Tannery

He received a large order to carpet an entire wall: that meant working late at the light tannery, in the other room. He looked at the skyscrapers at the far end of the room where he was now, but it could be done. He had to get to the other room, where the flowers grew: once the stem was cut, the stone inside reacted chemically with the local oxygen, then melted into spots of light whose original texture was much like a tongue’s. He sighed, thinking about his life. What he really enjoyed was preparing chlorophyll manually, on the piano.

From Guest Contributor Angelo Colella

Berries

An unpleasant task of my youth was picking raspberries in our backyard. Raspberries are the least tasty of Oregon’s big three, the others being blackberries and strawberries. Raspberries are also soft, easily squashed and have unpleasant texture. At times I imagined cutting the roots as a way to avoid picking them. Blackberries and marionberries (a kind of blackberry) are pleasures that can be picked while standing up and grow wild, so one need not grow them yourself or pay for u-pick. Oregon strawberries are the best tasting strawberries, but they must be bought or paid for by back breaking u-pick.

From Guest Contributor Doug Hawley

Holes

Geoffrey spent almost every waking moment in the backyard measuring holes. He'd dig the holes first, usually with a spoon, which took a great deal of time of course. Then he measured them. He calculated their volume, after taking down their circumference and depth. He analyzed each one carefully for soil erosion and texture. He compared one hole to the next, intent on finding even the most minute differences.

This behavior of Geoffrey's worried his parents. Maybe the boy was autistic. Maybe he was preparing for an alien invasion. Whatever it was, this wasn't the behavior of a normal 2-year-old.