The Composting Group
Portland Community Garden
October 2024
Characters:
- LIORA, 38, tech worker on stress leave
- KEVIN, 45, self-appointed group leader
- MYZRAEL, 62, former therapist, lost license
- KEMI, 29, translator
- JASPER, 51, divorced father
---
Scene 1: Circle Time
Five people sit on stumps around a compost bin. Rain.
KEVIN: Welcome to Emotional Composting. Where we turn trauma into growth.
LIORA: Is this court-mandated for anyone else?
JASPER: DUI. You?
LIORA: Workplace incident. Threw a laptop.
KEVIN: We don't judge here. We decompose our pain productively.
MYZRAEL: Kevin, you're not a therapist.
KEVIN: Neither are you. Anymore.
Awkward silence.
KEMI: I'm just here for community service hours.
KEVIN: Everyone grab a handful of compost.
LIORA: It's raining.
KEVIN: Rain accelerates decomposition. Like tears.
JASPER: Did you get that from Pinterest?
---
Scene 2: The Exercise
Everyone holds wet compost.
KEVIN: Tell the compost your pain.
LIORA: Seriously?
KEVIN: The mycelial network absorbs emotional toxins.
MYZRAEL: That's not how fungi work.
KEVIN: You lost your license for sleeping with a patient. Maybe don't lecture about how things work.
Myzrael stands to leave.
KEMI: Wait. I'll go first.
She holds the compost.
KEMI: My mother called me quiet thunder. In Yoruba. I can't remember the words anymore. Three countries, three languages. I lost her voice somewhere between.
She puts compost in bin.
JASPER: My kids won't talk to me. Six months now. Their therapist says I'm "emotionally absent." I don't know what that means. I was there. Every game. Every recital.
LIORA: Being there isn't the same as being present.
JASPER: What's the difference?
LIORA: I don't know. That's why I'm here.
---
Scene 3: The Truth
Kevin's phone rings. He silences it. Rings again.
KEVIN: I need to—
MYZRAEL: It's your ex. Third time today.
KEVIN: How do you—
MYZRAEL: We go to the same meetings. AA. She told me about this group. How you started it after she left. How you think pain can be composted because you can't face it directly.
KEVIN: That's not—
MYZRAEL: Your pain isn't fertilizer, Kevin. It's just pain.
LIORA: Jesus.
KEVIN: You don't understand the mycelial—
MYZRAEL: Stop hiding behind mushroom metaphors. Your wife left. Your kids are scared of you. You're an accountant pretending to be a shaman.
Kevin throws his handful of compost at Myzrael.
KEVIN: At least I didn't fuck my patient!
MYZRAEL: She was my patient twenty years ago. We fell in love. Adults do that.
KEVIN: You took advantage—
MYZRAEL: I lost everything for love. You lost everything because you couldn't feel it.
---
Scene 4: Real Talk
Everyone sits in silence. Rain harder now.
JASPER: This is better than my actual therapy.
KEMI: You want to know something stupid? I've been coming here three weeks. This compost bin? It's decorative. The garden doesn't use it. Too much contamination.
LIORA: So we've been talking to garbage.
KEMI: Basically.
They start laughing. Even Kevin.
LIORA: I threw the laptop at my boss. He said I wasn't "fungible." I thought he said "fungal." Lost my shit about mushroom metaphors.
JASPER: You assaulted someone over mushrooms?
LIORA: I was already on edge. My mom's dying. I'm her caregiver. He kept talking about "growth mindsets" while I'm watching her decompose.
Silence.
KEVIN: My ex-wife is calling because our son tried to kill himself. Tuesday. Pills. He's okay. But she thinks it's my fault. The pressure. The achievement stuff.
MYZRAEL: Is it?
KEVIN: Yeah. Probably.
---
Scene 5: Actual Composting
Kemi opens the decorative bin. It's full of random trash.
KEMI: Should we fix it? Make it real compost?
JASPER: I know how. Had a garden. Before.
They begin sorting trash from organic matter.
LIORA: This is disgusting.
MYZRAEL: This is honest.
KEVIN: I don't understand the difference anymore.
LIORA: That's the first real thing you've said.
They work in silence. Sorting. The rain stops.
JASPER: My therapist says emotions need to move through you. Not around, not under. Through.
KEMI: Like translation. The meaning has to pass through one language to reach another.
MYZRAEL: Like love. Has to move through the mess to become itself.
KEVIN: Like compost.
LIORA: Kevin—
KEVIN: No, really. Not as metaphor. Just as compost. Shit breaking down into something useful. Eventually.
---
Scene 6: Next Week
Same circle. Sun breaking through clouds.
KEVIN: I talked to my son.
LIORA: How'd it go?
KEVIN: Badly. Then better. Then badly again. Then... I don't know. We're talking.
MYZRAEL: That's something.
JASPER: My daughter texted me. Just an emoji. Mushroom.
EVERYONE: What?
JASPER: I've been sending her mushroom facts. Instead of asking to see her. Just facts. Finally she sent one back.
KEMI: I remembered the words. What my mother called me. "Àrá mi." My quiet thunder.
Liora holds fresh compost. Real compost now.
LIORA: My mom died. Thursday.
Everyone stops.
LIORA: It's okay. It was time. She said something at the end. "You're good soil." I think she meant I'd grow things. Eventually.
She puts the compost in the bin.
LIORA: Or maybe she was just high on morphine talking about gardening.
KEVIN: Both can be true.
LIORA: Yeah. Both.
They sit with that. The garden around them growing.
End
