top of page
  • Writer's pictureschinowsky

The SS Pomona

I've been itching to write a fiction piece for a while now. I used to write pretty much every day when I was younger, but as I got more busy with school and with other hobbies and passions, I put my creativity into other projects. Recently, though, I've been feeling the need to read more stories that are full of hope, life, and people coming together to make the world a better place. I decided that there was no reason why I couldn't write one of those stories.

This story has three inspirations. The first is the Solarpunk movement. If you've heard of Steampunk or Cyberpunk, you'll be familiar with this sci-fi idea of combining futuristic technologies with a consideration of what future societies might look like. Solarpunk is one of the more optimistic -punk subgenres; as described by Medium: "Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question 'what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?' The aesthetics of Solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and wild, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid. Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world—but never dystopian." You can read more about Solarpunk here.

My second inspiration came from seeing photos of the SS Ayrfield, a decommissioned barge off the coast of Sydney, Australia that has come to be known as The Floating Forest.

My final source of inspiration was Mary Mattingly, a New York City artist who centers her work around themes of water conservation and sustainability. A few years ago she created Swale, which is a ship that's been transformed into a floating garden. She takes it around the different New York City boroughs and is planning on expanding the project. You can read more about her awesome work on her website.

Ok, enough background. On with the story!


 

The SS Pomona


July

I wish I could say that the inspiration came to me in a dream, or while I was deep in meditation, or watching the clouds float overhead. The reality is much more boring: I found the inspiration through a Facebook post.

“It’s completely ridiculous!” I said for about the fifth time to my sibling as they silently sliced zucchinis. “We have all of this public land, right? There’s a reason why it’s called the public park.” I gestured with the knife I was holding to the small park outside my window as an example. “And yet we’re not allowed to eat any food we find there? There’s plenty of native edible plants, and enough land in those parks that we could probably feed half of the homeless in this city. But you pick a single crabapple and suddenly you’re being brought up on criminal charges!”

“Kalei, do you mind ranting without a knife in your hand?” Noa asked, taking a step back from me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, putting the knife down next to my half-chopped onions. “It’s just so frustrating. That man didn’t rob anyone. He didn’t even take the fruit from someone’s garden. He was just a person dealing with homelessness trying to survive on the land that this city supposedly gave to its citizens.”

“People have been making more community gardens,” Noa pointed out, returning to their potatoes. “That could help.”

“I know, but they’re still small,” I replied. “And a lot of people want to keep the produce that they grow. We need someplace more wild, someplace that anyone can get the food they need without worrying about this bureaucratic nonsense or risking getting sick because they’re dumpster diving.”

“Hey now, that bureaucratic nonsense is what gives me a job,” Noa defended.

I glanced at their suit jacket draped over a kitchen chair and rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t call working for the district attorney’s office nonsense.”

"I don't know. Granted, with the amount of paperwork I deal with everyday, it feels like it sometimes!" Noa swept the zucchinis into a pan and put them over the stove. “If you’re upset about the parks, you should start working on a petition. Maybe you’ll change their minds.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I replied. I certainly had plenty of time on my hands; the landscaping firm I worked for didn’t have many projects going on at the moment. Then again, I wasn’t sure how I’d get enough signatures for a petition with my three coworkers and dismal Facebook friends list. “Thanks for helping me with dinner.”

“No problem,” Noa replied. “You helped me build the beds for all this; the least I could do was bring you some of the produce and help you cook it. Now with my help, you’re going to be having zucchini for every meal for weeks.”

I looked up in horror. “I thought this was the only box of them!”

My sister grinned wickedly. “Oh no, the rest are in my car. I was just hungry, so I figured I’d bring the rest up later.”

“You’re evil.”

“No, just opportunistic.” I shoved them with my shoulder, which quickly turned into a fight, wooden spoon against spatula. The public garden idea lay forgotten with the onions.


October

By mid-fall, the weather had cooled down enough that I could go jogging in the morning without the threat of death by sweat. My dog Olive ran beside me, his three-legged gait steady. Everyone once in a while someone would stop and take a picture of him, which didn’t bother me as long as they didn’t ask me to stop my jog for too long.

Each morning I tried a different route, hoping to get some inspiration for my clients. My latest ones wanted to turn their small balcony into a pollinator garden, and I was trying to figure out how to hold all of that soil while still keeping the whole thing structurally sound. If people kept hot tubs on a balcony, a garden would work, right?

This morning I made my way down to the bay, where small private sailboats and larger ferries kept each other company while not at sea. I’d never been much of a boat person, despite growing up next to the ocean, but the view was spectacular. Even the junkers that had been abandoned in the old shipyard had a certain charm to them, with their red rusted hulls and mossy wooden rails. Of course, they probably weren’t doing any favors for the water quality, but then again it was so polluted with chemicals that it probably didn’t make that much of a difference.

