Ginger Brooding

two men spend their leisure time in an isolated off shore house

There aren’t many reasons for a potato to be in a pool of ocean water covered in sand, but lo and behold here lies a potato. Resting on some dug up by nature knows what plot of sand. Skin sort of intact from some mysterious life that could’ve spelled any kind of struggle. Maybe fallen from a height, or drowned and pushed back by the sea. How do you describe finding such a potato and actually thinking, what’s worth the risk to even be in such a vast explicit world of salt and brine while you’re just a land tuber?

Actually, the answers none. Thought the person who found it amidst a cloudy November afternoon.

Swaying the almost bean shaped thing around the water, the ginger hands picked it up and the potato soon found itself plotted on a small land. Donning nice and smelly fertilizer like soil around its dry self. By the by you don’t really force a plant to grow after exposing itself into some natures unusual habitats, at least for the tubers eyes. Still to the person who had placed it in between that warm plot, he’d half way hoped it would grow. As deep set in his mind wondering loudly, would the plant grow despite.

“That’s a new obsession!” Said another mans voice, of course not the man with a potato’s own. “I thought you gave up on trying to plant things in this weird shore house. Guess what can’t be filled needs to be sought for, eh?”

The man had a normal set of brown eyes on his rather dark brooding lookers, they weren’t things he admired in himself but he always thought that brought the ladies in his arms either way since it felt like the massive stereotype known as a trait of the mysterious man. Which he wasn’t, as would he long time friend know of him, who reflect on his brown brooding eyes a fair ginger the age you couldn’t honestly say is about a teen but is in fact older than 32.

Confusing you more is their prim suits that spoke “yes” they came from a well to do city life and somehow this rickety beach near the ocean breezy shore felt like an out of place third party woman of affection, with a dusty interior and a pot of a potato from an ocean sand puddle. Snuggly watching the both of them with it’s several eyes.

“You think it’d grow?” said Ginger, as we shall soon coyly call him. “Not that I want to.”

“Dude, stop being fickle. Get yourself someone to teach you how to take care of a garden. Then teach yourself new ways to tend to your wounds.” Said Brooding. “Not that it would really fill the gap spilling down your guts, that is.”

Ginger looked at him venomously before wincing. Held under his own breath was his tolerance to a gnash of bruise on his torso he had gotten prior to their arrival in the house. Things happen and memories blur them, and memories did so completely wipes itself clean, especially if you don’t intend to let any piece of that life script stay in your head.

Like a film reel, filled with stand still collages of people who you barely can decipher like a coded binary shaped into ball jointed movements. Fragmented explosions and loud slurs no word could ever decipher as a gibberish. That sets no valid mood but the decision to forget, but forget what you already have forgotten the moment it happened.

On cold days the two men would snuggle under their bear blanket, authentic and hunted on unfair grounds during the summer. There was a ceiling with a nice incandescent and a lamp, coupled with a generator for the heater, yet there seems to be less reasons for their skin to feel less of freezing.

Brooding rose from his side and looked around the soon becoming homely beach house, despite being near a beach is becoming deadly for the temperature of his blood.

Rubbing his hands, he hopped out of the bed and went to the stove five walks away. Deciding to wake and eat his days fill, he set up the kettle and pulled a cup of instant yakisoba that they had bought a few months back in the start of their stay. Stirring the seasoning like a tiny pot of black gold he glanced over the pot of soil and what looked like the head of the tuber, who used to peek in full but now dug it’s way down snugger. As if it felt their plight in the freezing.

“You’re lucky aren’t you. Just staying down inside that…ow” he pulled back, he was about to reach for the pot of potato when the kettle had whistled and spouted a spit of water on to his nearby innocent hand.

Preparing his meal, he eagerly ate, neither blowing the noodles into perfect luke warm and just gagged in the pain of his numb tongue beside the hotness. Taste couldn’t have bothered his very emotion, which was neither one nor just a thought.

As the noodles begun to feel friendlier by the tongues temperature gauge he watched the tuber again, blinking to wet his eyes. “Do potato’s even grow after getting soiled by ocean water? And sand?” he pondered.

Like a normal human, who is running away from the world, he had absolutely no idea where to get his answers from and patience often felt like neither a strong suite for anyone in this world. But alas he stood from his seat, left the dishes unattended in the sink and laid back on his side of the bed. Pulling the bear skin blanket from his comrade, he laid wide awake thinking to himself until like a child he fell asleep while Ginger woke himself from the warm bear skin and opted to cool his sweat.

