NOTE: This story is a piece of flash fiction, written in a limited time with a limited wordcount.
For my first story back from hiatus, I wanted to make sure I removed as much pressure as possible, so I tried to keep this one short and simple. Might be a little closer to an exercise than my usual, but I felt it was important to break the proverbial ice and return to form slowly!
I hope you enjoy!
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Eugene shrugged off his coat, even though the early morning chill was fresh off the water. It may have been spring on land—the park’s lawn dotted with dandelions and wild yellow violets—but out on the nearby Salish Sea it was still winter, and the wind wanted everyone to know it.
Taking up the spade that had been stabbed into the soft soil Eugene knelt before the patch of purple-blooming herb before him. He chose one of the slim stems, budding with fresh leaves, and dug carefully around it, the scent wafting up where he jostled it with a wayward hand, an elbow. It was intoxicating, unique. Nothing like it in the whole world.
Satisfied that he had properly dug around the root ball, he carefully pulled up the wild herb, preserving as much of the soil as he could, and tucked it into the plastic pot nearby.
Birdmint sorbet, he thought, the sap rising in his mouth. Birdmint jelly on Skagit Valley spring lamb. Birdmint tea. Birdmint julep. Yessir, birdmint julep on a summer day, out on the patio under the stringlights. Ballard night, Seattle sweet. Yessir, birdmint julep on a slow evening’s happy hour menu.
He straightened, cradling the pot, and turned to see the groundskeeper in blue coveralls standing there against the nearest fir, leaning on the tree trunk, clippers in one gloved hand.
“Morning,” the groundskeeper said.
“Morning,” Eugene returned. He knew the groundskeeper had already seen the pot but he tried to lower it against his leg, a foolish attempt to hide it. “Cold.”
“Should put your coat back on.”
Eugene ignored that. “Is it illegal?”
“Removing a plant from a state park? Yes, it is.” The groundskeeper laughed, a hollow sound. “But I think we’re pretty far past that, now. Don’t you?”
“It’s for my menu,” Eugene said. “You know who I am, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“It’s for my restaurant,” Eugene said. “I need it.”
“Birdmint don’t grow anywhere but here,” the groundskeeper said, enunciating every word, landing each like a hammer blow, as if he was tired of saying it. As if this wasn’t the first time. “Ferris Island is the one place it grows. It’s just how it is.”
“It’s a plant,” Eugene said. “Plants grow under the right conditions. This…this birdmint, this Mentha cantor, it’s just a mint. It likes damp soils, partial shade, and a bit of benign neglect. Do you know how many varieties of mint I grow for the restaurant? It’s up to near twenty, now. Twenty varieties of mint alone, thriving on a rooftop in Ballard. Why not this one?”
“Because it won’t grow,” the groundskeeper said. “No matter what you do with it, it won’t. You know it. I know it. Let it go.”
Eugene smiled, sighed. “You don’t understand. But that’s okay. You have to be passionate about flavors to understand. You have to crave ephemerality. You have to be obsessed with hyper-locality. But you…you don’t get it. And that’s okay.”
The groundskeeper’s face bloomed with something like pity. “You know she ain’t punishing you, right? The island. This isn’t her doing. It’s yours.”
Eugene shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure enough, I know you don’t. But…” The groundskeeper heaved a sigh. “Listen, it’s all about letting it go. You can just let it go, go home once and for all, and it’ll be over. You know that, don’t you?”
Eugene hugged the pot to himself. “Are you going to report me?”
“Report you? Hell. What you’ve got going on is punishment enough.”
“Well then. Have a good one,” Eugene said, picking up his coat and draping it over one shoulder. He sauntered away from the birdmint patch, leaving the spade stabbed in the soil where he found it. He brushed past the groundskeeper on his way to the sidewalk, leading out of the park toward the bus stop.
He didn’t have to wait long before the next bus showed up. When he climbed aboard, the driver gave him and the potted herb a haunted glance, but said nothing.
Eugene sat next to the window, listing dishes in his head.
Birdmint aperitif. Fried birdmint leaf garnish. Birdmint tabbouleh. Birdmint mule.
The smell of the plant drifted up, fresh with morning dew and heady with its floral savor, but the fragrance was already tinged with the tannic smell of wilt.
At the ferry dock, Eugene got off the bus and walked onto the ferry, as if it was waiting just for him. As he rode, the regulars steered clear of the strange man with the potted plant, mumbling to himself.
Birdmint salad. Birdmint mojito. Birdmint in a curry. Birdmint and peas.
When the ferry reached Port Townsend, Eugene disembarked with the rest of the walk-on passengers. He did not remember where he had parked his car, but that didn’t matter. He would walk. It couldn’t be far, could it? Back to the restaurant? Back to the kitchen?
So he walked, carrying the plant. He walked through the town, down Main Street, the shopkeepers following him with their eyes down well-worn paths.
But the further he walked, the more the plant began to die. Unnaturally so. Wilting before his eyes. Leaves curling, brown and black. And by the time he reached the edge of Port Townsend, on a little side-road with no name beside a ditch, the birdmint was dead in its pot, limp and withered.
Eugene stood for a long time, holding the pot, the dead plant.
It’s over, he thought. It’s done.
He thought about his restaurant. It had been a long, long road, lately. He thought about all the layoffs, the years of languishing behind newer, fancier places. The feature in the Times that no one remembered, anymore. The positive reviews, all in the past. Watching the neighborhood—the city he loved, had once known every inch of—blossom into something he no longer recognized. All the trends that had passed him by. All the ways he had tried to rebrand, restart, but never truly letting go.
Maybe it was time to let that particular dream die, wither to the root. Maybe he could rebuild something else, somewhere else. Try again, but better. Different.
The pot felt so heavy in his hands.
The plant was dead, and yet…
The ghost of the herb’s scent was still in his nose, still holding him like perfume.
Sipping a birdmint julep on a summer’s day, he thought. A Ballard evening, just before sundown. Could there be anything better?
Maybe this time…maybe this time it could be different…somehow.
He leaned over and dumped the pot’s contents—dead plant and damp soil—into the ditch, now peppered with the carcasses of over a dozen plants just like it.
Eugene turned his face back toward the ferry, spring in his step, already cooking up the proper recipe for a birdmint julep.
He could almost taste it.
END
I had never come across your Substack but this was so good I immediately subscribed. You're a superb writer, that first line especially!! Is killer
And that is the definition of insanity. I suppose he'll keep trying till he drops dead. Some people...