Phenology - A Love Story

by Colleen Sutherland

     When do we know we are in love? For some it is a smack in the center of their being, as instant and painful as a Neanderthal clubbing his true love and dragging her off to a cave. For some it is a growing thing, like the gradual greening of the earth. But for me, it was falling, falling, falling.....

     We met in a used bookstore on a half price day. He was roaming through non-fiction, I was in the romance aisle. The two intersected when we rounded the corners of our stacks heading for the check out with our piles of books. Our books crashed to the floor, meshing into a jumbled heap. We sat down on a nearby soft couch while we sorted through the mess. It was embarrassing how easy it was.

     His were scientific tomes about global warming. Mine were trashy novels. The covers with their half naked, long maned men and bosomy women gave them away.

     I babbled, “Research. I'm doing research for a book I'm writing.”

     “Same here,” he said.

     “Different topic.”

     “Not so different,” he said. I figured he was being polite.

     “No, really,” he said. “I'm a phenologist.”

     “Bumps on the head?”

     “No, that's phrenology. My specialty is phenology.”

     “What's the difference?”

     “I observe the changes in nature and journal them. That's science, not mumbo jumbo. Come out back and I'll show you.”

Cigarette Man Saves the Day

I often wonder how Superman would have made his way in the world if he wasn't bulletproof. What if he didn't have super strength, x-ray vision, or couldn't fly? What if all he could do is turn socks purple? Would he still fight Lex Luthor's world domination schemes, or would he seek out a smaller cause?

“Hey Vic, can I bum a cigarette?” Larry asks.

“It's my last one,” I say. “Besides, aren't you trying to quit?”

“Aw, come on man. This damn patch just ain't cutting it.”

I shrug and open my empty cigarette case, hammered bronze and worn shiny at the edges, like Humphrey Bogart's dad would carry. With a split-second's concentration, I make a cigarette appear in the case, just under the retaining clip. I could have just as easily made the cigarette appear in my hand, between my fingers, or if I were closer, Larry's shirt pocket. I sometimes pass off my pathetic super power as slight-of-hand, but there are fewer questions when I use the case.

Island Fever - Part Three

          Two days passed. Craig carried the pellet gun with him whenever he went out, looking for more gulls, he said. They seldom spoke but when they did, they sniped at each other in the bleak grayness of the day. Sometimes, she could see him staring at her. Once Craig said, “Wish Kris were here.” Well, she wasn’t, Adrienne thought, and how long before Craig started making passes at her? She read the journals long into the night, looking for clues.

          Another writer named Pat wrote about a big fight between Kris and Craig. Kris regrets ever coming to this island, Pat wrote. Craig insists they are going to get married but Kris is having doubts. Craig thinks it's all island fever. Those two were meant for each other.

          The “accident” was mentioned briefly. Kris fell on the rocks. Taken away by the Coast Guard helicopter. Someone had written that Kris was in a coma on the mainland, but that was the last mention she found. Had Kris recovered or was she buried somewhere in a Maine cemetery? Adrienne was afraid to ask. Anything could set Craig off.

          The wine bottles were emptied on the seventh day. Perhaps she had had too much to drink, but she slipped on a fog-silvered rock coming back from taking the murre decoys back to the boat house. Her hands were covered with blood from a gash in her hand. Craig was up on the lighthouse trying to count terns. She would handle this herself, she thought.

          The first aid kit was in disarray. Things were unmarked. Looking for disinfectant, she opened a bottle and sniffed. It was smelling salts. Bleeding and sneezing, she dropped the kit and everything went rolling. She began to cry.

          Craig came in, took one look, swabbed her head with a pad and placed a band-aid on her cut. “Wash up,” he said. “That'll do. And quit crying. Head wounds bleed a lot, but it looks worse than it is.”

          He gave her no sympathy. Adrienne sniffled around the cottage. She couldn't seem to help weeping any more. Her eyes were red, raw from the salt water and her emotions.

Island Fever – Part Two

          There was no need for the little alarm clock Adrienne had brought. There were no curtains on the windows and as the summer solstice approached, the light shone in as the birds shrieked their joy at the day’s beginning. She had slept snug in her heavy duty sleeping bag, and felt the same joy. The ear plugs had worked.

          Craig fairly flew out the door to chase up the steps to the lighthouse while Adrienne brewed their coffee and got the first reading from the weather radio. The automated male voice told her that though the sun was shining, the day would get progressively darker. Small craft were warned about setting out. She took down the temperature readings the voice reported, taken from various buoys in the area.

          She threw on her heavy jacket and went out to take visual readings. She stopped to use the outhouse. Through the open side she watched a row of puffins watching her. Her bodily functions were a peep show for birds.

She could barely see the nearest island, some twenty miles away. A fine mist seemed to be covering it. She shivered and went on to the boat house. A herring gull who had taken refuge there scuttled out of her way dragging a wing. She unhooked the bucket with the rope attached and picked up the long thermometer. She carried them down the boat ramp. The waves were higher today and splashed against her rubber boots as she leaned over to drop a bucket off the side for some ocean water. She stuck a thermometer in it. As she waited to do her reading, she used her binoculars to sweep the surface of the island. The birds seemed to be hunkering down, not as active as the day before.

          They decided to explore the island before the storm hit. They clambered over the rocks. There were no paths. Craig was a mountain goat, jumping easily from rock to rock, as Adrienne struggled on behind, trying to keep up. They climbed higher and higher from boulder to boulder as the wind howled around them, shouting to be heard. They visited nesting sites. Craig flattened himself on a rock and reached his hand into a burrow, but no puffins were using it yet. Later on, the researchers would go out daily and sit in blinds keeping track of the little guys, but the puffins were just arriving.

          He stopped for a moment and pointed out a piece of marble engraved with an angel.

          “Tombstone,” he said. “Keeper’s daughter.” She had died a century before. Adrienne thought they should put flowers on the grave, but there were none on the Rock. Neither were there bushes and trees, just endless boulders. Ocean storms scoured the rock of anything green except for the moss that clung to the stones.

          They climbed higher. Here the terns would nest, there the guillemots. Each were marked. They reached the farthest point. Far below the waves pounded on the shore, splashing over the rocks. Craig pointed down and shouted, “That’s where Kris fell.” His face contorted. He turned away and began loping across the rocks before Adrienne could ask how it happened.