Remembrance

It isn’t raining nor is there an impending thunderstorm looming. The Talisman Grove is in the midst of a dry Indian Summer with no threat of rainfalls or thunderstorms coming any time soon. Yet at night, the asphalt, concrete, brick and stone pavements alike begin oozing microscopic bubbles of moisture, seeping through its pores with almost like an oil type substance. Fog uncharacteristically gathers on empty, abandoned streets hovering close above surface level every night since summer has started in June. What’s even more peculiar, at the Williams G. Foster cemetery, as soon as the clock strikes 11 p.m., the fog slowly starts to amass, gather strength and rotate furiously upward into a funnel shooting into the sky like the beginning of a hurricane forming. At the opening of the funnel in the sky, static starts clicking and clacking eventually turning into a mini thunderstorm above with purple, midnight blue, metallic silver stripes convulsing, all tangoing into a rhythmic spasm until a thunderstorm forms and a streak of lightning cast a burst of blinding white light that lingers. In the spectrum, an indistinguishable half-human half-animal creature of some sort eventually emerges from the light. Its visage and body has reptilian-like features, with symmetric smooth dorsal scales acting as armor around the top of its head along the shoulders, and ridgelines forming fjords along the body to the toes with shades of iridescent gray and indigo blue hues. Their face is more square than other templates of human faces, and their head jets out like a cone in the back. They possess a deep set of onyx eyes and an elongated scaly nose. After the first creature emerges, the second one arrives a few minutes later with a similar appearance yet smaller in stature, and it has a number of tentacles ornating its head like hair. However, this creature bears iridescent purple hues on its body instead. Stepping out of the light and into the dark, they survey the landscape full of tombstones lined horizontally in succession a few yards in front of them, with some varying in sizes, stones, carving and decorative elements. They slowly stomp forward, carrying their hefty gigantic statures with their feet covered in circloid fish-like scales. They approach a few gravestones.

 One of the gravestones reads “Luisa Maidenberg, July 25, 1983- December 23, 2021”on the first line, and the second line reads “Our dearly beloved daughter, mother, spiritual lioness, protector of mother earth.” The next stone reads “Kai Yun, 1954-2022” on the first line and then the subsequent lines read a famous Korean poem “Become the sun./ The sun never goes away but it goes up every morning./ Become a bird and fly high. Come flying home to us.” The creatures are studying intently all the epitaphs, letters, words on the headstones, trying to make sense of what they are and what they mean. This time, they are drawn to a particular tombstone and saunter back to Luisa’s grave whose granite headstone in rainforest green color is radiating some sort of magnetic energy. Her headstone has a tree emblem cut out on the left side with branches, twigs and leaves carved out on the stone. The creature without the tendrils gently touches the edges of the trunk that’s carved on the side, running its fingers over every nook, crevice, chasm along the ridge of the trunk to the top where the branches are, bringing a familiar feeling of similar rocky materials back home. The other creature joins in. Given their sensitivity to the terrain and to the earth’s vibrations as a result of its unique plate tectonics beneath, they are able to detect a different sensation as they stand in the periphery of where Luisa’s grave lies, such as the varied elevation of the terrain, softness of the soil. The tendrils-ladened creature stomps its feet repeatedly directly in front of Luisa’s tombstone, feeling a hollow yet dense sensation reverberating back to its feet. It then stomps the patch of green again and looks intently back at the other creature; they appear to be conversing, motioning to each other in their own sign language that ends with their slender index fingers pointing down to the grave. With one fell swoop, with both of its arms stretched tenfold, the tendrils-ladened creature then plows into the soil like a drill with fervor, casting the top soil aside, clearing the pathway to the coffin. In a blink of an eye, the creature’s hands already made contact with the wooden structure. With both creatures’ arms like tentacles wrapping around the coffin, they lift it effortlessly onto the ground next to the hole they dug and plops it down so forcefully the lid pops open. There lies Luisa Maidenburg with her skeletal corpse abound with momentos surrounding her. Although she is a skeleton, she looks more alive than ever with the mementos ornating her; her skull and body are beaming with regenerative vibrations. Her mementos include yarrow leaves with daisy type flowers, a long-bearded sego lily, a previously endangered flower and a crested shield fern, also a previously endangered plant, all cast inside between four to six inches square shaped resins. There are also vast amounts of letters written by dear friends, family, colleagues, members of conservation and environmentalists organizations, and award plaques. Luisa is wearing a necklace with an oval-shaped 14 k gold locket with detailed engravings surrounding her August birth flower, which is a Gladiolus flower from the Iris family. Inside the locket, there is a photo of Luisa, her dad, Fred, and mother, Klara. Gladiolus appears befitting to Luisa, as this flower has been known to provide medicinal benefits leveraged by the British, and the emblem symbolizes strength of a character, moral integrity and faithfulness, all which Luisa embodied wholeheartedly through her unrelenting fortitude in her conservation and climate action efforts, specifically with reference to her on-the-ground actions including slowing the encroachment of trees, preventing infestation of nonnative plants, replanting and other rehabilitation efforts. Her spirit also extended to other environmental activism efforts, which overlapped with her love for the wild scrubland; she spearheaded the building of community gardens and planting trees, spearheaded campaigns and outreach to her representatives urging climate change action and policies, submitting opinion pieces to publications.

