Mushrooms often grow in relation to the other plants and trees around them, forming a symbiotic relationship. Some mushrooms kill other plants, some mushrooms grow from those dead plants, sometimes they benefit while leaving the other plants unaffected, and sometimes they work with the other plants, benefiting them both. Mushrooms, due to their growth, often have an advantage over other plants: through the roots, mushrooms are connected. If rain is coming, or if a drought is arriving, these mushrooms communicate with each other, sometimes from miles and miles away. This means that mushrooms have a certain power over other plants. They could lie to them, if they are parasitic, and send signals to them that rain is coming when it isn’t, getting them to waste their energy. Or, they could alert the plant to a drought, allowing them to reserve their nutrients and continue a mutualistic relationship.
–
I don’t remember what we were fighting about in the first place, all I knew is that you were upset. And yelling. And I couldn’t hold back tears anymore. I think it was about something stupid. I didn’t know how this could happen. Just yesterday we were playing truth or dare at the beach and now, standing in our living room, we argued about…something. It really wasn’t arguing though. It was yelling.
Maybe it’s the house, my brain chimed in, unhelpful, and I knew it was wrong. We had been here before. My birthday dinner. At the mall. In the car. Pretty much everywhere. It was a wonder I still cried when it happened, or that I hadn’t learned to de-escalate the situation. To be fair, I was like, 12. But I didn’t get the chance to give myself a break as I was sucked back into the unfortunate present moment.
“You were right yesterday!” you screamed.
Treading in the water and bobbing in the waves, you asked, “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” I said, thinking nothing of it.
“What’s your worst fear?”
“You hating me. Duh,” I said.
You laughed it off.
I repeated the previous question: “Truth or dare?”
At this point, I just wanted to run back up the stairs, hide under my covers, and scream for my Mom and Dad like I was eight again. But I wasn’t eight, and neither of my parents were home, so I stood frozen in place.
“I hate you!” You yelled it like it was true.
–
Honey mushrooms are a genus, containing at least 40 different types of mushrooms which fall under said genus. This golden-and-white-capped mushroom spreads thick black cords or “vines” onto living trees to steal nutrients the tree acquires. The honey mushroom can be found globally, and some can even be bioluminescent. This parasitic mushroom is most commonly known for its role as the Humongous Fungus. The monstrosity of a mushroom grows in Oregon and is considered the largest living organism, growing up to nearly four square miles, and is considered the oldest living organism, possibly 8,650 years old. While this enormous mushroom is a scientific wonder, it is deadly for the trees in the area, killing them by draining their nutrients and rotting them before recycling them back into the soil.
–
The fairy lights in your room were dim enough to make me sleepy, but not dim enough to let me fall asleep as they twinkled and danced around your ceiling. We sat in your bed with our legs under the covers as we talked. It felt like we did this every month. As if it were planned, every month we would gather in your room (mine was always “too dirty” and “the carpet feels weird,” as you put it) and talk. Most of the time it was about how shitty our lives were. I was in middle school, you were a freshman in high school and we were both just learning about our identities and how the world worked. We never mentioned how we felt about each other, but that was okay. As our legs pushed up against each other on your twin sized bed, a dreadful and contemplating look drew over your face (you were looking away, but a sibling knows, I guess).
“Can I show you something?” you asked with your arms crossed over each other. “Of course.” It’s not like anything could break this moment, I thought.
“You can’t tell our parents. You can’t tell anyone,” you stressed.
It’s not like anything was wrong, I reasoned. “Okay.”
“Are you sure you can keep this a secret?” you asked.
“Yeah, of course I can,” I said.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay.” You pulled the covers down to your knees and dragged up your green-ish shorts on the left side with one finger to show at least ten reddish pink lines drawn into your thigh. The skin there was slightly raised. I didn’t know what to say.
“I used a pencil sharpener. It was easy to break it out of the shell,” you replied to the silence.
I didn’t say anything.
We both heard a click as the golden knob to your door twisted and opened, both of our heads flew around, in the midst of it you must’ve tugged your shorts back down. It was my Dad. He sent me off to bed, but I didn’t sleep that night. When I laid awake that night, all I could think of were the times in Girl Scouts when they would ask us what we would do if someone told us they were hurting themselves. We would all say the same thing. “We’d tell a trusted adult.” But how could I break that promise? Especially when they were clearly hurting already, how could I break that trust? How could I?
–
The lion’s mane mushroom grows primarily off dead trees. However, they can occasionally be found on trees which are just barely living. This mushroom uses enzymes to break down the tree and uses the last of the tree’s nutrients to feed itself. This can help recycle the trees back into the soil. Beginner foragers often disregard the hairy mushroom, but it holds many benefits. Most commonly, it has helped people with sleeping problems and cognitive functions. Although, it would be hard for an experienced forager to find one unless they found a dead tree.
–
Sitting in front of the TV, probably rotting my brain after a long day of school, the stairs’ rhythmic creaking alerts me to the movement of someone coming down them. I know it’s you; you’re the only person in this family light enough to not make a thumping noise when coming down (although, you do have the advantage of always standing on your tiptoes). You pranced into the living room in your light blue T-Shirt and shorts, your dark auburn hair bouncing as you walked in.
“Hi.” I waved at you, and you waved back. Your wave was silly, though, you’d scrunch up all five of your fingers to your palm instead of shaking your hand. It looks fun, I thought and tested it out with my own fingers to find, it felt fun too. I’m going to start doing it too. You were wearing that big smile that said, “I need you to do something for me, please!” You stared at the T.V. for a moment, watching the video I put on to see what it was about, before looking at me again and smiling with that look.
