Bryan Kashon
Bryan Kashon was born in the boughs of a pine tree (or in an infirmary at Denver Colorado’s St. Jude’s hospital if you’re a stickler) at 7:35pm. After embarrassing his way through elementary, middle, and high school, Mr. Kashon felt the call of the coast and packed his bags to Humboldt State University. Four years later—when the redwoods finally regurgitated his body—he, his fiancée, and their then 1 year old daughter moved to Sacramento. Since then, Bryan has occupied himself by splashing in the American River, dancing with the shadows in his peripherals, and absolutely loving being a dad. He thanks you all for reading his piece, wishes you a lovely day, accidentally spills some juice on his shirt, and stands motionless until you leave.
Dandelion
Grandma and I are on the front porch of her remodeled, Victorian home lounging and relishing crisp, dripping, sweating drinks. It is the first summer dusk where I understand what it means to love; to love the winds hushing the heat of the day into a docile thrum; to love the sun, moon, and stars blending into one violet, vermillion, indigo evening; to love my parents for not shooing me to bed when the barn owl hoots and the lightning bugs waltz; to love the quiet way the rocking chair creeks as Grandma Carlissa talks.
“That house was green,” she continues, staring at the swaying evergreens, sipping her 7&7. “Vines across the walls and stems shooting from the gutters.” Sip. “Carrie Montgomery had a willow tree sprout up right through the foundations and out the roof.” Her ice clinks against a crystal glass while amber liquid sloshes. This is not the first time I’ve heard the story about the forest swallowing her neighbor’s home. However, this time is different. I have never had the trees listen with me. My father’s mother tells it in a way that makes me feel like someone, some thing, is watching us. Air dozes, the sun sets, and leaves wiggle in the humble summer breeze. My feet are not long enough to touch the porch. They swing lazily. Grandma takes another sip and lets one of the ice cubes into her mouth. She swishes it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth letting the cool soothe her gums. Snort. Phlegm slides down her throat as she spits the ice back into its glass. “You’d’ve thought the forest was mad at her. Wanted to get her.” A smile cracks across her face and I finally understand why our family calls her Old Fox: the smirk, the pointed, freckled nose, the brown skin still so rich at seventy-six you could swear it glows at night. “My daddy liked to think that she’d gotten cursed,” she chuckles. “And my momma used to say it’s ‘cause she never said sorry after stepping on a dandelion.”
“What do you think, Gram?”
She goes quiet. The first time I asked, years ago, grandma laughed until tears streaked her face. Then she put me to bed before I could ask more, ignoring my resistance. Now, her eyes focus on the footpath winding into the woods, searching for a figure I have only known through words. “I’ve never figured it out,” she admits. Surprise smacks my face; she has never answered me before. Grandma catches herself before she starts to say something new. I notice her glance at me, but she doesn’t know that I know. “Carrie was never seen again.” Creaking crows take flight in swooping, slapping, splashes of noise as grandma purses her lips. Sip. Their flutters swish through the trees. An inky feather lists to the ground near us. Gram eyes it and twirls her drink.
“Never?” I ask, wiping the perspiration from my glass onto my melon sundress. A shiver crawls up my spine.
“Got swallowed up like her house,” Gram laughs bitterly. Sip.
“What do you think happened?” I ask again, sipping my lemonade. It’s tart.
“To her? Or the house?” Gram looks me in the eye. Her stare is solid. My spine straightens.
“B—Both.”
“These trees feel what you and I do. They know love, jealousy, regret. Human things. Stuff they tolerate. Sometimes.” Ice cubes clink as she tips the glass, takes a long gulp, and sets the nearly empty drink on the white, wicker table between us. Joints crack and porch-boards creek as she stands up from the rocking chair her father’s father made and begins to walk, barefoot, toward the trail her husband Vladyr paved when they inherited the house. Handprints and initials—VC, MC, EC, EC—press into the cement walkway, marking the youth of my father and his family, while heather and canary perennials line the path. The evening smells of fresh cut grass and as I listen to the noises beyond the house the unmistakable whir of a lawnmower drones against the rhythmic repetition of chirping crickets. “But,” she says turning to me, “come see for yourself.” A half-smile emerges as she winks and motions for me to follow. Old Fox, I think. Braids skip across my shoulders as I dash off the porch and into the grass.
