Xandra Kaste

Neobiota 

George stood on his front porch, surveying the lawn critically. As of yet, he hadn’t been able to find fault with the new lawn service’s work. Now, at last, he was vindicated. The grass was scraggly, and the neighbors would notice. The service worked on Thursdays, so there was only one thing to do: mow himself. Besides, his wife was still at her weekly brunch with her girlfriends. Knowing those women were conferencing always made him uneasy. What was said? What wasn’t? Not for the first time, he wondered if they had ever discussed the length of his penis. The thought made him shudder. Mowing would take his mind off it.

Dressed in an old shirt and basketball shorts, George pulled the lawnmower out of the shed and wheeled it into the front yard, bursting through the side gate like a horse at the starting gun. It had been too long since he’d done yard work. His sweat tasted good when he licked his lips, and the gentle spring wind ruffled his hair and cooled his forehead. 

After about 45 minutes, the backyard was put to rights, and George stopped for a water break. Sticky and covered in grass clippings, he knocked on the window to get the attention of his daughter, Miranda, who was scrunched on the window seat playing Nintendogs. She started and looked at him with scared rabbit eyes. George pantomimed drinking water. After a blank moment, the request connected, and Miranda rolled her eyes and slid off the seat. 

As he watched her getting water through the window, a wave of nostalgia crashed over George. He and Miranda had been friends until recently. He had been a haven for her when his wife got too demanding, and they’d been able to exist together in harmony, watching old sitcoms or playing Monopoly. But now she was 13, and somehow they’d lost that easy camaraderie. She was becoming a woman and, therefore, alien. After Miranda gave him the water, she turned on her heel to go back inside, but George stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Why are you running off so fast? Sit with me and talk for a second.” 

Miranda plopped down on the porch couch, her arms crossed to show he was detaining her against her will. George leaned against the porch railing, sipping his water. The silence was thick. “So . . . how is school?” A stupid question.

Miranda didn’t respond for a moment, then said, “It sucks. I used to like it okay. But now it’s all popular kids and stuff. Math class is cool. And science. We got to dissect a cow eye.” 

What a weird kid, George thought, but he nodded encouragement. He tried to think of a response, but before he could speak, Miranda mumbled something. 

“What did you say?” 

A hair louder this time, she said, “It’s kind of hard not having anyone to talk to.”

George’s heart broke. He wanted to take her face in his hands and mold it like clay, smoothing the line between her eyebrows. “The thing is,” he started. His voice was too loud, too hearty. It bruised the space between them. Miranda looked up at him then glanced away, eyes closed off. “The thing is, you can’t let the popular kids get to you,” George rambled on, giving his best advice, knowing it was still the wrong thing. 

When he ran out of things to say, Miranda said, “Thanks, Dad,” and went back inside. She grabbed her DS and returned to the window seat, putting in a pair of earbuds. 

George felt the familiar sting of not having a son. The conversation would have gone differently, he was sure. He loved his daughters, but the inner workings of the women in the family remained a mystery. It wasn’t like he was a Republican, wanting women to be like the women he remembered. But sometimes, when the family was all sitting around the kitchen table or driving together, he’d listen to them talking to each other and want to cry from confusion. 

The conversation had deflated George’s enthusiasm for the yard work. The sun had risen higher and beat down on his forehead. He hadn’t thought about sunscreen, and his skin was tightening. One quick pass over the front yard and he could call it a day. He leaned heavily on the mower, the grass spewing out behind him. At long last, he finished the final stretch and pushed the mower awkwardly through the gate to the backyard, glad to be done and ready to see if there was anything on the Science Channel.

As he maneuvered the mower through the gate, he felt grass brushing his ankles. “Damnit.” Had he missed a patch? Maybe he hadn’t done as good a job as he’d thought. He pushed the mower toward the shed and then stopped dead. The neatly clipped lawn of thirty minutes ago had sprouted into an ankle-high carpet of grass, itchy seedpods, and rich green clover dotted with white and purple blossoms. 

Slackjawed, George checked the blades on the mower, then opened the bag on the back; the heavenly smell of fresh-cut grass wafted out. He started the mower again and pushed it over a tuft of flowers, decapitating them in an explosion of petals, then turned off the mower and waited. A whip-poor-will called somewhere, and the drum of a woodpecker filled the silence. For a long minute, nothing happened. Then, like a time-lapse in a nature documentary, the flowers regrew. 

It was a desperate moment for George. Was he dying? Did he have heatstroke? Beyond the dried sweat on his brow and the grass clippings, there was no evidence he’d done anything. Dazed, he turned, pushed the gate back open, and walked out to the street to stare at the grass he’d mown only a moment before. It was nearly as overgrown as the backyard. He walked like a man in a dream to the porch and stood where he had that morning, once again looking out at the shaggy lawn.

Miranda wandered outside. She looked at her father, then at the grass. “Didn’t you mow?”

“Yes.”

“You did a bad job.”

His eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, George said stoically, “I guess I need to do it again.”

Unaware of her father’s disintegration, Miranda walked down the steps, wiggled her toes in the new clover, and said, “I like it like this. It feels nice.” After a second, she did a spontaneous cartwheel, landing in a giggling heap.

George watched his daughter pick herself up and walk barefoot around the lawn. When she smiled radiantly at him, he kicked off his tennis shoes and joined her. His gutsickness hadn’t disappeared, but his mind stopped grappling with what had happened as he watched his daughter laugh for the first time in a long time. They chased each other around the yard until George begged for a moment to catch his breath and collapsed on the porch steps.

George was still smiling when he noticed the grass moving oddly near where Miranda was leaning down to collect flowers. He had moved into a dead sprint before firmly registering what it was. He grabbed Miranda’s forearms. She resisted, squirming in her father’s grasp.

“Snake!” he barked.

Miranda’s mouth formed an o, and her body went limp. George scooped her into his arms—safe from the copperhead that had been tunneling through the grass toward her—and stumbled up the steps to the safety of the porch. Both were gasping as he set her down. 

“Don’t,” he got out between wheezes, “go into the backyard until the lawn guys come.” Miranda nodded in mute acceptance and fled inside the house.

George stood looking out over the yard, his hands still planted on his knees, his forehead creased as he waited for his breathing to slow. A sharp pain ripped through his chest. Was he having a heart attack? He clutched at himself then realized his face was wet. He was crying, and for a long time, he couldn’t stop.

At last, the tears dried up, and he wiped his nose with the gesture of a small boy. He returned to the house, ready with the excuse of allergies if anyone asked about his eyes. No one did.

—

Xandra Kaste is a writer living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She’s the founder of the very serious Peepee Poopoo Press and The Pottymouth Review.

Featured image: E. R. Blackwell’s survey of I. P. Martin’s and M. Ward’s gardens, ca. 1864; Helen Miller and William Merklin’s watercolor rendering, ca. 1936 (public domain)