An excerpt from the novella “The Marine Biologist” from Errand Weather
They’re talking about new habits, newly noticed. He and Swimmer.
Like accidentally buying half-and-half but making it stick. Swimmer said he should just try.
Lo and behold, six or seven months now, it’s much better on his stomach than drinking black.
Stuck in a new way, MB thinks.
He’d hoped that preemptively telling Swimmer he’d do something or get something done would help him get the thing done because he’d feel a sense of obligation to fulfill.
When this happens, every time, they each think to their separate selves, We’ll see.
A step in the right direction if he tells her he’ll do something and he does it or at least starts it.
MB tells Swimmer about his tendency to mimic the voice of whomever he is talking to and that he doesn’t do it on purpose. He asks if she thinks that whoever he’s talking to when this happens can tell.
It’s fine, she says, then says something about one of the two egg souffles she made.
Standing in a room that’s darker than what's left of the light outside.
Swimmer says not to worry, she doubts anyone noticed.
MB needs something to be different today. As in, it would be healthy to find something new to do, it could be fruitful to try something new. See if talking to the Clover Kid leads him someplace, he thinks. Or maybe it’ll help if MB just tells the Clover Kid what his plans are. So that way, the next time MB sees the Clover Kid, the Clover Kid might ask MB how it went—another person to make him feel obliged.
The Clover Kid tells MB about something he’s calling his Secret Document. And MB’s distracted by the idea of his own big project and feels a little dart of jealousy, tells the Clover Kid, See ya.
Buying time.
Being outside. Heading in.
Killing a couple hours.
Time he could’ve spent getting to getting a little bit done a little bit sooner.
Time he could end up spending, when he’s home, in the kitchen watering plants and filling Jacques’s bowls.
Then after, he’s all set up. It would be the perfect time for a quiet snack.
Whenever MB walks to the Chinese food restaurant MB passes the Hard-bellied Legend who always sat in his own chair next to the statue of a TV character from some show that shot one episode here. This guy, famous in the neighborhood, the Legend next to the statue, always won on scratch-off tickets. Set his chair next to the statue and held little bundles of scratch tickets.
A dime or a quarter he once told MB, because the ridged edges scratch easier. And MB watched the dime pinched in the Legend’s big fingers, cutting flecks of silver the same pewter color as the statue.
MB is walking, sees and waves to the Legend. MB sees his own shadow change shape liquidly as he waves, drops his arm back down by his side, and turns ahead to keep walking.
MB imagines a few seagulls down in the fountain just past the statue eating pennies and then he looks up at some small birds along the telephone lines. Yesterday on the news he heard that some lady driven by a conspiracy theory shot at two utility company workers repairing the line.
But now, suddenly telephone pole seems like a strange word. Such as nomenclature and sand dollars.
Maybe it’s only a problem of calibration.
Learning that some things feel like nothing else. And other things almost line up but not quite.
He could pick up gardening as something new.
Start small with one or two potted plants. Keep them on the front porch, where it could feel more like gardening.
He never asked the Clover Kid what his Secret Document consisted of—and if it's still a secret now that MB knows of it.
Swimmer’s flicking through some TV.
Light from it blinks blue and orange across her face.
Swimmer and MB are sitting on the green couch comparing cult documentaries and sport highlights. MB and Swimmer shooting the breeze. They can hear Jacques on the kitchen tile chewing an antler; it sounds like the rocks at their favorite beach knocking in the water and it all feels like it’s finally catching up, MB thinks, recalibrating after a little bit of a lag time when things aren’t quite lined up.
The romanticism of six-packs—any six-pack: seltzers, lights, juice boxes, and root beers.
A half dozen farm-fresh eggs.
Memories of crowds when he yells, Come here, to Jacques in the other room.
It was a thing for a while, he was obsessed with anything made in ’95. His favorite cereal, Frosted Cheerios for instance, like little life preservers floating in a bowl of milk.
Now, MB has an orange for a snack, sliced, and a sleeve of saltines—which puts him in a good mood. Different subsets of habits taking precedence at different times. For example, one subset will take precedence suddenly, seeming more important than the others, as in a go-to manner of eating oranges.
Whoops, on the way to the trash can, he trips over the broom, catches himself in a moment of having already fallen over the broom while still trying to avoid the shaft. He somehow manages not to drop any orange peel that he’d have to pick up.
Shit, he says to himself, phewph.
Sitcom reruns are always on his mind. He thinks of how this could relate to that show, that one episode. He thinks they keep making new shows, but the old ones never go away. He can picture the sets and he can hear in his head some of his favorite lines but he can’t map anyone’s face easily when he closes his eyes, they all overlap.
Two dreams that recur seasonally.
One: opening a wood plank gate onto an ocotillo fence on fire.
Two: scooping a June bug out of a cup of water with a spoon.
Compared with a pair of things in a perennially recurring dream: his jaw clenched so tight all his teeth break. And: falling from a cliff or from an intrabuilding walkway, seeing orange opaquely the whole way down from an August-like sunset blazing in the background.
MB is carefully alternating sizable handfuls of raspberries or blackberries or blueberries on the sofa, Jacques curled at his side, warming him.
MB likes berries one at a time. He can’t easily consume a handful of them all at once. It grosses him out, he thinks it’s a texture thing.
Methodical fruit, like eating the orange earlier was: that he first sucked out the juice and then spit out any excess pulp and seeds, one by one.
Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries.
He thinks about how beautiful goldenberries are when it’s fall.
She made him peaches and cream once. Like an idiot, he said he liked nectarines better. He didn’t say it to insult her thoughtfulness, but just to say something, against the silence after she set down his bowl.
He’s not good at navigating directionally and situationally at the same time.
When there’s a long line at the grocery store, or in an aisle at the grocery store.
He tries to be efficient while still allowing for ample space away from other shoppers. Duration and timing are always decisive for him, he can only do this one way, and he will save getting a couple things from his list for the next time if he needs to.
Swimmer knows this.
She makes it clear she’d rather go to the store without him, seeing that he isn’t getting them through the store quickly like he promised originally.
Being wrong about the calendar day when he’s getting ready in the morning. It impacts things he thought he had a handle on?
He hooked a rewards card onto Swimmer’s keychain as a surprise. He wants to go tell her and does. He says, Surprise!
She explains an article she just read the other day about semantic versus short-term memory, facts acquired throughout life, names of colors.
MB says, Oh I don’t know, because he doesn’t know what she means.
Walking. He yawns, his ears pop.
A feeling of relief in realizing he has no reason to go to the airport any time soon. He’s got no big plans. He smiles at Jacques smelling the air as they walk, heading home.
Dusting off every single day already.
Nathan Dragon is the author of THE CHAMP IS HERE and ERRAND WEATHER. Some of his work can be read in NOON Annual, The Paris Review, New York Tyrant, Soft Union, Cluny, and The Baffler.