More lives are lost and more money is spent to relieve damage from landslides and related events—slips, falls, topples, flows—than from all other natural disasters combined.

​

As he rushes backward, Phoenix shrinks to the size of a three-year-old.

His mother is there, emerging from the shadows, an animated silhouette. He wants a smile, a happy “Good morning, baby. Come give Mommy a snuggle.” He wants her to rub her nose in his hair and squeeze him, her fingers gently pressing into his sides, her thumbs into his rounded belly until he giggles and squirms. He wants, “What would you like to eat this morning?”

None of that happens.
 

His mother’s face is smooth, still layered in the fat that comes with youth and vitality. This morning, though, her eyes are puffy and her lips curve downward. If Phoenix had never seen that look at other times—later in life—when gravity and hazards abounded, he might not
have recognized her. 
 

He halts in the living room doorway, arrested by her misery. After a moment, she holds out her hands toward him and, in a voice much lower than usual, rasps, “Come here, baby.”

Jammie-clad feet sliding over long green pile mumble his trepidation. His arms hang limp as his mother grasps him harder than usual. His little boy brain tells him something’s wrong, though it offers no suggestions on how to behave.

She pulls back to look in his eyes. “Baby—” Her voice cracks. “Something happened. Daddy’s gone. He’s not coming home.”

 

***

Despite her words, he still expects Daddy to walk out of his bedroom, into the kitchen; preschooler Phoenix doesn’t understand “dead.”

​

The weight of the news falls over him slowly at first, like the whisper of a breeze on an otherwise still day. All he knows is that Daddy isn’t sipping his coffee or eating his fruity flakes. He isn’t there to say, “Be a good boy today,” or to ruffle his son’s hair.

A particle of loam lands on him when his father fails to return home that evening after work.

Bits of debris crumble over Phoenix through the following days. He looks but can’t find his father lounging in his easy chair, feet lifted while he watches TV; standing in the bathroom, shaving; or lumbering down the hallway, hollering to the boy’s mother.

Larger pebbles and stones of worry tumble over him as he realizes that the voice that called him, that sometimes laughed and sometimes yelled, will never wing down the hallway again. 

He’s forgotten what it sounded like.
 

Stones and boulders of realization cascade over him as he grows. By the time he reaches adulthood, the full impact of his father’s death has thundered down on Phoenix: he has no father and never will.

Yes. This moment is definitely a weak spot in the landscape of his life.

​

***

​

Landslides may result from multiple causes: shear stress; weak foundations; a poor understanding of possible hazards; a change in the groundwater table resulting from heavy rains, flash floods, and snow melt; man-made structures; and, ultimately, gravity.

​

***

​

“Ew. Your house stinks. And it’s messy. I wanna go home.”

​

No, no. Phoenix has misremembered that. He has to return to his memories as a five-year-old, to the last time he invited a friend over to play.

 

Looking down at himself, he sees his me from the now transform into a little boy with a buzz cut that’s grown to three-quarters of an inch; it uniformly sticks out over his scalp, a magnified swatch of blond velveteen. His red polo with white piping is perfect for little boy mischief. Scruffy sneakers have been busy in little boy dirt. In the suburban backyard of a little boy neighbor, he says, “Hey, wanna go to my house and see my new Play Hut? You can play basketball, tic-tac-toe, flying disc, darts, baseball pitching, skeeball—”

“What’s skeeball?”
 

“Um.” Phoenix shrugs. “I’ll show you.”
 

The neighbor named Timmy has shaggy black hair that he covers with a baseball cap, just like his dad. He likes to give a thumbs up whenever it’s remotely appropriate. He’s always moving like he has ants in his pants, a bee in his bonnet, or Mexican jumping beans hopping
under his shirt. And he laughs a lot.

When they reach Phoenix’s two-bedroom rancher and open the front door, Timmy freezes. His eyes bug almost as wide as the sinkhole that opened up in the playground behind their school and almost swallowed their teacher whole.

“Let’s go to my room,” Phoenix says.
 

Timmy is a turtle, no, a snail, no, an iceberg as he walks across the living room, eyeing the piles of toys, clothes, books, magazines, packages, and more, more, more. His nostrils flare a little before he squeezes them closed with his fingers.

​

Phoenix talks as though nothing’s wrong, as though everybody lives this way, in a house where piles—some a couple of feet high—sit on tables and chairs and the floor. “So you wanna play basketball?” At the door to his room, Phoenix smiles and pokes his silent friend’s arm.

Timmy looks at the bed, the walls, the Play Hut, the floor, anywhere that’s not Phoenix’s face. “Um, no. Not today. I think I... My mom said she wanted me home soon.”

“Oh. Okay. Maybe you can come tomorrow.”
 

But tomorrow never comes, not with Timmy, not with anyone.
 