“Um, could you please help me make some tater tots?” Your voice went up at the end in a way that told me No pressure, but pretty please?
“Sure, but I’m having some too.” I stretched out my back and stood.
You shook your arms in joy and ran on your tip-toes back to the kitchen to place yourself at a seat at the island. I followed you, taking my spot at the other end of the island, inputting the number it needed to preheat and grabbing the frozen tater tots from the freezer. While we waited for the oven to beep, we talked. Mainly about the video that I was watching. Once the tater tots were ready to be taken out of the oven, I grabbed two small ceramic plates and tossed about 3/4ths onto one and dropped the other 4th onto the other plate. I uprooted the two plates and moved them to the island. You shook your arms in glee again before looking back up at me.
“Can you grab the ketchup?” You pointed to the fridge as if I didn’t know where it was in my own house.
“Yep! On it!” I clicked open the fridge door, pulled out the ketchup and tossed it on the counter. I shook it to force the actual ketchup to the bottom and to avoid the gross tomato liquid and handed it to you; you squirted an unhealthy and probably wasteful amount of ketchup on your plate and handed me the ketchup. I did the same thing to my plate. You popped one of the Tater Tots into your mouth as you started to eat the fruits of my labor.
“What would you do without me?” I asked as I started to eat. “Probably not have tater tots.” You smiled. I smiled back.
–
The magic mushroom, or the psilocybe cubensis, is most likely the most popular mushroom to exist because of its psychoactive properties. This mushroom just so happens to practice commensalism. It grows primarily on dung, but can be found on wood chips occasionally. However, the idea of commensalism has been long debated, as some scientists believe that since no matter what, everything has at least some impact on what it is interacting with. But if any mushroom were to display commensalism with the “host” on which it grew, it would be the magic mushroom. This mushroom practically gives nothing to the waste which it grows on, while said waste gives it a place to grow that is often avoided by animals.
–
Walking through the dry heat and streets of a small town in Colorado named “Creede,” we stepped away from the gathering at the ‘Pink House’ and walked towards our small rented cabin. Our back-and-forth chatter was the most natural thing in the universe. We bounced between topics like a pinball machine; loud, obnoxious, a little too fast to keep up with and, when you’re in the right mindset, fun. We walked past the vacant playground of the small town, and you pointed it out.
“We should go to the playground!” You smiled and pointed at the fenced in playground.
“Yeah!” It looked like fun, and despite us leaving the gathering early, I’d rather spend my summer outside. “But first let’s head to the cabin, I need Advil,” I said.
“Yes, of course, I need to change my shoes too, before we go to the playground.”
“Yeah.”
We both showed our teeth in a grin, but it didn’t seem like the sun was smiling.
No, it seemed like the sun was giving more of a malicious glare down onto the two of us as the temperature cranked up and stepped down onto the asphalt.
“Ugh, it’s so hot,” I complained. “Why does it have to be hot.”
“It’s summer. What did you expect? Also, it’s not that bad,” you quipped. It was to be expected, really. I hate the heat.
“That’s unfair. You could wear a snow coat in this weather and be fine.” You had always been impervious to the weather, wearing shorts in snow and sweaters in summer. I, on the other hand, would always get too hot too fast. In September, I would beg for our Dad to not take the A.C. out of my room.
“It’s not unfair. You’re just being dramatic. It’s not that hot out, you’re just wrong,” you said.
“You can’t gaslight me about the temperature.”
Soon enough, we arrived to the sanctuary of the small cabin near the town’s entrance. I pulled the key out of my pocket, shoved it into the socket and twisted before forcefully pushing in on the door. The cabin was very cozy. And small. The first room contained a small table with four chairs (although, I doubted all four members of our family could comfortably fit at it), a green-ish couch sitting in front of a TV, and a kitchen shaped like an ‘L’ in the left corner. To the right of the end of the kitchen counter was a small doorway leading to a thin hallway; in the hallway, to the right were bunk beds and to the left was a door to the bathroom. At the end of the hall was a bedroom. You went straight for the bunk beds and plopped down on my bed (you insisted on taking the top bunk, which I was fine with because it meant I could set up a curtain of blankets to cover the bottom bunk; we work well together like that) to undo your fancy black shoes and toss on some more comfortable ones.
“‘Kay, I’m ready,” I announced after dry swallowing a couple Advil. I didn’t feel like getting water.
“Don’t rush me!” You struggled with tugging your shoes off. “I wouldn’t need to rush you if you hurried up.”
“Oh, shush.”
It only took you a few moments more to locate your comfortable flip-flops and for us to head out the door. It seemed the sun had moved from its position to settle comfortably to the West. A slight breeze had taken the place of the burning heat, meaning that instead of the beating sun, loose dirt flew into our eyes. Somehow, we both got dirt into our eyes at the same time and we, in sync like a pair of psychic siblings, dropped our heads and started aggressively rubbing at our eyes. Once the dirt had run its course of torture, we walked toward the playground to explore a little until it was dark and our parents had to call us home.
–
The fly agaric is the most popular mushroom of all the species. This red mushroom has white spots on its cap which come from the veil that is around the mushroom as it grows. As it grows the white veil pops, spreading the excess on the cap. This means that the fly agaric can lose its spots. This mushroom has a mutualistic relationship with the birch trees it grows on; the fly agaric shares the nutrients that it captures in the soil with the birch trees, and the birch trees share the nutrients from the rain that it receives. This relationship is what makes these mushrooms so easily dispersible, as it is now a global fungus.
