by Judith Luongo
I, Fungi
Of Saccharomyces.
Of Claviceps purpurea.
Of White Nose Syndrome killing 5 million bats.
Of Decomposers, mutualists, predators & parasites.
Most fungi spend the majority of their time decomposing all kinds of organic matter. I want to talk to you about the decomposition of love, love in all its mutualism, love as predator, love as parasite, love as paradise, love as landscape. It becomes part of the landscape, part of the sea, part of the sky, part of the rocks that lead into pebbles that lead into the playground and surround the swings and the slide and the roundabout. Love becomes me, I, fungi, am love, I am loved, I am beloved, all that I do, I do with love, I want to be loved, please love me.
Let me tell you about love in all its mutualism,
or as they put it:
Of Saccharomyces.
Sugar fungus, that’s what it means, that’s what I gave them, it’s what I give you, you’ve had some today I’m almost sure of it. Sugar is sweet, therefore I am sweet, I was sweet to you, to them, and they abused I, fungi, they took my love and devolved it into gluttony, evolved it into disease. Now they need me, they are dependent on me, but not too much of me, just enough of me, and I dependent on them, we’ve become friends, love in all its mutualism, all organisms require sugars, I am required, I am essential, yet I, fungi, master blaster, I am given all the blame.
Let me tell you about love as parasite,
or as they put it:
Of White Nose Syndrome killing 5 million bats.
I hugged the bat, my skin to its skin, I showed the bat love the only way I knew how, and when I gave myself wholly to the bat, they said that I colonized the bat, they said I took over the bat’s body, the bat’s land, the bat’s soul, until the bat was gone, so overwhelmed by my grand gesture that the bat decided to die. I master of destructans, I parasite of love, what have I done to endure such sabotage?
Let me tell you about love as landscape,
or as they put it:
Of Claviceps purpurea.
The rye belt, just being itself, brown and breezy, standing tall where the climate and soil is favourable, from afar it looks like a thousand hands waving goodbye, or hello, depending on your mood. Here I come, dark chocolate coloured fungi growing sparingly through the rye belt, a drop of spice in the rye bucket. My only debt is to the land, I did not crawl into the homes of farmers or the hungry, they sought me out, and now to avoid another Saint Anthony’s fire, my gift to the landscape is murdered with brine solution, for I am mere fungi, gift and curse. Now who will do the dirty work when I’m gone?
Akhim Alexis is a writer born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. He is currently pursuing an MA in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The McNeese Review, Juked, Finished Creatures, Moth Magazine, Pine Hills Review, trampset lit journal, Lucky Jefferson, Capsule Stories, The Caribbean Writer, and others. He can be found on Twitter at @akhimalexis1.
Judith Luongo has spent many years searching for clues about how we manage to keep evolving and surviving as imperfect, conflict ridden beings. Her art is informed by her practice as a Creative Arts Therapist and Psychoanalyst as well as by her many years of teaching Creative Arts Therapists. Judith’s work has moved through a period devoted to dreamy landscapes to character studies through portraiture and the figure. For the past five years she has been passionate about an abstract expressionist approach as she seeks to deepen her inquiry into the palpable presence of that which is unspoken and unspeakable. Her work has been shown at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition; Pratt Institute; and Michael David & Co.