Ground kisses my soles, and in the back of my mind I realize I will remember this moment forever: the calm of the evening, the waltz of the lightning bugs, and the way everything sits so expectantly. Only, I will not remember that I remember until I realize I have forgotten. Though I do not know it now, one day—when I see my only child fall off of the porch into the rose bushes, re-emerge bloodied, plucking thorns from their side, and continue on as if nothing had happened—this day will reappear. So I will cry. And they will ask me why I’m crying. But I do not know that yet.
Feeling like sheets drying under cloudless skies I follow Gram. Trees yawn and stretch, preparing for slumber. Grandpa Vlad’s path connects with one in the forest and we walk the string tying two worlds together. Twigs and pine needles jibe my bare feet for disturbing the conifer’s rest. Grandma is mute. Her leathered feet and thick callus’ make child’s play of the deciduous droppings. Out of the corner of my eye an entity flits—quick, inhuman, unfamiliar. Barn owl, I dismiss, ignoring the creeping gooseflesh on my neck. Cool. We walk until the trees surround us, ominous and looming. The last rays of the day peek through the wooden giants, urging us to turn back. Its warnings are deaf cautions to Gram who pushes onward. I hesitate, listen for the lawnmower, and finally notice the silence. No trees whisper to one another. No crickets measure the temperature. All have gone to sleep. It is the same quiet from the time grandma put me to bed, her story still fresh in my mind, my questions unanswered, and her mouth still chuckling. Yet she walks on and we both realize that I will be alone if I do not follow. Sprinting to catch up causes the rocks and debris to dig further into my feet, so for a moment I don’t focus on how terrified I am. Darkness is tangible when you are not alone in it. And Gram and I are not alone.
We are all at the living room table—Mom, Dad, me, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Erbie. Food steams in antique china—honey asparagus, golden rolls, twice-cooked macaroni— all resting under foil. Grandpa Vladyr sings from the kitchen, belting Icelandic folk tales, carving his famous pot roast. Gram has just finished scolding Erbie for taking a bite of the food before giving thanks. The fox cub shines from him as he grins and winks at my dad. They touch knuckles and turn to their mother whose face is bowed in a silent prayer with fingers clasped upon hand-woven table cloth.
“Couldn’t help it, Ma,” Erbie says. “You cook too good.”
Laughter erupts and, for a moment, grandma is taken from her thoughts with a smile. (She is not the chef in our family). Still, she holds her hands, and mumbles under her breath.
“Just like you could not help sneaking out?” Grandpa says, setting the steaming meat down next to a bottle of corked pinot noir. Dad reaches for it, yelps at the smack, and cradles his reprimanded hand. “Not for children,” Grandpa Vladyr states, bear smile beaming through salt and pepper beard.
Erbie rolls his eyes. “I get caught one time and I never hear the end of it.”
“These woods are dangerous,” my grandpa responds, fumbling with a corkscrew. “The trees like to play tricks. Sometimes they are not so nice.” Pop! goes the wine. I can smell it and it smells old. “One time, when your mother and I were young lovers we—” my dad and Erbie pretend to retch. My mother chuckles. Molasses rays of sunset spill into the dining room, splashing across the table. Outside children scream laughter in the streets. I notice my grandma shoot my grandpa a serious, stern look. She does not notice that I notice. He purses his lips, eyes his sons, and rolls his amber irises. “Here, you puppy dog eyes” he relents, pouring the richness into my father and uncle’s glasses, then offering some to my mother.
She holds her hand up, politely refusing. “I drank a bit too much today,” she states, rubbing her temple.
The wine gurgles from the bottle into their glasses, and then Gram’s. He hesitates over mine, sucking his teeth. My mother shoots him a glance, the type that says “Please don’t.” Dad—with an already empty glass—asks for more. I am granted a pour and for a moment I feel like one of them: aged, experienced, able to see beyond the roses on the stoop, able to leave the stoop. Their years and experience prove that, yes, I am the only kid at the table. But the crystal goblet in my hand and the sigh from Mom tell me that age is nothing more than a number. With misplaced confidence (the same that broke my right ulna two years ago) I tip the contents into my mouth.
