Speculation by Speculation (retail) (epub)

Author:Speculation (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2023-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

the back road to the airport winds around traffic circles and takes you through the fancy Gables dense with iron gates snaked in ivory and other gestures of pomp and privacy. The tops of the banyans on either side of the streets form a canopy that blocks the sun. I roll down the windows to catch the breeze.

“These are invasive species, you know,” passing banyan after banyan. I hadn't told her this about the trees the night of our picnic, she was so in love with them, but now I am feeling mean.

“Really?” she sounds upset. “Where are they from?”

Really far, I tell her, like India. They're banned from being planted now.

“Well. They feel like they are supposed to exist here.”

I shrug.

“You know I feel the same?” she was saying. “I feel like I am supposed to be here. I feel good in Miami.”

“Everyone feels good in Miami,” I say, right as a feeling of disquiet makes itself physical in the back of my throat.

I dread seeing her off at the airport, her clear cosmetics bag on top of her oval luggage, which she has secured by a pinned purple scarf. These sheer fabrics, they are like talismans she rides in and out on.

I'd like to ask her, why did you call me? Who let this happen, without thought of the consequences?

But I don't get to. The next beat in time will forever be unrememberable to me. I will only be able to recall the clairvoyant moment before, as the back of my throat soured with a bitterness, my car sloping toward a slight, strange decline in the otherwise leveled road. Trusting the dip, not being able to see below my car, a low grey flash in my periphery giving way to a loud thump. Something across the length of my bumper, Marietta gulping out a sob, me pulling to the side of the road. I don't remember exiting the car—just the duck in an oil puddle of blood. Her and the four of her babies, twitching toward death or dead.

The babies, I'm wailing. Small and broken at the legs and necks.

The mama, Marietta cries.

The duck's beak is flattened, and one ray of sun peeks through the awning of the banyans, strangely hitting her exposed eye. I think I see life itself pass through the mother and leave, a beam rushing skyward.

For what feels like a while we stand there, absorbing what we have let happen. For a long time, I can't imagine a way to move forward. In any capacity, really. Neither of us with that direct line to God to call her and ask, how do we proceed?

Eventually, we do. Marietta changes into gym shorts and we wrap our family in the lush pink of her sarong, tying a careful and artful parcel even as the blood reddens the silk. We place the family under the newest, softest roots we can find and cover them with fallen palm fronds. We wait with the family as long as we can, which is to say ten minutes.

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