Luisa’s passion and love for nature, the wildlife, the scrubland, was ingrained in her DNA, as she grew up on around a 10-acre farm owned by her family of German descent, who employed sustainable practices in the planting, harvesting and selling of crops, specializing mainly in leafy vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce, parsley and the occasional potato for home and local market gardening purposes. She was her Dad’s baby girl – and most importantly – a reflection of her Dad’s spirit, and was often under his tutelage. At around the age of five, her older brothers Ryker and Rudy played a prank on her by placing a dying fire ant on her lap as Luisa sat on a wooden bench playing with her German style Waldorf dolls made of terry cloths and wool in their family’s small garden enclosure encircled by redwood and teak fencing, an area that acted as a genkan pathway before entering into the house. It appeared that the dying fire ant had a little more gusto left in its life, thus bit Luisa inflecting burning and itching pain to the nth degree, making her screams so high-pitched that they pierced the air. Her father who was nearby around the side of the house came running and tended to Luisa. He assessed quickly and carried her wriggling body to the edge of the field near the crops and plucked a bunch of yarrow leaves that also propagated daisy-looking flowers, an herb and a weedy species. He smashed the yarrow leaves and flowers in his hands into fine bits and rubbed them together with his fingers so it would secrete an oil-like substance to help alleviate the pain of her wound located on her lower thighs. Luisa said while crying, “Papa, it hurts…” “Luisa, baby girl,” Fred said while wiping the tears from her ruddy cheeks, “See these leaves?” He held a tiny fern from the leaf close to her face, “Mother earth is here to protect you at any time from any harm that would dare strike upon you.” He then held out a petal from one of the flowers and held it to her nose, “Smell that baby girl? Smell the fresh pine needles that can relax you and also make your senses feel alive.” He continued to rub the pieces to intensify the fragrance and held it near her nose. Luisa inhaled deeply several times, and the pain seemed to have subsided significantly, almost forgetting she was bitten in the first place. Having calmed down, she grabbed one of the feathered leaves and ran it alongside her cheek; she also grabbed one of the flowers that was still intact and held it up close to her nose while twirling the stems playfully. Her eyes widened and her nose flared as she fiddled with the yarrow pieces.

Luisa said softly while holding the pieces close to her heart, “I love the smell, papa…”

“Don’t ever forget, baby girl, on this earth, no matter how big or small the living being is, they are all significant. They all breathe into each other, forming a circle of life. They look out for us, protect us, and so, even the ant, we must treat it with respect.”

“Papa, it bit me!”

“The ant was probably dying a horrible death from the tortures of your brothers, it wanted to bite one last time to show that it has still some dignity left in its life. The ant is here on this earth to serve a purpose, well, one of them is to help aerate our soil, control pests in our crops, our yard…Let us say a proper goodbye to the little ant and bury it beneath the earth so that it can come back in another life form to help give food to our vegetables, making our plants healthy…” 

“Comes back? What do you mean, papa?” 

“Watch.” Fred had the dead ant wrapped in his handkerchief stuffed in his pocket, which he pulled out. He then showed Luisa the dead ant, letting her examine its lifeless crippled body and its separated limbs. As they both sat in silence with Luisa still being held by her dad scanning the ant’s body, something struck inside of Luisa as she looked at the ant’s lifeless, helpless mangled body whose face was twisted, contorted sideways with its antenne crooked and the other one missing, and its downturned eyes spewing this pinkish-like substance. She started to feel the deepest of uncontrollable sorrow and burst out in tears. 

“Papa!”

“I know…let’s say our goodbye. Shall we?” Luisa then rubbed some of the yarrow leaves onto the ant’s body, in an imaginary hope that any kind of pain the ant was in would be relieved, and that a cleanse was what the ant needed.

They both smiled at each other, stood up and held hands walking over to one of his cabbages out in the field. They both sat back on the terrain and buried the tiny ant along with the yarrow leaves a few inches under where baby cabbage was sprouting. 

“What do we want to say, baby girl?”

“Goodbye little ant. Even though you bit me, I hope you enjoyed the life you had till the end. I am sorry for my stupid brothers.”

“Ha, beautiful, Luisa. Mother earth will swallow this ant whole, and its spirit will go on.”