Days don’t go by interestingly when the only work you do is stay in a constantly windy beach, cleaning what needs to be cleaned and the rest left alone to nature like wild life conservationist would do whilst keeping their face of keeping it “naturally real”. Nobody bothers them nor do they have the intense pressure of wanting to bother others, curiosity only came like a single thread of thought in ones mind. Melancholy suddenly swiping in and like an embarrassed eel, would feel electrified due to the nature of how corny they looked like that they’re compelled to go back doing whatever they should be doing.

Plastic bottles and wet tree barks settled in one corner of the beach they intended as a momentary dump, with a large barrel as a place for all the man made junk to hold. Mankind even to they’re generation still scattered their evolution by trashing the world in their pursuit for better living. Due to this the constant barrage of unknown garbage kept on landing their foreign feet on ocean soaked soil. The winds even felt like a bully for not keeping them at bay.

Ginger felt his hands numb even though he wore gloves to avoid further bruising his now callous and flaky skinned hands, not that him having the physique of a kid helped in his matter. There will be a lack of burly help due to both Brooding and him felt like wuss lean boys in jury duty.

Or, at least Ginger was. He had been very thankful of his comrade, even if he didn’t need to come along to such a place and live with him. Isolation was not what Ginger chose for himself but he was pushed to do it’s bidding by a force greater than the then large bruise on his torso, that had already healed a few weeks back.

Kicking the large bark they rolled from a part of the beach, Brooding stomped on the sand to let his feet feel a bit better from the strained muscles pain. “Stretching didn’t even work to make me feel better after days of just doing this. What kind of shore is this to have loads of things land on it almost everyday??” he said, sounding tired and husky.

“The weathers always beaten the hell out of this place, if I remember, back then this spot used to have a high cliff enough cliff with grass and good soil. Now it’s low and sandy close to water. Guess years of being treaded and trodden by a force stronger than you takes a worse toll every time.” Contemplated Ginger.

“By the way…how’s your potato doing?” asked Brooding as they both walked back to the house.

Ginger brightened a little, “I guess I’m growing a green thumb, he’s doing fine! It started growing a sprout a few days back. Or was it a some kind of green thing. Do potato’s grow something green on top of them?” His voice raising a little. “I tried buying a new fertilizer and some other potato’s to grow with him but…the people at the grocery thought best to avoid me like the plague.”

Brood looked at his almost weirdly young looking senior and sighed to himself. Running away, from something someone didn’t know he did, what did he do as he might often remind himself to ask. The thoughts of the broken looking man struggling to run away from a clump of clambering coal about to burst. Clogging with soot and soon won’t even see a thing, and wheezing to coughing to prying dead into a side of the street. The gnarly bruise Ginger received then was a result of this coal like clamber.

Not only would there be coal but the fires, surrounding them, on two feet. Imaginarily flicking gun bullets in the form of mob lynched anger. Pitch forks were not the rage in this script, it was but the pelt of disgust.

“Then I had to purchase a new coffee filter, the electricity bills not that big here so at least I’ve got that to be thankful for but it’ll soon be the dead of winter. Remember what the old man said?” continued Ginger.

“Yeah, yeah, we can’t leave anything unattended outside in the bitter cold.” Pushing his thoughts aside. “We’ve piled enough fire wood and fuel to last a whole winder, what else do you even want to prepare for. Besides food.”

“Things for my potato, I guess.” Said Ginger quite cluelessly. “Will it grow in the winter?” he asked, not thinking if his words sounded right for his ears

Brood cannot believe how further his loss in the mind section has gone. He only knew about his memories blotting away since the incident, but to even not remember that he had tried studying how vegetables worked in his old attempt to grow a garden felt a bit surreal. That memory wasn’t too long ago when he’d achieved such a feat despite not having any success in its department.

Was it because his memories truly wanted to forget? Memories can’t forget, they’re forgotten, or the more he’s spent time trying it becomes its own conscious. Ridiculous as it sounds, somehow even he wouldn’t go that far to convince himself that something was not right with his friend. Solutions aren’t easily thought out like fiction should on an emotional basis.

