In Bloom by Anasazi Chavez

We found mold again, this time on the white bread next to the toaster.

“I ate it already,” he said, reaching for the bag I was knotting to trap the spores and toss in the trash.

“We don’t eat mold,” I said. We don’t leave our towels on the ground to mildew, we don’t use fuzzing strawberries for a smoothie, we don’t leave mattresses on the floor to collect the telltale dusting of blue and gray. “I can’t believe you forgot to put it in the fridge last night.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” he said. He hadn’t let go of the bread bag. “I’ve not gotten sick.”

“That wasn’t you throwing up those sprouting English muffins last week,” I challenged him, yanking the bag away and throwing it into the garbage can. “It was someone else?”

He reached for the garbage can and dusted off the bag. I gagged.

“It was something else, yes. Can you drop it? It’s mold,” he shrugged. “Look, once it’s toasted you won’t even notice.”

“Don’t you put that fucking mold into my toaster,” I said. “This mold is ruining everything.”

He ripped the bag open. I imagined the mold flying through the kitchen and into my nose, cavorting through my lungs leaving seeds to root in their plumed wake. I watched him pop two slices of freckled bread into the toaster. He twisted the bag with the remaining bread and placed it back next to the toaster. The toaster hummed and ticked as we stared at each other. 

“See,” he said, removing the toast. “You just scrape it off.”

The crumbs fell on the counter. He spread butter and jam on the bread and chewed.

“This is eventually going to kill you,” I said.

“Not me.” He patted his stomach, leaving greasy fingerprints. “Stomach of steel. But you, maybe. It’s all about mentality. It’s all in your head.”

My stomach turned. I thought of our spotted apartment walls that I dutifully sprayed with diluted bleach, the baptisms of vinegar I held every weekend for the fridge. I hoarded a precious inhaler inside a plastic bag inside of a plastic bin, safe from the spoiling fingers of decay. I was suspicious of shadows and cracks and dust, ready with an antiseptic wipe and a desperate prayer for each new bloom. I monitored every sneeze and cough. I meditated on mold. 

“I’m going to kill you then,” I said. “Me and the mold.”

He smiled. “You couldn’t. The mold will get you first.”

There were black flecks of toast in his teeth. Blue was my favorite color until we moved in together.

Anasazi Chavez is a 2022-23 Emerging Writer Fellow at GrubStreet in Boston. She was born in Fresno, California, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.

17 November 2023