people hurried past, not many of them taking the time to enjoy the park. With air like this, it was hard to appreciate the outdoors.

“Shouldn’t we be talking to the plants?” Nathaniel looked at the rose bushes around them. “I mean, that’s why we’re here, right?”

A swift glided out of the smog and landed on the ground next to Nathaniel. He reached down to stroke its head, and the bird happily accepted the attention while peering with curiosity at the tree sap slowly accumulating on the concrete around Heather’s boots.

“Chill, Nate,” she said. “We have to listen before we talk. That’s how you learn.”

“Which one are we listening to, dude?” He gestured at the hundreds of plants stretched out away from them through the smog.

“All of them.”

Nathaniel closed his eyes and tried to listen to the voices of the plants. It wasn’t listening in the same way that he would listen to other people or even animals. They used sounds as the primary way to communicate. What the Tolderai meant when they talked about listening to plants was something more nuanced, something that he had dabbled in before he found his tribe, but that he was now learning to use in a deeper, more effective way. It was a combination of scents on the breeze, of signals through the roots, of rustling branches, and the colors in petals and leaves. It was often a slow, drawn-out message, but it was always there for them to find.

“They’re afraid,” he said at last. “Other plants have been hurt, not with the casual indifference of children or the grinding purpose of industry, but in a darker way, something vicious and toxic…”

“Go on.”

“The thing that’s killing them is in the air. They can’t stop breathing, so they can’t avoid dying if it comes for them.”

“Obvious, but good. Go on.”

This felt like a test, as if there was some important point he was missing. Learning to be Tolderai was more challenging than anything he had faced during his Ph.D. That had been academic, a matter of systems and conscious constructions of knowledge. This was slower, messier, harder to grasp, like trying to snatch fistfuls of rain out of the howling wind. Like that wind, it left him feeling battered.

It would be worth it though, to reconnect with his past, with where he came from, with who he could be.

There it was, the thing that he’d missed.

“They’re not only scared for themselves. They’re scared for the future. They’re scared for whole networks of life, for the network of plants in this park, in South Park, in MacArthur, Elysian, all the places across the city where life grows. Each plant fears as an individual, but they feel it as a group as well, the way that it threatens their existence.

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