Domestic Specimens
Coleus scutellarioides
When we return from Mississippi, the house smells of our absence. Weeks have passed with nothing circulating but mosquito stowaways from plants hurried indoors, the stale air locked up; seized. Our house is fine, as a friend assured us on his way out of town. I’d send y’all photos, but there’s nothing to see. None of my coleus plants survived, though, their delicate leaves shredded under the pergola, a canopy that’s useless for shelter. Meanwhile, the baggies I once filled with measured cups of homemade chicken stock have long since thawed, leaking into the overflow tray under the freezer drawer, where they mingled with melted Popsicles from last summer’s tonsillectomy. Thank god we thought to look down there before the mold could set in. We absorb the sop one paper-towel wad at a time in a chef’s kitchen lit by camping lanterns. Days later, the power comes back on, our neighborhood one of the last, no hospitals for miles. No garbage pickup either, but hey, feel free to haul your own. My dad came by to do just that, threw some bags from the curb into the bed of his truck and picked a few out of the can until he got down to the maggots. I don’t think this is what my mom meant all those years she told me, I wish you lived closer. We didn’t say much on the ride to the dump. Since then, I’ve been perversely comforted by climate atrocities elsewhere, soothed by articles about flooded subways, wildfires, rivers running dry. If a place is safe now, it’s probably boring. Every day, I ponder the optimal year for a child to leave the new school he loves, until we meet some parents and start seeing them around town, like old friends. At the pediatrician’s office, I say hello to the dad from the playground with the silicone baggies of snacks and the smear of sunscreen on his cheek, and I think less about leaving for some place further inland, where, as they say, today is just Tuesday.
Fuligo septica
Our side door doesn’t close unless the deadbolt is locked. Still, things get in. The other night, I thought I saw the corner of a yellow dishrag jammed under the door, some dropped remnant from the latest load of laundry caught in the middle of the threshold. I crouched to retrieve the rag and saw it was not fabric, but something wet, an oozing, poised to grow if left alone. Only after wiping away the wet with the same dishrag for which I’d mistaken it did I think to interrogate its harm, like the plate of unpasteurized burrata I savored in my first trimester, its risks ascertained via internet search on the drive home from Spacca Napoli. Slime mold, also known as dog’s vomit mold. I don’t want to call it either, to give it any name at all, only to spray it with a diluted vinegar solution, as suggested by a gardening site ranked first in the results. It’s common outdoors, the site says, after periods of heavy rain. Nothing about finding it inside. The slime sprouts again the next night, this time in the corner, seeping from under the weather stripping. I peel back the vinyl to reveal wood underneath, splintered and blackened, as though charred by fire, instead of slow destruction by its opposite.
Lepisma saccharina
They come two to a box. The instructions are simple: 1) Remove plastic wrap. 2) Hang. Somewhere ventilated, preferably, to rid the damp. I shove aside half of his tight-knit sweaters, draped carefully on the wood hangers he insisted we buy, and slide in the unwrapped contraption. Surely not much air can flow in here. It doesn’t feel wet, not like when we step outside and our glasses fog, but the internet identified the problem: too much moisture. Things grow in here that shouldn’t. We keep trying to get a handyman out to confirm our suspicions, but no one’s returning our calls. Everyone who could help is up on someone else’s roof. The pouch dangles, pregnant with chemicals. Calcium chloride, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, according to the warning label. I try to summon AP Chem, but all I recognize is table salt. Below the pouch, more plastic, an empty chamber to catch invisible droplets absorbed from thick air, like magic. But nothing happens. It’s as dry as hot laundry. I can still see a silverfish shimmying behind our baseboard, which has warped away from the wall. Even after the exterminator, we’ve been spotting them everywhere: crawling on the ceiling, behind the toilet, in our bed. Lasts up to two months, the package says. I don’t have that kind of time.
Koelreuteria paniculata
I record my video response to the first interview question. Beyond my bedroom window, smudged with a thin layer of mildew and the feathery imprint of a misguided mourning dove, it’s snowing flowers. The small yellow petals flutter noiselessly into the dying grass of our backyard. I fix my gaze on the green dot atop my monitor to feign confidence. My mind’s still in Mississippi. I haven’t been part of a team in years, since before the baby who’s no longer a baby. Though we’d always said kids, plural, when asked what we wanted, he is our only. I’m out of excuses. I shift my weight in the dining chair that’s lived for years in our bedroom. Surely I can summon an example of conflict to fill the minute allotted. I stammer through an anecdote that, halfway through its telling, I realize happened not to me, but to the woman who sat in the adjacent cubicle during my stint as a scorer of standardized tests, an experience so brief I don’t include it on my resume, though I can still smell her thick almond hand lotion that left grease stains on her keyboard. On my last day, some kid responded to the essay prompt about capitalism by drawing a penis, complete with stick-figure pubes, and I gave them partial credit. Another situational question appears, one I know I won’t answer. A swift gust shakes the trees in the yard, and the flowers fall faster. I could have sworn last year they were pink.
Didelphis virginiana
The possum slinks along our fence while I make a PB&J for lunch. She looks smaller than last time, as though she disappeared somewhere to birth a litter in hiding—under our foundation, perhaps, or in the yard of the house catty-corner to ours that’s been on the market for a year. Apparently, when you’re a marsupial, the baby weight melts right off. A side perk of a bifurcated vagina. Or maybe this one’s the offspring of the last, its restlessness inherited, like mine. I’m the third generation to live here and leave. We’ve all been lured back at some point, for United Cab, Mobil Oil, the restaurant in the Quarter that gave me a clothing allowance to write menu descriptions. But we never stay long. She sniffs our sealed compost bin with great curiosity, tantalized by the fresh rot of last week’s coffee grounds, zested lemon rinds, cut-off crusts of artisan breads. What a beautiful place to scavenge. Fun fact: animal control won’t handle nuisance wildlife, so I call a private company that quotes me $300 to set a trap on a weekday. They don’t work weekends. I forget to ask if it’s humane. She roots around in the tall grass, her long tail helping her to precisely balance with every step. I hope she’s gone by Monday.
Alligator mississippiensis
Our smoke alarm went off three times in the night, making beeps we don’t understand. There’s no battery to change; it came hard-wired. We dusted it last week with compressed air enhanced with a bitterant. The manual says humidity can confuse these models sometimes. It happens after dark as the home’s air cools, some balance askew in the mechanism. This might not be the place for you, the mayor announces. They spent a million dollars to roll an alligator float in another city’s parade, featuring a sanitized version of the alligator that appeared in a residential dumpster after the hurricane. Normally, this is a gator-free zone, said a neighbor on the same block of Perrier. Flood zone X, like our agent told us when we signed our thirty-year mortgage. X marks the safest. In the televised parade, the Celebration Gator float sells a bizarre version of our city, one I wish I could believe. Its green glittered back boasts colorful houses, blooming azaleas, the inert wheel of a steamboat. Jon Batiste belts a cheerful tune into a cordless mic while stilt walkers march alongside. The spectacle is punctuating the end of something, somewhere made for permanent inhabitants. Please come down to New Orleans, it begs. Please help us stay alive.