That was when I saw it...the SS Pomona. Whether by coincidence or fate deciding to make a joke out of the name, the old barge that was named after the Roman goddess of gardens and orchards had turned into a floating forest. Dust and dirt and seeds had blown across the deck over the years, and eventually, plants had taken root. Bushes and vines and even a few mangrove trees carpeted the deck and poured down over the sides of the ship. Nature had completely taken hold of the metal wreck. It was a bit of a tourist attraction in this part of the city, but though I’d passed it dozens of times over the years, it never struck me as an opportunity until now. I suddenly remembered my public garden idea.

I called Noa. “Hey, you’re a lawyer.”

“I don’t like how you’ve started this conversation…”

“Who has jurisdiction over abandoned ships in the middle of the harbor?”


December

I hurled the last wooden beam onto the deck of the SS Pomona. It had taken two months and more conversations with lawyers and city officials and boat enthusiasts than I’d ever dreamed of having, but the SS Pomona was at last mine to do with as I wished (as long as I didn’t try to sail it. They told me that several times. Just because I was Hawaiian didn’t mean I wanted to sail off into the sunrise. Jeez.)

The thought had crossed my mind to just go ahead and start my project and hope that no one important would notice, but I knew that if I wanted to turn this into a place for the community, I couldn’t have people being arrested every time they tried to board the ship. Luckily, the SS Pomona was under maritime common law, so the city’s foraging law didn’t apply. The barge had still belonged to the shipyard, but thanks to my lifetime of savings, I was now the proud owner of a ship that would never sail again. That meant two things. One, I was taking on double the clients in addition to working on the SS Pomona in order to recover some semblance of savings. Two, my parents were barely speaking to me on account of my “incredibly thoughtless and impulsive decision.” I hoped that a lifetime’s supply of zucchinis would eventually win them over.

My back and shoulders already had permanent knots from hauling supplies up here and weeding the invasive species off the boat before then, but I didn’t want to waste a single minute of daylight. I only had a couple of months until planting season, and my coworkers at the landscaping firm only occasionally came out to help me. What little social life that I used to have had completely disappeared, especially since Noa was busy juggling their work and planning their wedding. I was on my own (except for Olive, who was currently bounding around the deck of the ship watering the mangrove trees by peeing everywhere he could reach.)

The next few hours consisted of me methodically laying out the wooden beams for where the different beds of plants would go. My sketch of the garden’s layout had already become ragged and grimy, but I didn’t want to bring my laptop out here only to drop it overboard or something. My plan was to start planting annuals that could grow quickly—squashes, carrots, tomatoes—and then start laying the groundwork for longer-lasting plants, like berry vines and some mushroom logs. Maybe one day I’d have an apple tree, though at this point it all was starting to feel like a pipe dream. I was almost out of money and I was barely sleeping at night, and I hadn’t even gotten to actually growing the plants.

There was no point in giving up now, though; my parents already regarded my career choice as less than prestigious, and they thought the idea of building a garden on a ship by myself was ludicrous. What were they going to say if it all turned out to be a failure?

Tomorrow I would come back with my drill and really start putting the beds together. I’d kept most of the mangrove trees to provide some shade for the plants that wouldn’t do well in full sunlight, but after removing the bushes I was still left with plenty of room to plant. I just hoped it wasn’t too much land. I didn’t want weeds to overtake the garden.

“Olive, cut that out!”

The mutt looked at me with his large innocent eyes as he gnawed the end of one of the beams. I sighed. “Buddy, I don’t exactly have the funds to take you to doggy daycare. Can you please try not to destroy my financial investment?”

He replied by rolling around in the dust and then unevenly loping over to me for some pets. There was nothing I could do but oblige.


February

I clumsily navigated the huge cart through the hardware store, Olive sitting in my cart and looking intently at every passing shopper.

“PVC pipe….PVC pipe….” I muttered to myself as I scanned aisles containing everything from bathroom faucets to fertilizer. I only had a vague idea of how my water filtration and irrigation system was going to work, which was not helping my confidence. If you’d put me in the gardening section, or even in the lumber aisles, I would have felt right at home. But rigging up a system that could recycle rain and de-salinate seawater pumped up from the harbor below was something deeply outside of my comfort zone. Not to mention that I needed to make sure the water was at least somewhat pollutant-free, which was even more difficult. I’d consulted plenty of books and online resources, but there wasn’t exactly a manual for how to build a garden on the ocean. My conclusion had been to try to combine a standard irrigation system with a filtration system meant for private boats if they got stranded at sea, but while I’d done the former plenty of times, I had no clue how to do the latter.

“Kalei!” a voice called out. I turned to see one of my coworkers, Cindy, with a cart full of outdoor string lights.

“You decorating?” I asked.

She glanced down at the cart. “Oh, yeah, one of my clients is big into outdoor parties and wants their backyard to ‘glow.’ What are you doing here?”

