Blastophaga psenes

“Your student aid income-driven repayment plan recertification deadline is approaching.” The email notification lurks on the screen of my phone. I can’t deal with this right now; it’s six in the morning and the parks won’t landscape themselves. I flick the notification off of my screen and rustle through the pile of laundry on my desk chair to grab the palm-sized black notebook from the pocket of yesterday’s pants. I use the dim light of my phone to see the page as I jot down a reminder to respond to the student aid email. As I shuffle to the toilet, I swipe away more notifications on autopilot. The last one catches my attention and I open it to allow myself a few moments of escapism in the dark void that is Twitter.

I slouch into my seat and sway with the bus as it lurches through traffic on my way home from work. My stomach lurches along with it as I gaze blankly at the reminder I made in my notebook this morning. My fingers absentmindedly pick at the soft moleskin cover. I know I need to deal with this student aid thing, but I can’t convince my thoughts to focus on it for more than a fleeting moment. The anxious hum of the afternoon traffic pierces my ears and settles at the base of my skull. It’s paralyzing, the number of things I have to pay for and forms I have to fill just to keep myself going long enough to pay bills and fill out forms. It feels like a hundred yellowjackets are seething behind me and if I trip over just one tree root, the swarm will overtake me. This student aid recertification is just one more stinger joining the chase. My fingers rustle through my backpack for my Epipen as I let my mind wander a while.

Figs were likely the first domesticated fruit. I can’t help but find it ironic that in many cultures around the world, figs invoke fertility, prosperity, and enlightenment. Yet the experience of the fig itself must be quite different. Its reproduction is limited by the harvest of its fruit. Selective breeding and weeding don’t allow for it to flourish and develop of its own accord within its ecosystem. I can’t imagine such isolation from reality, from one’s own fruit, would engender a sense of enlightenment. From the moment it was domesticated by the humans to whom it represents such progress, the fig itself has become alienated from the experiences of fertility, prosperity, and enlightenment. I wrote a paper a couple of years ago about figs in a food and agricultural history course and haven’t been able to escape the existential irony of being so closely linked to such a grand concept, yet never being able to taste it for yourself. In tiny letters above my student aid reminder, I squeeze in a note to find a copy of that essay. Turning in that assignment gave me so much pride, and maybe reliving that feeling of accomplishment is what I need to kickstart this recertification process.

Under my bed is a clear plastic tote overflowing with old essays, cards, and tax returns. If I have a copy of that essay, it’s probably stuffed in here. I drag it out and roll up my sleeves to dive in. As I’m sorting through the mess of papers, a card jostles itself loose and clunks to the floor with much more weight than you’d expect a paper card to carry. I lean over the pile and rescue it from the mess. It’s a well-worn card with wrinkled corners from my high school friend Cameron wishing 15-year-old me a happy birthday. Taped to the inside is a yellow USB drive. I have no idea what it contains, and judging by how intact the tape is, I’ve never checked. Curiosity gets the best of me and I cautiously put it into my computer, fully expecting to find an MP3 library of some obscure dubstep remixes from the early 2010s. After a few seconds, a window pops up on the screen. Strings of letters and numbers I don’t understand fill the text box and panic grips my chest. Sure that I’ve just somehow introduced a virus onto the computer I use nearly every day, I back away from the desk as if it’s about to start spewing toxic fumes. I grab my phone and search for Cameron in my contacts. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to him but this situation doesn’t call for small talk texts. Glaring anxiously at the offending text box, I listen to the call trying to connect. He doesn’t answer so I call again. Pick up, you asshole. My eyes sting with frustration. What did I just do to my computer? He was always better than me at tech stuff so as far as I know this could have been something meant to destroy one of the high school computers. His voicemail greets me and I dial again. On the sixth ring, he answers. “Hello? What’s up, man? Everything alright?”