I will never forget the way my grandmother shook her head and stifled a grin as I spat the bitter, red drink across the perfectly clean tablecloth.
“Really, Vlad?” Mom chides, rubbing her temple deeper.
“What a waste,” jokes my dad, prodding a finger into my ribs. We stick our tongues out at each other.
“I thought maybe she was grown up,” my grandpa says, shrugging. He takes a swig from the bottle, then chugs the rest. “My guess was wrong.”
With a sigh, Dad sets his empty glass on the table. “Really, pop?”
“Wine is for adults,” he points. “You drink water, Eddie.”
“I’m grown up,” I say, bashful. Blood rushes to my cheeks as five pairs of eyes stare at me. Uncle Erbie breaks the silence with a laugh. Everyone but my grandma chuckles.
“I mean it.” Tears sour in my throat. I rub my eyes.
Grandma coughs. We make eye contact and her cognac irises glint. My embarrassment washes away like the sand around my feet buried in the shallows of Sugar Creek. “Your heart beats the same as us,” she reassures. “Don’t grow up fast.”
*
There is barely any light by the time my grandmother stops to take a breath. She is silhouetted by the midnight blue wrapped cape-like around the both of us. Our sweaty, deep-breathing frames cut through the shawl of silence. It is warm tonight. A hack from her sends an animal dashing through the brush. Goosebumps creep across my skin while my arm hair stands straight as the cedars. The air is heavier than it was a moment before and I can’t stop my thoughts from wandering toward the beast in the bush. Neither the anxiety prickled across the nape of my neck, nor the restlessness of my heart reassure me that it was, in fact, an animal. With a sigh Grandma breathes out the last bits of sunlight then carries on without a word. Something touches my hand. It is colder than the river when it babbles under the ice. Heartbeat echoes through my body as terror grips my frame. My breath squeezes through fear-clenched esophagus and I am having trouble gulping in the crisp, pine air. Grandma notices and extends her hand. Like a child sputtering in the water, I clutch it and let her warm, worn grip pull me to safety. “Don’t be afraid,” she requests. “I’m here.”
“I felt something. It touched my hand.”
“Mhmm,” she mumbles dismissively.
“It’s true,” I insist.
“Just the dark playing tricks on you,” she says, staring forward. “The forest likes to mess with kids.”
“I’m not a kid.”
Grandma laughs once, tight. It escapes her and she tenses at her slip. “You’re not not a kid,” she recovers, clenching my hand in hers.
“Something touched me. Felt cold like…” the words waver on my tongue.
In the stuffy, dry attic time passes differently. I am digging through time—antiques older than my father packed neatly in piles covered with dust and cobwebs. Familial history holds me tight. Quilts, lamps, clothes, sleds, all part of my family’s past. A loud thump breaks the still, sweltering, summer silence. A shriek escapes me before I can grab it and instantly, like she had been there the whole time, my grandmother is standing at my side. Her eyes are nearly red. She looks starved.
A pause. She looks through me. Her eyes search through the manilla, mildew-smelling clutter. “Are you ok?” she asks, not making eye contact. I say nothing as she carefully picks a path through the labyrinth of boxes. The swear under her breath is not as loud as the crash that precedes it, but to me it sounds like a shout. Grandma never swears. Suddenly, she is kneeling in front of a chest, eyeing it. “Did you touch anything?” she asks, not looking.
I tremble, “no Gram.”
“Did you?”
“No Grandma.”
We remain in sepia toned silence for a moment before she sniffs, touches her head to the chest, and picks herself up. “Come here,” she calls. But I am glued to the dusty floorboards. “Now,” she barks, sending a shock through me. When I am at her side I realize she is smaller than she has ever been. At only five-foot-four I am roughly her height, but for the first time in my life I can see wrinkles wrought across her face. I notice her hair is not white in this light. It is gray. She pulls a key on a chain from around her neck and unlocks the old, dusty chest in front of her. Metal bands hold the aged, blue, splintered wood together. The lock clicks. My breath sticks in my chest. When she opens it I am visibly disappointed and when she turns to look she can tell. It’s just a stone with scribbles on it. But her eyes—independent from her mouth—smirk, as muted terror paints my face: the rock and it’s scrawls have begun to glow a pale, sickly yellow. Its shine reminds me of the dying glow sticks in the freezer downstairs. I graze my fingers over its water-smooth surface and gasp at its chill. It is the temperature of death. Of nothing.
