Fauna 05.26.2013

“Knock, knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Fauna”
“Fauna who?”
“Fauna you should ask, deer...”

She didn’t laugh because the joke was funny, she laughed because only a biologist would make such a joke. It barely even had a punchline.

They had lived in the city for over a decade, but his heart was in the forest. She never forgot that he traded redwoods for skyscrapers to be with her. Each day, he wandered the streets of Brooklyn, noticing every sprig of grass, every pigeon, all of the life that thrived against the odds. In the evening, he’d return home with dirt under his nails and caked into the lines of his palms. Not city grime, but real honest to goodness soil-- rich, dark, and earthy.

As he washed up for dinner, she watched him from behind, until her curiosity was too much to contain.

“How do you do it, Jack? How do you manage to find all that soil in the city?”

He peered into the mirror as he used a cloth to loosen the grime from the creases under his chin.

“I don’t,” he said finally, “It finds me.”