In a rush of words, I tell him about the yellow flash drive and the weird window that is currently mocking me from my computer screen. The phone is silent for a moment and at first, I think he’s hung up. Just as I’m pulling my phone away from my ear to see if the call has disconnected, I hear him ask if I’m referring to the USB he duct-taped into a birthday card. I tell him that’s the one. A disbelieving chuckle meets my ear and turns into full-blown laughter. Over his apparent glee, I loudly ask him what the hell is going on. He takes a moment to calm down and in a wonderstruck voice, I hear him say “Colton, that’s a wallet. Remember how in 2012 it was a joke gift to give someone Bitcoin? I bought like five dollars worth of Bitcoin for you and that drive should link you to it. Do you even know how much that’s worth today?”

Twenty thousand dollars.

Twenty thousand dollars.

Cameron is running late to work so he doesn’t have time to tell me how to get the cryptocurrency to translate into real-world dollars that I could use, let alone help me process what that kind of money would even mean to me. I slide back in my chair and run my hands up over my face. I feel itchy and I can’t sit still and I have a thousand thoughts buzzing around in my head. What would I do with twenty thousand dollars? I know it’s not that much to some people, but I don’t even know what I’d do with it. Probably pay off a big chunk of my student loans.

Oh shit, my student loans. I roll my chair back to my desk and hide the window that is supposedly promising me twenty thousand dollars. That’s too much to even think about right now. I pull up the email reminding me to update the government on how little money I make. This is my annual opportunity to request that they please do not bankrupt me just because I don’t have the funds to pay for a graduate degree yet and a BA in History doesn’t really qualify me for any jobs. I pull up my meagre paystubs, wishing bitterly that my parents had inherited enough money to pay off their mortgage so that they could have started college savings funds for my sisters and me. Unfortunately, I come from a long line of industrial workers and agricultural labourers. As I learned countless times throughout my degree, it’s difficult to hold onto generational wealth if there never was much wealth to begin with. The generations of sturdy working folks in my family before me were the very Americans who built the iconic American Dream. Yet, they’ve been estranged from the prosperity and success they represent to the rest of the world.

As I fill out little boxes with numbers, my phone chimes with another notification. Another email has joined my inbox. My electricity bill is ready. The email reminds me to set up direct deposit to never miss a payment. I know it’s so easy to do, but I just can’t bring myself to work up the motivation to figure it out. So, every month I brush off the reminder and pay the bill manually. I’ll do it when I finish the student loan aid recertification form.

The darkening sky pulls me away from my computer and I creakily stand up to stretch. I still haven’t even showered the grime off of my sore body after a day of planting flowers and cutting down ornamental grasses. As I pull my dirt-encrusted pants off and drop them to the floor, my little reminder notebook lands with a soft thud near my toes. It’s so soft compared to the shell it just emerged from. A sigh of relief shudders from my throat as I open it and cross off the reminder I jotted down this morning. At first, the shower is stinging cold, but as it warms up it wraps itself around my shoulders and melts away my second skin of grass clippings and stress sweat. With it, the anxiety that’s been keeping me going all afternoon slips away too. The numbness of exhaustion is a sweet reprise from the adrenaline-fueled motions I’ve been running through all day. Even twenty thousand dollars isn't enough to pull me out of the water and back to that confusing jumble of letters and numbers. I know that with that kind of money I could save myself a whole lot of trouble. It might even give me a chance to pay off my own mortgage in time to save up for my own future kids’ college funds. But I just don’t have the energy to figure it out right now. That kind of money is a dream come true, but through this fog of fatigue, it doesn’t feel like anything more than a fantasy.

That little USB drive is just another wasp joining the swarm behind me. I know rationally that a lot of types of wasps don’t even have the capability to sting me. But, when all I can see is a buzzing cloud chasing me down, it’s not worth it to figure out which ones I want in my orchard. The thing is, every fig needs a wasp to fertilize it. It won’t even grow fruit if it doesn’t let a wasp into the flower. But then again, not even the chance to grow fruit can enlighten a cultivated fig.