“What is that, Grandma?” I ask, uncertainty shaking my words.
Grandma, standing now, is leagues above me. Her eyes cast down past me into the chest. I think she is going to grab the stone when she closes the lid and locks it, tucking the necklace into her blouse. “It’s a reminder, Giselle.”
“What?”
And then she is looking at me. No. She is looking into me. Studying me.
She sighs, shakes her head. “Not yet.”
“I won’t tell.”
She turns to go.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“One day I’ll show you what I mean. But not now.”
“Why not?”
She crouches and looks at me. “You don’t know what love means. You don’t know what it means when love makes us crazy.”
My hands, balled into fists, clench. “You’ll tell me one day when I’m older?” The words taste bitter coming out of my mouth. I see dust hanging listlessly in the air through streaks of light.
“One day when you’re ready.”
“You remember that stone I found in the attic with the little bit of writing on it?” I ask.
With an unfamiliar and frightening quickness, like she had always been there, my grandma drops to my level and grips my arms. “How do you know about that?” she asks. “Tell me.”
The fire burns in her alcohol eyes. “But grandma, you were there,” I wince.
“I was? I was. You’re right. I was.” Her fingers tighten. “I remember. But you’re not ready for that yet. You’re not old enough. Let’s go back.”
“So you do think I’m a kid,” I say, stamping my foot into a twig. My voice pinches sharp and shrieks into the night. I choke back the pain and tears. “I am old enough to do these things, Gram. You told me in the attic—you said love makes us crazy. Well I’m old enough to know. I’m old enough to know crazy.”
“How many times I have to tell you to wait to grow up, huh? How many times, Giselle?” Grandma barks. “There are things out there that don’t care how old you are and they’ll do anything to tear you down no matter what. You hear me?” A beat. Grandma finally sees me again. “Huh?”
“You’re hurting me, Grandma.”
Her fingers relax, but I can still feel their imprint. I can see the terror in her eyes.
“What?” My fear writhes and cackles. If Gram was scared, then what was I? A tension hangs between us like sheets caught in a downpour. “What?” I beg.
“Nothing,” she dismisses and stands up. She takes my hand and it is clammy. Sweat perspires between us so I do not want to hold her. I do not want to be here.
“Tell me,” I command, tearing my hand from her.
“Giselle, stop this nonsense. Get back here, now.”
“No.” My feet begin running even though I want to stay.
“Giselle, stop, don’t!”
My grandmother’s belabored breathing breaks through my frantic panting. I do not know where I am going, but the terrain measures my pace. Our feet crunch over debris, each running toward something out of reach. The ground is unkempt. Tree roots gnarl from the earth, reaching for our ankles, while elderberry branches swat at our cheeks. Chlorophyll and decaying leaves waft through my nostrils. Life and death. Branches snap under my feet, bushes slap my face, and for a moment I am the animal, running for my life, gasping for safety. And then I am in a clearing: a perfect circle of grass surrounded by a wall of sleepless giants. They stare at us, grumpy. Breeze hushes, and then all is still. A lonesome pile of stones sits at the center. Gram stops behind me, breathing heavily. She leans over and sucks in deep gulps of air.
I peer around. “Where are we?”
Grandma walks to the stones, kneels, and begins muttering something into the grass. I stand and stare. I am confused. Moon has arrived and her star children are winking, waking, greeting each other in celestial salutations. No sun warms my mother’s black skin, and my father’s green eyes strain to see, but here my grandmother is, kneeling. Fear has turned to impatience. I have no time to be afraid of the dark, not when I have been dragged to the middle of nowhere for nothing. Maybe Gram was right, I think, blowing hot air into the ever-cooling evening. I am just a kid.