“Working on the SS-”

“Pomona, of course,” she finished. She had an odd look on her face. I couldn’t tell if it was amusement or pity. “Have you moved into that boat? I think the last time I saw you outside of work was the holiday party.”

“I know, sorry,” I sighed. “This is just really important to me. I think I’m going to be able to help a lot of people when this is all done.” Olive hopped up on his one back leg in the cart and planted his paws on Cindy.

“Well you’re not going to be able to help anyone if you pass out from exhaustion!” she quipped as she reached out to pet Olive. “Are you making sure that your mom is taking care of herself?” she asked the dog in an annoying baby voice.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her.

“You know, once I get done with this client I won’t have much to do until spring,” Cindy said. “I can help you out more on the ship if you want.”

“It’s fine,” I repeated. “This is my special personal project.”

Cindy nodded, though she continued to give me an appraising look. “You know, if you wanted to do something impressive, you could have just remodeled your house. Or run a marathon.” Before I could argue, her phone ran. “Oh, I gotta take this. I’ll see you at the office!” She waved as she answered the call and wheeled her cart over to the registers.

Olive gave me what could only be described as a judgemental look.

“We don’t need her, Olive,” I said. My dog stared back at me, unconvinced.


April

The rain had kept me off the SS Pomona for two weeks. Now the sun was meekly trying to shine through the clouds, but before me was a swamp of mud. I needed to put up the trellises and I was supposed to be getting a start on planting the root vegetables, but none of that would happen if this soupy mess didn’t clear up.

Olive bounded around, spraying mud everywhere and generally looking extremely satisfied with life. “Do you mind?” I snapped. He ignored me.

Maybe I could start working on my shed. That didn’t have to be nestled in any sort of soil. I slopped over to my tool bin, which was when I discovered my mistake: I hadn’t put any sort of tarp over my lumber. The wood was twisted and deformed, the once-neatly stacked pile now a mess of unusable beams.

“No!” I cried, startling Olive out of his tail-chasing. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot who lost all of her money on a junker instead of planting some nice tomatoes like everyone else.

My phone rang. It was Noa. “Hey! How’s the Pomona? I was thinking of bringing Carli over to see it. Do you mind if we drop by?”

“No!” I said once again, hoping this time it would have more of an effect. “I don’t want anyone to see it until it’s ready. It looks terrible right now.”

“Come on, Kalei, she’s getting a master’s in soil biology. I think she can handle it.”

“I don’t think I can handle it right now,” I said, my throat feeling uncomfortably tight.

“Is everything okay?” Noa asked, their voice changing from snarky to soft.

I shook my head, though the only being who could see me was Olive. “I can’t do this, Noa. I made a mistake. It’s too much work and I never should have bought this stupid thing. I can’t do it anymore.”

The line was silent for a moment, and I could picture Noa as they rolled their eyes and mouthed to Carli I told you so. “No,” Noa’s voice finally stated. “You just can’t do it alone. Do you really want to see this public garden happen?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Then go home and get some rest,” Noa ordered. “I’m going to make a few calls.”


July

“The SS Pomona is now officially open to all!” I held Olive in my arms as Noa cut the green ribbon that we’d strung across the gangplank. The small group of people that had gathered for our opening streamed onto the deck of the ship. It wasn’t the cheering crowd that I’d dreamed of, but everyone here had contributed to the SS Pomona’s success in some way. Every one of them understood the love that I felt for it. Even my parents were there; I think they finally understood my crazy idea.

Hopefully, the message of the SS Pomona would spread, and people in need of food would come to gather the produce that was hanging ripe on vines and buried deep in the dirt. No strings attached, no shame, just good food and people to help it grow.

“I can’t believe we did it,” I said as Noa, Carli, and I strolled around the gardens. Some of the beds were still empty, and it would be another two or three years before the trees would bear any fruit. But it was so much better than I had feared it would be. The beans and tomatoes were thriving, and the herb garden was large enough to supply several Italian restaurants. One of Carli’s friends from back home had been kind enough to donate ladybugs and worms. We had even used a bit of the space to plant some flowers. One of my coworkers was planning on setting up a beehive in a few weeks.

Weaving throughout the garden were the mangrove trees, bushes, and wild grasses that had first taken root here. It felt wrong to remove them all, since they were the ones who had created this path for me in the first place. While I hadn’t heard of any other ships that had been reclaimed by nature the way the SS Pomona had, I wondered if our project could be replicated elsewhere. Or maybe the city would just finally get rid of its anti-foraging law. Noa was already using their extensive knowledge of legal jargon to draft a petition.

“The chickens were a nice touch,” Carli commented as two of our friends’ kids watched our small flock in awe.

“I’m just glad we found someone to build them a fence so they can’t climb off the boat and drown!” Noa said. “Then we’d have to have actual chicken-of-the-sea for dinner.”

Carli rolled her eyes and kissed her fiancé.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go do some harvesting before the only thing that’s left is zucchinis.”


86 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page