By the time Phoenix turns ten, even his grandparents refuse to enter the house.
 

He feels the ground shifting as his mind flees the memory.

​

***

​

On the average, eight thousand people per year die as a result of landslides. Though mitigation is possible, too many wait until no hope of reversal remains. But even at that point, monitoring, careful attention to warning signals, and evacuation can save lives.

​

***

​

Phoenix groans at trembling memories that threaten to collapse, crumble over, and crush him. Is revisiting them wise? Healthy? Should he abandon his plan to locate and isolate these murky foundations? Is mitigation or rectification even possible?

His mind has a mind of its own. Now it grabs his hand, now it races, now it throws him back in time to the school bus.

 

Who smells like a dog,
And looks like one, too?
Who ought to be put
In a cage in the zoo?

In case you don’t know,
The answer is you.

​

Sung in thirty-part harmony. Maybe. The taunt makes his stomach ache crazy bad.

So does always being the last one chosen for teams and sometimes coming home with black eyes on the outside and bruises on the inside, too deep for his mother to see.
 

By high school, Phoenix has learned the secret of invisibility. He can go for days, weeks, semesters, nearly whole years and attract only minimal attention from teachers, other students, and school counselors. Most of his classmates know little more about him than his name and the
obvious: he’s not worthy of their attention. Only two people are desperate enough to call Phoenix a friend. One’s a geek who’s almost as big an outcast as Phoenix. At the geek’s home, Phoenix stays over to eat and shower and sleep as often as possible.

The other is a girl who wears braids and braces until eleventh grade. She’s nice, better than nice, and he’d really like to go to the next level with her, but doesn’t know how. Then, after the braces come off and her new stepmother teaches her a few beauty tips, the girl’s hair is
restyled. She learns how to use make-up and starts wearing clothes that look like more than sacks and others start looking at her differently. She goes to the prom with Mr. Basketball.

Phoenix hasn’t heard from her since graduation. His geeky friend is off to an Ivy League school.

Phoenix rethinks his plan to revisit the fleas, the nighttime shuffling and skittering of unknown vermin, the face of that one rat, roaches, rotten food, and a banging, brain-pounding headache that lasts nearly five years. What possible good can come from strolling down that
lane?
 

His insides leak. Can a landslide form from the inside out?

​

***

​

Experts classify landslides according to their movement and the material displaced; they may fall, slide, or even flow down. Toppling rock and debris typify a rockslide. A block slide occurs when a mass of material peels or breaks off. When the fluid content is high, a mudslide mushrooms broadly and can flow for great distances, carrying objects along with it and destroying whatever lies in its path. Cars, buildings, trees, bridges, and even roads can be swept
away or crushed.

​

***

​

“Ma! Can’t you see you’re destroying your life? Look at the garbage you have to walk around just to squeeze from one room to the next. You’re living in a pile of shit. What’s the matter with you?” 

Why can’t she recognize the dangers of the black, crushed, rotting layers she’s accumulated?

“I can’t live like this anymore,” Phoenix tells her. “I’m moving out. If you want me back, you’ll have to clean the house first.” Maybe this will motivate her to change. 

He leaves her. Alone. To die. Trapped, weighed down, suffocated, and finally crushed by her damned shit. All twenty-five thousand pounds of it.
 

What kind of son does that?

​

***

​

After a landslide, flooding can occur as well as damage from broken utility lines. Bereavement, depression, blame, and guilt may follow.

 

***

​

It’s too late for remediating his mother’s problems; death stole that possibility.

​

Is it too late for Phoenix? Can he replant and stabilize his life so that disaster doesn’t swallow him as it did her?

A lobotomy would do the trick. Just cut out the memories—snip snip snip—and the problem goes away.

He knows that’s stupid. Still, it presents an intriguing angle. What if he remakes himself so that he’s a victor rather than a victim? It’ll take some work, some discipline. He’ll have to remove the debris and insert better material.

​

***

​

Replant ravaged areas as soon as possible.

​

***

​

He’d like to spit out all the muddy remains of the past and move ahead with power and force.

A tremor shakes the ground beneath him and looming above him, threatening to fall on top of him, is a question: can he truly extract himself from his past and brush off the detritus?

Yes. Yes. He doesn’t need to change everything at once. One step at a time.
 

Then his past lurches, threatening once again to drop him to his knees, to force capitulation. It bulges, rumbles, and debris showers down around him. Phoenix begins to sink again, to slowly crumble.

Then he stands quickly, brushes off his shoulders and hair, and begins to walk. He will not again be buried, will not be crushed.
 

Each step brings him renewed strength. Even if new disturbances and new threats come, he will resist. The landscape of his life is ready for mitigation. He’ll stabilize it, replant, and build new structures. He’s not sure how, but he’ll fight back.

​

​He leans forward and takes another step.