Again, a shadow dashes through my peripherals. The stench of mold—fibrous and bitter—throttles my nostrils as inhuman breath whispers Mable into my ear. Every bit of me wishes to run back, wishes to scream out, wishes to push my face into the hem of Old Fox’s skirt and cry until thick mucus runs down my chin, staining my mask of complacency. However, there is no one but my grandma and me. She acts as if nothing has happened, bowed in prayer, and for the first time in my life a flash of rage toward her—seething and searing—washes over me. It dissipates almost immediately as I recognize the hair-raising tightness you feel when the gaze of a stranger falls heavy against your back. When I turn around there is nothing. A feeling similar to the knowledge that you’ve left the clothes outside on the line even though your mom told you to bring them in before the storm comes urges me to run, urges me to dash to safety in the thickets of the trees, find a burrow, and shed my human facade. I consider it until I look back at the pile of rocks and feel my eyes bulge. It is glowing, yet no longer separate. The palm-sized and head-shaped limestones have congealed into a leveled, layered boulder with a delicately jagged script flowing across its surface, glowing a sickly, yellow color. An ancient voice, old as the rings in the birch, rumbling as the scraping plates beneath our feet, starts to speak:
I stretch toward the sky. High
against the beautiful, crystal, blue heavens
my leaves shake, shiver with the memory of creation,
trembling against frigid summer dusk.
My roots grow outward, inward, leeward, forward,
crawling through dirt. And muck—
swaths and patches of sticky mud—
block their path. But tips of hardened, piercing fiber
tear through a lightless dark, puncture beasts’ dens,
end in lapping tendrils thirsty for rain.
I crack my knuckles, feel my rings, and sway.
The fire that burned last summer,
singeing the ones I love with red-hot scars,
eating my children and swallowing my memories, has
died. And its ash rests heavy on the bodies around it.
Through it, though, my body grows taller,
I stand stronger,
and the grass grows again.
A small chunk of stone has been scooped, almost perfectly, from the end of the chant. “Who put this here?” I ask. Gram finishes reciting the poem then says nothing. Tears streak her face and fall to the earth. Grief grips my chest and the fear lodged in my windpipe begins to melt into sorrow. Grandma has never cried in front of me and a deep, sour shame splashes against my chin. How could I hate you, I think, tears mixing with sweat and dirt as they barrel down my cheek. “Who put this here?” I ask again, louder. She sighs, takes my hand, and begins to walk. “Grandma?” Somehow I know she is disappointed. Like she was supposed to remember this evening forever, too, only I forgot my lines. She realizes that one day she, too, will forget them. When I glance back at the boulder there is no glowing script. I see no poem covering its gritty texture. Only a carved heart corralling the letters VC + MD. “Who are VC and MD?” I ask.
Grandma wipes her face. “Your grandpa carved that the night we fell in love. The fool,” she smiles. “Spent damn near all night on his knees with a chisel digging into that rock. Wore holes in both pant legs, split two fingernails, and almost got my last initial wrong.”
“Carlissa?”
“No, baby.” Another smile. “My maiden name was Dumont. Got it from my daddy who got it from his daddy who, ironically, got it from his momma.”
My family’s legacy makes me warm, yet as I turn back to see their promise one last time a silhouette is there, kneeling, touching the rock. It is thick, hairy, and built—bear-like but bipedal. Sickly sap terror tacks on my fingers. “Hey, what are you doing?” I call out, heart welling. Gram grips my hand and shushes me. “But Grandma,” I begin. “They’ve been following us all night, and—” She shoots me a look. “Grand—”
“Be quiet,” she commands. “Friend,” she mouths.
My voice fails. Another shadow, slender and slim—features rugged and frayed like a coyote hunting for scraps—darts from the trees. It creeps toward Bear, who wipes their brow. They move faster than I can keep track. My brain struggles to keep up. A flourish, and then Coyote caresses them. Bear pushes away, gesturing gruffly. They point to the woods where they emerged from, gesticulating more and more. Coyote crosses their arms, taps their foot, and crouches. They are suddenly latched to Bear, the place where I imagine their faces are pressed against one another. Bear pushes, struggles to pry Coyote from them. And although Coyote is smaller by a head and slimmer by a branch they have an unsettling amount of power. Their fingers—dancing clouds of ink swirling in alien patterns through the silver moonlight—grip Bear by the throat and hold them close, whispering something into their ear. I see Coyote lift Bear off of the ground. Their long, sturdy legs kick and thrash, toes stretching for terra firma. A third, fox-like figure hugs the ground, buries their noise, and slinks behind the boulder, scooping something from its surface. It measures the item in their palm and, with a deliberateness seen only by animals chasing food, or humans chasing love, they throw it against Coyote’s neck. Like a tree severed from its base Coyote crashes to the ground, Bear following, the wind knocked out of their inhuman frames. Coyote claws at the earth, nurses their sickening bump, and stands to Fox. A dash, and then another splay. Coyote lays face down in the grass while Fox arches over them, hackles raised. Whispers hiss through the clearing, but I cannot understand it. Coyote turns and kicks at Fox, but another ovular rock glances off of their forehead and clatters against the boulder. Coyote yelps, wipes a thick bead of brackish, black goo from their forehead and dashes into the woods.
