Tomatoes

Sometimes I think that my green thumb has rotted. There was a time when my garden was plentiful, blooms rising in rings around my peppers and greens, and also, my tomatoes.
     They never ripened. I bought the seeds-- the organic kind that supposedly produces a redder fruit. Something round and firm, rosier than the cheeks of the child that lives a short distance from my garden. Perhaps it’s the child’s fault that my tomatoes aren’t growing. My growth, too, would be stunted if I were forced to listen to that child wail all hours of the day.

     Now I only grow tomatoes. I have abandoned the less important plants in my garden. My flowers have shriveled, the formerly pearly petals cracking with brown under the weight of my work boots. I carefully avoid the last living greens, the patch of tomatoes hanging off of their vines. I now wear gloves to lessen the contact between myself and those tomatoes. I can’t have them bruising.
     I wait outside with them now. A flock came by the other day. It is spring and they are coming back North. They used to be distracted by my corn, but now they all have to entertain their greedy little beaks by pecking and inserting their faces into my product. They long to have the reds dribble down their bird faces. I happened upon one creature, black feathers slicked back, driving itself deeper into the ripest of my herd- the only one not a perfect green. The bird looked up at me, chest patterned with seeds.
    I saw myself standing over the bird in the reflection of its black beady eyes. Coated over my obvious anger and despair was his joy. The creature was revelling in my misfortune.

    I never let my tomatoes alone again. I lay in a pile of discarded mush and leaves. I have bought a shotgun. These birds will not be returning.
    In my stress, I take solace only in the cease of the child’s screaming. I breathe in the freshness of the newly muted air. Finally, I can think.

Medicine

I.
There was a screeching, an incessant gurgled creaking excreting from the room beside me. This sound, to this day, serves as a reminder of this truth: doctors do little good.
    When I was young my brother had a fever. He was two years older than me. He cried and cried, the indecisive little boy not able to choose the number of layers he wanted on his body.
    I told my mom to make him stop so she tried. Scraping up the pennies we had scattered in corners and pockets, she racked up roughly twelve dollars and was able to take him to the doctor.
    My brother came back two days later and was no longer crying. But my mother was.
    I had spent those two days out in nature. It was spring and upon the trees hung little white wrappings. I was amazed yesterday to see a shell cracking open to reveal a little head and bright wings beginning to peek through. This creature was coming towards me, so obviously, I immediately ran away. But with further investigation, I learned that this creature was a caterpillar. It was weak and made itself a cocoon. Its final test was to break out of its shelter and come out stronger, respected, beautiful.

    My younger brother crawled up to the blanket that held his eldest brother’s corpse. He was wrapped up in white, resembling a cocoon. I awaited for him to break free, but there would be no blooming for him, no metamorphosis into a greater being. He would not coast along with his wings above him, power in his glide, floating higher up, up, up…
    He would be lifted down to live in his shelter. A shelter that having failed his test, would ultimately be his downfall. My rotting thumb had touched another being. And like all matter, my big brother would disintegrate.

Nowadays one can go to any street corner, walk through automatic doors and ask a man in a white coat for an array of over-the-counter pills, many of which cost less than 12 dollars. Although this price would have made my mother devoid of hope, it is nothing to us now. Twelve dollars is enough to save my brother’s life. The doctors have done one thing right, only decades late.
    Let us praise science!

II.
At that moment I realized my mother was right, I would fall for someone just like her. She had brown hair, brown eyes, warm skin. She wore yellow dresses and cooked pot roast and potted plants. Her hair shone brown with golden hues under the weight of the sun. She was, undoubtedly, the epitome of joy-- my joy, at least.
    That’s not to say we didn’t have our squabbles. Like any old married couple, we did, even when we had been married for little over a year. We fought over stupid things, like trash and dishes and wallpaper hues. We also had large fights like whether we should have a daughter or who was going to pay my wife’s medical bills.
    We kept our finances separate, but she was not working and her savings were to run out. She knew of my distaste towards the medical field and didn’t ask me to chip in. That is, until the third year of our marriage.
    Her skin was yellowing and her hair greying at the young age of twenty-seven. She asked me for help but I told her, “My love, if you had a fever I would help you right away. But we don’t know what you have and it most likely costs over twelve dollars. And you must also expect me to enter those hospital doors which doesn’t sound like a great time. So I’ll pass.”
She smiled at me and said
“I understand”
And that was the end of that.
And believe me, I do miss her.