Fred and Luisa sat still on the ground staring at the graveyard on their bent knees. Then Fred laid supine on the soil looking like he was going to take a long rest. Luisa followed suit. As they both laid there staring at the particularly vibrant blue sky filled with marbled clouds, both of them were clasping a bunch of the yarrow leaves in their hands, running their fingers through every needle of the feathered leaves, through the smoothness of the flower petal, digging their legs and feet into the soil. The moistness of the soil began to seep into their clothes and render their bare skin damp, bringing a refreshing coolness to their body. With a slight breeze, a strong earthy and sweet scent pervaded the air and blessed their nostrils. Laying upon thousands and thousands of organic matter laced with bacteria, microorganisms, dead insect skin cells, they felt as though they were bound by the roots of the earth, feeling forever entangled as one, never feeling apart. Luisa had never felt more whole, alive, safe and connected.

Under Fred’s leadership, the Maidenburg Farm started out as a small-scale business eventually growing in size and production, making success with the farmers’ markets, local restaurants and food co-ops. Not long after the business took off, Luisa’s dad, Fred tragically died out of the blue from an undiagnosed heart condition at the age of 46. By stipulation of Fred’s will, their Uncle Wilhem —Fred’s older brother – was the estate’s guardianship, and he was supposed to appoint Luisa to be the head steward of the farm, however his uncle fell prey to the traditional gender roles notion and believed in the end, the next of kin, the oldest brother, Ryker, should take the reins. Ryker eventually mismanaged the business and was ill-prepared to deal with the detrimental weather conditions, ultimately bludgeoning the business into the ground by selling it to institutional investors who hired tenant farmers to work the land who employed conventional agricultural practices that degraded the land, resources and the environment for profit. Luisa so badly wanted to take ownership of the farm that she loved, but she couldn’t fight Uncle Wilhelm who was also an attorney. She tried to guide Ryker in managing the business, but he was stubborn, egoistic, and mentally and emotionally abusive. She was left to care for the crops, but even under the best care, the business was doomed to fail, and she acquiesced to selling the business, an endeavor she regretted immensely, which was why her life’s mission from then onwards was to be the conservator and protector of the great wild in the best way she knew how. 

The creatures drew their eyes to study the yarrow leaves, long-bearded sego lily and the crested shield fern all encased in resins. They felt a magnetic, beating pulse coming from the plants, especially the enchantment of the yarrow leaves. The lily and the fern were part of Luisa and her team’s successful restoration project preventing them from going extinct. The creatures do not quite understand what the plant species are – as they do not exist in their universe – however, they feel calm, and even possessed by them, as if these plants emit some kind of healing properties – aside from their bewitching appearance. Initially perplexed, they perhaps are starting to understand the purpose of preserving them in the mold, the need to keep something like these species suspended in time, as a remembrance, next to the deceased earthling. They spot Luisa’s skull in the coffin and ensure that they take it with them back home to study her purpose and role in all of this. The creatures then inspect the sego lily in its complex form teeming with life. This particular one has three showy petals that have intricate feathered edges and a light dominant pink color; near the base, there’s a thin white band outlined with burnt purple edges surrounding the tinged yellow color even closer to the base, which is filled with bearded hairs above the gland. Besotted, the tendrils-ladened creature also tucks it safely under its arms once done with examination. 

Just then, they spot a live human, similar looking to Luisa, from her photo in the locket ambling around, seemingly lugging a dark purple looking bottle and a bouquet of Regal lilies with her. The woman swigs at the bottle as she walks in a zig zags pattern. She approaches a certain gravestone and collapses down in front of it. The creatures look at each other excitedly, and then speed toward the woman. Before she knows it, they appear before her eyes. She gasps in horror at the sight of them, dropping her wine bottle to the ground along with her heart. With their long tentacle arms, the creature without tendrils picks her up and holds her in its grasp, while the tendrils-ladened creature approaches her face slowly, examining her features, touching the contours of her face, her eyes, nose, mouth, head, and feeling the fleshy substance of her skin. The creature also hurriedly grabs hold of her Regal lilies, which possess large white trumpets with a yellow hue at the throat and a light pink hue on the outside of the petals. The creature touches the petals, feeling its waxy, velvety, smooth surface. Wind is blowing the sweet fragrance of the flower under their nostrils, bathing them in elation and aliveness.

They carry the Luisa-look-alike earthling along with their collections of plant species and Luisa’s skull into a clearing, where the fog starts to gather furiously into an upward funnel, causing a streak of lightning to cast a stream of blinding white light. They slowly disappear into the light, with hopes to study and carry the enchantment of these plant species back to their native land; study the human condition; Luisa, whose soul, mind and body embodies all things wild and eternal and her mementos that carry the power of remembrance and permanence.