Bear and Fox remain rooted until they are sure they are alone. Then, simultaneously, they collapse into each other. Their silhouetted shoulders sag together. A midnight breeze dances around them. It feels like we have been watching for hours, but I cannot move. If I focus hard enough I feel like I can see my grandmother and I standing together a few feet from the scene, peering down on us like the bats chirping and swooping overhead. But if I focus on focusing too hard I come crashing into my form. And I come back hard. By then, Bear and Fox have departed, blown away in the wind, leaving behind a glowing heart.
Coyote slouches from the woods. They drag something behind them. I shout, trying to yank free from my grandma. She clutches me and places her hand over my mouth. We watch as Coyote lifts the weight and crashes it down into the boulder. Up. Smack. Up. Crack. Up. Clack. They make no sound save for heavy, weathered breathing. Over and over it bashes into the rock, steadily destroying it. They do not notice the tension, nor do they feel the grass, roots, and plants that have slowly begun to cover their feet. It creeps up their legs, wraps around their waist, and tendrils through their hair. Up. Smack. Up. Crack. Up. Clack. Peat moss swallows their thighs as bark forms across the nape of their neck. Up. Smack. Up. Crack. Up. Crunch. The boulder breaks and they are consumed. Green grows over Coyote’s face, smothering. They drop to their knees, clutching their throat, rolling and writhing, fighting an invisible foe. They are an animal trapped in a snare—a blanket blown from its pins by a sinister wind into the dead, grasping limbs of a tree long forgotten. As the oxygen drains from Coyote and the forest takes hold they thrash their legs one last time and then, finally, become inseparable from the ground. Their lump seeps into the loam and fresh cut grass covers the spot, erasing any trace of a struggle. The boulder lays in chunks and pieces, a pile of love shattered by jealousy. I look to Gram for answers but she is stoic. We stand together. Moonlight shines and stars shy away. Gram releases me and begins to walk back. Crickets chirp. A coyote howls. We are back in the land of the living.
Walking home I no longer cringe at the feeling underneath my feet. I will let the forest rest. The lightning bugs, now en masse, dance in surreal sways through, across, and around each tree’s trunk. Swaths of them shine to my right in front of a willow with the old foundation of a house strewn over its shoulders. Ivy and vines wrap around the decaying skeleton. Watermelon colored flowers grow at its peak. That house is green, I think. A flash: the rotting beams and shattered shingles glow with the poem of the forest then fade into nothing.
As the trees thin and the path turns back into cement I make out my parents standing on the porch. They wave. Somehow I know my father knows what I saw, and somehow I know that he knows that I know. It is the way he glances at me, then back to Gram, then back to me; it is the way he nudges my mother thinking that I do not notice. He whispers in her ear. If they think I cannot see, or if they want me to see, I don’t care. All I want is to sleep and see if I wake up, see if I want all this to be a dream or not. The look I give my father says “I am not the same Giselle as I was earlier,” and his smirk reassures me that I never was. My mother smiles warm and walks in with Gram. Dad turns to me.
“Apologize,” he says, looking me in the eyes.
I am gripped with a sudden, sheer terror. It is the bareness of the night and the space between the trees. It is the invisible eyes always staring at us from the forest. Standing on the well-manicured lawn, staring at the stubble-covered man with eyes like the grass stains on my grandmother’s skirt, I am alone. The confidence and self-assuredness I had washes away as I feel exhaustion grip my limbs. “What?”
“Apologize to them,” he responds, pointing at a broken dandelion.
Its stalk is bent—fractured—and its yellow petals rubbed off. I look at the bottom of my foot and find the smear on my sole. I kneel down, take the flower in my hands, and whisper “I am sorry. I am sorry.”