Committed

COMMITTED by A.R. Kirby Episode 29 Yardwork is afoot! Liv was finding it incredibly difficult to think as she stared out the window at the northeastern suburbs of Birmingham whizzing past. But it wasn’t Tal’s hyperactive jabbering (he had been chattering on and on excitedly -- and exclaiming repeatedly how freakin’ cool and oh my god! and did you see but rarely completing an entire sentence -- for a good twenty minutes or so, every since he cranked the Volvo at the switch yard) that kept Liv from putting her finger on what was bothering her. No, Tal she could tune out, with little problem. Her husband often got excited when he talked, and over the years Liv had learned to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Her ability to hear something important when he said it was uncanny. After the first three minutes, Liv was able to put Tal in the background with no worry that she would miss anything he said of any import.. What she couldn’t tune out was Toby. Specifically, the sound of Toby’s grooming. Committed by A.R. Kirby Schlup, schlup, schlup came nonstop from the back seat where Toby (like Tal) had been engrossed ever since they drove away from L&N yard where they had practiced using their powers. Occasionally, the slurping sounds would be replaced by a staccato tich-tich-tich as Toby bit at a piece of skin, and then the schlupping resumed unabated. To Liv, the sound was like Chinese water torture, and it would not stop. The alien/cat had been driving Liv crazy with his cleaning -- and it was keeping her from figuring out exactly what it was that was bothering her. By the time they were passing the exit to Interstate 459 and the southern bypass around Birmingham, Liv could take no more. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT!?” she cried, sitting up suddenly in her seat. For once, there was silence in the car. Both Tal and Toby stared at her, bewildered looks on their faces. After a moment, Tal spoke. “Sorry,” he said, returning his attention to the highway. “I didn’t realize how I was going on. I guess I’m just excited.” “Eh, it’s not really you, love,” she said, her voice softening. She glanced over the back of the seat at Toby. “It’s mainly you, what with all the smacking and cleaning,” she said to the cat. “I can’t think with all that going on.” “Perhaps you should not have decided to use your powers as a way to soak me,” Toby replied offhandedly. Liv did 2 Episode 28 realize that Toby’s grooming was at least partially her own fault (she couldn’t resist dousing him a bit when they were at the edge of the quarry lake), and a small part of her thought this apparently unending annoyance was a bit of instant karma. Toby began to resume his toilet when he saw the look on Liv’s face and thought better of it. “But I’m pretty much done here, anyway.” Satisfied with Toby’s answer, Liv returned to her position looking out the passenger window, this time with her hand propped on her fist. “So what’s going on, hon?” Tal asked, perplexed. “I thought you would be as excited about all this as I am, maybe even more so.” “Well, sure, I guess so,” she said, her voice quiet. “But something is ... well, something is different, and I can’t quite nail it down. I’ve been watching the city go by, and it’s a city I recognize. I’ve been on this stretch of road dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. I almost feel like I could drive from here to the house blindfolded. I know this place. It’s not just the airport, the civic center, Malfunction Junction and over the mountain to home anymore. It all looks different to me, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why.” Tal searched his brain frantically, trying to come up with an answer for his wife. After a few moments, he found out he didn’t need one. Toby provided it. “It looks different because you’re looking at it from a 3 Committed by A.R. Kirby different perspective now,” the furry alien said in a voice that was almost somehow soothing to Liv’s ears. “You’re not looking at the city as a person who just lives and works here. You’re looking at it -- and the people -- as a protector.” Liv continued staring out the window. Maybe it was her maternal instincts kicking in. She had always been protective of her family; could she feel that way about a city, a state, a country? Even the entire world? Yes. That was the difference. “Toby, that might just be the most helpful thing you’ve said since you started talking to us,” she said as she watched a Southwest Airlines jet float low over the interstate toward the airport. “I am seeing this as a place for us to protect. For whatever reason, the power has been given to us, and it is what we have to do. I just hope we’re up to it.” “Bring it on,” Tal said, grinning from ear to ear. “Just freakin’ bring it. There’s nothing we can’t do. Isn’t that right, babe?” Tal stuck out his palm toward his wife, anticipating a congratulatory handslap. After about five seconds, he started to wonder why his wife would leave him hanging. “Babe? Right? Nothing we can’t do?” “Sure, sure. Nothing we can’t do.” Liv turned her head toward her husband and gave him a small smile. 