Sighing. “There must be a time we can put the potato in a warm lit place in the house, not that I can guarantee it.”

“Yep, I’ll get that covered then.” Confirmed Ginger, as if they hadn’t had the conversation reverted his face into something serious before asking again, “You, know I think I’m making good progress with my potato? Just like a good growing green thumb!”

His face looking glad, and Brood finally understanding that his mind has been slowly deteriorating. Soon Brooding would experience the very same thing, not because he had the same sickness or injuries as Ginger, but that his humanity felt like slowly draining.

Nature took its course and the few days of winter remaining has left the lands frozen, at least to the surface. Winds weren’t as deadly as it was like autumn ones, but just the freezing temperature of it needn’t no introduction to how life it is at this deteriorated cape shore line. No bunt of stray tree trunks or man made non-biodegradable waste touched it and as pristine and clean felt like how blank currently Gingers mind was. Chances are he has begun noticing how often he didn’t remember or know of things he felt like he should know or even be good at.

One by one, from cooking his favourite food to the smile he often saw during morning sunrise, all slowly diminished in his thought. What was left was his good friend Brood as they water the soil with warm water the plot of soil the growing tuber housed in.

There was no day where he found the comfort of his good comrade in exile to be less of a struggle and more of a normal now. A boy he couldn’t quite remember in his mind, but knew that because of his actions had dragged a future so bright into a bleak sad potato caring house near the frozen shore. There was no retribution in this, only the plot of escapism. The horrible truth he wished he had not been burdened with.

“The guy in the grocery gave me this for this winter. Thought I’d get to read and learn about it but this is in…Chinese, why does it have to be Chinese. I don’t know anything about foreign language, except maybe hitting faces and cooking for my sister.” Said Brood as he sat beside Ginger, handing the packet to him.

“I can tell we’re getting a bit over the top with making this potato grow. Talk about the most unusual family around.”

“A family member we’d end up eating once it’s summer or good to go? Are you kidding me, you’re still morbid despite being punished for being one.”

Ginger grinned at him and handed Brood back the packet for him to store it in one of the cupboards. Spending the rest of the day, and the following winter in the silence of their humble house. There tuber soon grew it’s leaves into a wonderful green. Once the spring sun has started to shine again warmth finally touches it’s leaves and Ginger set his mood alight again.

“Hey!” Ginger blurted excitedly, one day. “Don’t you think this potato’s growing awesomely!” he said while carrying the pot to where Brood sat.

Brood looked up at him and smiled. “You did say you’d grow it during the winter.”

Placing the pot outside with a few straying plants, and what looked like a make shift table from the bark of the stray trees by the shore, the grown tuber now proudly waved it’s leaves along with the coming breeze. Finally meeting with a proper sun light that it had been deprived with the cloudy weather of the previous winter.


There won’t be anymore stories to tell now that the potato has gone and grown, wrote Brood on his letter, but if it pleases to you who reads this this man you once proudly stood beside with is now happily smiling again. Without you in his mind at least. Replacing the potato was good idea to start with, not that deceiving him about it was the idea in the first place. Brood paused, starting tomorrow we’ll be moving away from this place into the main house. The head of the family has decided to replace his life into the next, something they see more fitting than keeping him hidden.

The succeeding days of his stay here and isolation has come to pass. I’ve done my best to be with him in your place sister, in the off chance that you can finally leave to meet him it won’t be the most pleasant thing. Like that ocean soaked potato, he’s replaced your memories with new ones, and soon he’ll forget about me to when he comes to the main house and I will be away from his side.

Brood paused from the letter he’s writing, a sad realization, “I guess that’s karma.” He told himself. “Karma from an ocean soaked potato, replaced.” He said smiling to himself.

Writing a few more lines, he ended his letter promptly before putting it inside a brown envelope. Sealing it with several scotch tape, as if it contained the deadliest secret in the planet, he went out a ways walk from their house. A girl was sitting on a black sedans hood, watching the sunset, looked up at him. The locks on her hair was frizzy and her skin was a golden brown.

Brood handed her his brown envelope and a wad of cash. “Tomorrows a new day. Better make sure you send her that letter, and our ride on the allotted day.”

The girl nodded, “A brown envelope of farewell. Huh?”


The pot of seedlings leaves swayed in the warm wind and today the two of them have returned back to cleaning the shores.