4 Episode 28 “Oh, come on,” Tal said. “This is the coolest! You can make tornadoes appear out of thin air and turn a pond into a tsunami. I can make rocks dance, I’m as strong as a bull, I can even fly...” “Sort of fly,” Toby interrupted. “That needs lots of practice.” Tal went on, not bothering to acknowledge the dig. “Don’t you see? We can do anything we want!” “Sure we can,” Liv replied, sitting up and facing her husband in the seat. “We can do amazing things. But being able to do all these things, and actually doing them when it counts, well... that’s two different things, isn’t it? Tal’s face, ebullient and over-excited a few minutes before, turned gray and stern, with eyes focused firmly on the road. Liv felt some disappointment about bringing her husband back to the reality of the situation. “Look,” she said, placing a hand on her husband’s arm, “I didn’t mean to harsh your buzz. I just want us to do the right things. It’s a lot of pressure.” “But it’s cool, right?” he asked quietly. “Yeah, it’s cool,” said replied. “Cool enough that we might just pull this off.” --------5 Committed by A.R. Kirby At Liv’s urging, Toby reluctantly got back into the car carrier as they neared Mountain Woods and home. “Have to keep up appearances, you know,” Liv told him as she shut the door with Toby scowling at her from inside. “Whatever,” Toby said. “I hate this thing. I can’t wait until I can go back to being an Empyrean again.” “When will that be?” Tal asked as they pulled into the driveway in front of the house. “Not really sure about that,” Toby answered quietly as the car came to a stop. “But it can’t be too soon, that’s for certain.” “Okay, you two,” Liv said as she reached into the back seat for the carrier. “That’s enough. Toby, no more talking. We can’t have the girls hearing you.” Toby shot her another irritated glance as she picked up the carrier, but kept his mouth shut. “So what now?” Tal asked as they got to the front door. “For now, we go back to being normal,” Liv said as Tal opened the door and they entered. “We may have a world to save, but we’ve also got groceries to buy and a house to take care of. Why don’t I get the girls to go with me to Whole Foods while you mow the lawn?” Tal let out a low groan. He dreaded yard work, and had ever since his parents gave him the chore of mowing the lawn at age ten. It was a chore to him, to be certain. 6 Episode 28 And there was a philosophical aspect to his dread, as well. To Tal, cutting the grass was an exercise in futility; no matter how much he mowed, the grass kept growing back. He’d much rather be inside, in the cool of the air conditioning, reading a book. He generally subscribed to the Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten theory of lawn maintenance; in short, nature takes care of itself. Tal did just enough to keep the yard’s appearance on the good side of decent, but the beautification society would not be putting a plaque in front of the Hooper home anytime soon. He took a look out the front window and had to admit, however, that the lawn did look fairly bedraggled. If he didn’t do something about it soon, the neighbors might begin talking, and there was a remote possibility that the family might receive another “friendly reminder” from the neighborhood association that city ordinance prescribed a maximum height of no more than six inches for front lawns in Mountain Woods. Liv almost stroked out when the letter came two summers ago. “Okay, I’ll get it knocked out,” he said. “Good,” Liv said, and kissed her husband on the nose. She stopped abruptly when she heard the unmistakable sound of Toby clearing his throat. “Mind letting me out of here?” he whispered from inside the carrier Liv still held in her hand. “Oh, crap. Sorry,” she said, and set the carrier on the floor 7 Committed by A.R. Kirby to let Toby out of his temporary prison. He popped out as soon as the door was open and ambled purposefully towards the kitchen without a word, tail held high. “Some cat, huh?” Tal asked as he watched Toby move away. “I think we may have to stick with dogs after this is all over,” Liv replied, and turned away from her husband to get Alice and Monica with the intent of cajoling the two young women into going grocery shopping with her. Tal looked over the front lawn again and let out a low sigh. His grandfather’s voice popped into his head: Ain’t nuthin’ fer it but ter do it, Poppy Hooper exclaimed silently (it had been one of his favorite sayings when there was an unpleasant task to be faced), and Tal unwillingly agreed. He made his way through the house and onto the back deck, pausing momentarily to look at the door/table that began the craziness -- could it really have been only the day before yesterday when all this started? It seemed to Tal like months had passed since he and Liv were pulled through the mail slot and into the world between the cracks. He gave the door a wide berth (No need in going through all that again, he thought) as he walked toward the wooden stairs leading from the deck into the back yard. He stopped on the top step, took a long look at the back yard, and sighed. The Hooper’s back yard, by any measure, was the least 8 Episode 28 attractive back yard in the whole of Mountain Woods, and was the main reason Liv and Tal no longer held deck parties, despite their fabulous deck. Fabulous decks cannot be truly fabulous without having something equally fabulous to overlook. The yard was in bad shape even by Tal’s low standards, and despite good-faith efforts from Liv in the realm of ornamental gardening, even at their most optimistic, both Tal and his wife were forced to concede that the back yard was a complete disaster. The beds Liv attempted to cultivate inside the periphery of the privacy fence featured some half-hearted begonias; a wilting, faded trio of azalea bushes; a herb patch which seasoned many a meal for various and sundry birds, squirrels, chipmunks and other assorted critters who frequented the yard; and a collection of exotic weeds which defiantly resisted any and all efforts of control. The “lawn” was no better. A thin film of dry, rocky topsoil covered a a series of irregular hillocks and valleys formed from clay and sandstone. The combination made effective irrigation impossible and grass growth a laughing matter. But here and there, small patches of grass -- no more than two or three blades, really -struggled mightily to survive amidst a tangle of clover, crabgrass, and small anthills. Shaking his head, Tal crossed the lawn to the small shed where he kept the lawn mower and most of his tools. He was slightly surprised at the ease with which he 9 Committed by A.R. Kirby pulled the mower from its hiding place in the shed, and much more so when he was able to get the old Briggs & Stratton to crank with a single pull on the handle. The engine roared to life and quickly settled into a comfortable, reverberating purr that joined the chorus of half a dozen other mowers in the neighborhood. Tal stepped behind the mower, and as he grabbed the handle, he felt the mower vibrating him through his hands to the soles of his feet. He broke into a giant grin. At that moment, Tal Hooper made a discovery. Ten minutes later, Liv had changed and was in the kitchen putting her cell phone into her purse and getting ready to leave with Alice and Monica when she heard the mower sputter to a stop. “Oh, he’s not taking a break already, is he?” she said under her breath as she stepped out onto the deck and to tell Tal goodbye. As soon as she reached the top stair, her jaw dropped. Of all the unbelievable things she had seen in her life (the vast, vast majority of which had occurred only in the previous 48 hours) this was, perhaps, the most unbelievable. What struck Liv so was this: the sight of Tal standing calmly next to the mower with the yard trimmed perfectly. But had Tal not been such a slouch at keeping up the yard, what Lil would have found even more unbelievable was that the yard, did, in fact, look fabulous, far beyond what 10 Episode 28 could be accomplished by the manicuring performed by her husband. At least half of it did. Where once there was a dry, lumpy mess of a yard, half of it (from a line running approximately through the center of the lawn to the fence on the left) was now nicely even, with a slight crown toward the center that sloped almost imperceptibly downward toward the edges of the yard. The formerly arid, bare patches now showed rich, dark earth with signs of new growth seeming to appear before Liv’s wondering eyes, and it looked as if the beds around the fence had been fertilized and tilled. “So whaddya think?” Tal asked, beaming. “What on earth did you do?” Liv asked as she stepped down onto the yard, the scent of cut grass filling her nostrils. “And are you going to finish it?” “Thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Just watch this.” Tal stood on the lawn and closed his eyes, moving his hands in small, rhythmic gestures. Liv thought he looked almost like a conductor in front of a symphony when she felt a small trembling beneath her feet. Looking at the ground, she gasped when she saw it start to undulate. A wave of earth, about two feet wide and running the length of the yard from back to front, started to roll slowly across the yard. As it passed across the lawn, the wave left in its wake rich, fertile earth that was even and level. As it neared 11 Committed by A.R. Kirby the flower beds at the right edge of the yard, this earthen wave started to break, and Liv could not help but smile as she saw the dirt in the beds break up and churn, turning into a gardening soil that was rich and healthy. Even the azaleas perked up. “Wow” was all Liv could come up with as she gazed at the gorgeous lawn stretched out before her. Then, after getting her wits about her, she looked at her husband. “How did you do it?” she asked. Tal put his arm around his wife. She noticed that he hadn’t even broken a sweat. “As I started to mow, I got to wondering just how much control over the earth I had, so I started feeling around a little bit here and there, seeing if I could do something with all the bare spots,” he said. “Turns out I’ve got more control than I thought. Not only could I make the earth move, I was able to recondition it, too, by moving more nutrient-rich dirt to where it was needed most. It was like fertilizing the ground from underneath. Look, you can even see where some new grass is starting to sprout,” he said, pointing to one particularly promising patch. “With a little water, this might even make Southern Living.” “Oh yeah,” Tal said proudly. “I may not mind yard work any more if it’s going to be this easy.” “Yeah, honey, it looks great,” Liv said. “But I’m not quite 12 Episode 28 so sure that lawn maintenance is the reason we have these powers.” “Well, we have them, might as well use them, right?” Tal replied. Liv glanced at the privacy fence that surrounded the yard, and realized just how glad she was that she and Tal were out of sight from the rest of the neighborhood. Anyone seeing such a sudden change would certainly have questions, and the yard would be difficult enough to explain as it was. She looked up at her husband lovingly, but with seriousness in her eyes. “Look, I know I’m being Little Mrs. No Fun today, but I just think you need to be careful,” she said. “For one thing, we need to keep this secret. And for another, we don’t know what much at all about these powers. We don’t know what kinds of effects they have other than the ones we can see.” Liv was right, and Tal knew it. He kissed his wife softly on the head. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “But it’s so easy. Being super fast and super strong makes chores a breeze, and we’ll be able to put in whatever kind of garden back here that you want. Now, I’m going to do the front. Don’t worry. I’ll act like I’m hating it the whole time. And I won’t even level it out too much.” He walked back to the mower and started to push it out 13 Committed by A.R. Kirby the gate. Tal wouldn’t learn until Sunday night about the series of small sinkholes that appeared across the neighborhood as a result of his hyper-natural gardening, but by then a few holes in the neighborhood would be the least of his worries. To be continued 14