October 26, 2023.

The Planting, Part 2.

That morning, which morning I did not know for I no longer counted the days, the sky was painted orange and I felt its warmth on my bark and the thick curve of each of my leaves, and drank goodly from it. I now looked down on the plot of land which was my own, and saw my friends and felt it soon would be time again to change in the way which I did each year, the change which the chill of the first winds asked of me, and the change felt good.

Then I still retained some hearing and some sight, but it was as through a veil of gossamer, a distant sensation remembered but not present in the place I lived, and I could see the field, and I could see the dirt road leading to Mr. Friend’s field, not used for years, now, for the field around me was overgrown and I no longer thought of it as Mr. Friend’s field but as my own, and I could hear my birds and I could hear the swaying of the grasses, and I could see far, for these past years I had grown some many rings and some many branches and I now towered as high as the treeline that obscured the road to town.

There was an ugly sound, a gutteral, grunting sound, that I did not recognize, or almost did not recognize, but it reminded me of another time, another place I had been, and it grew louder and my hearing was no longer distant but I focused on it intently, and my leaves trembled with it, for what it reminded me of was not a pleasant time nor place. And then a second sound, which I realized was coming from the trees, and it was laughter, ugly laughter, the ugly laughter of three men which had planted me here many long years ago. Then I grew scared, and fear seeped up my trunk like sour water, and I could taste the fear.

Mr. Tice’s Studebaker sneaked out from between old old oaks and grumbled and grunted its way to the bare earth before me where in these long years nothing had ever grown, stained as it was with ugly things that I could not name. The Studebaker was worn, rusted, and barely able to move, but it moved, and in it it carried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend, but Mr. Miller was not with them, and for this at least I felt some relief.

I saw to my surprise that Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend were old, now, the roundness of their backs bulging through their threadbare cotton shirts, their hair thinning and shot with gray. They were both smoking, and their near constant, manic laughter coughed clouds of smoke from lungs that I could almost see through their chests, throbbing with their laughter, their bones jangling loose inside them, their skin jangling loose atop.

They were speaking in between bouts of crazed giggling and their words sounded alien to me, I could not follow their words as I knew I once could, and they passed a bottle between themselves and though I tried I could not work out their intent. Were they here to finally destroy me, had they brought axes and saws and hammers to destroy me, even now, had they remembered, were they here to do as they had intended, years ago?

They tottled around to the Studebaker’s trunk and opened it, and I thought, here it is, here are the tools of my destruction, but instead they hauled out a young man, black as wet earth and dressed in an undershirt and briefs, his hands bound behind his back with jute twine. They danced around him, joking in their cruel way which was familiar to me, and dragged him to my base, to my roots.

Never did they look at me. They had forgotten me. I felt a sensation which I had long lost, but I found with a readiness which surprised me, and it filled me with warmth, but not the goodly warmth of the sun, but a burning, a fire, and I recognized it as anger. Fury. There was a horrible fury building inside of me. Not just at their actions towards this man, or the sorrow which they subjected me to long ago, but for being forgotten, forgotten! Bitter fire spread through me.

They handed the young man a spade and insisted he dig with wrists still bound behind him. He lay curled on one shoulder, and I could see now he was weeping, his face covered in sores from where they had beaten him, and he scratched at the soil at my base ineffectively, barely moving an inch at a time. They ignored him and leaned against the Studebaker, conversing, passing the bottle back and forth, watching the young man’s impossible task with disinterest.

Mr. Tice leaned over to Mr. Friend and whispered something, and that brought Mr. Friend’s laughing fit back. I watched down on them in my fury and did not know what to do. I prayed to God in Heaven for guidance. I wished lightning and roaring wildfire upon them, I wished for tornadoes and flood, for rot to fill their trunks and for sickness to weaken and blight their branches, and for blindness and disease.

But I could not reach them, for I was not able to move, nor speak, nor did God strike them down. Mr. Friend trod forth and spat hard on the boy, who had lost hold of the spade, and hauled him up to his knees and cut loose the twine with his bowie knife, and bade him dig hard and dig deep at my feet, which he began to do.

One long and spiteful Winter weakened me terribly, I tasted no sustenance and felt my own death riding near, a chill ran through me which I could not temper. I grew stooped and crooked, and even with the coming of a late Spring, my new branches paled and were laid through with weaknesses like brittle bones. The hale years which followed allowed them strength, but still I felt their weaknesses, spiraling, hidden fault lines which crossed their breadth.

I grew five new branches that bad year, four which came with faults, and I saw now that two of these laid over the dig site, over the young man, over the old men, over the rotting Studebaker.

And I found, with careful pressure

with careful pressure, at the right juncture, at the joint that I could feel the line’s crest

The fault burst and the first branch, a long, thin branch, but heavy, for it had grown in these past years, cracked off my body, and it crashed down upon the Studebaker’s windshield, bursting it and caving inward, knocking the steering wheel from its column, scattering glass and plastic through the cabin.

The old men leapt and cursed and tossed aside their cigarettes and the nearly empty bottle, and held their heads in their hands and circled the vehicle, its body caved. They howled and were no longer in such a hilarious mood, and chattered and cussed.

In their distraction, the young man with the spade rose, and instead of running away, as I had wished him to do, ran towards Mr. Tice with the spade raised, and brought it down on him. Mr. Tice turned quickly away and caught it on his shoulder, but it was a new spade with a sharp edge and went deep, separating tissue down to the bone. Mr. Tice cried out and swung a fist at the man, but missed, and the man used his foot to push Mr. Tice down and pull out the spade from the meat to protect himself from Mr. Friend, but Mr. Friend had gotten to him already and was tearing at his face and eyes with his fingernails.

They collapsed down in the dirt, and I had another branch I could loose with some effort but I did not want to hurt the young man. They rolled, and there was blood from both, the young man was knocked about the face by Mr. Friend’s open palmed hand, and they both screamed an awful, animal sound. The spade fell aside, and the young man looked as if he was lost, but then, he rolled over with a quick flip of his mass and pinned Mr. Friend down, down, his face in my dirt, and Mr. Friend could not breathe, he could not breathe and he could not reach the young man to pull him away, who was holding him by the scruff of his hair with one hand and pressing down on his neck with the other, and Mr. Friend jerked, and writhed, and jerked, and then lay limp in the pale earth.

The young man stood, and went over to Mr. Tice, who was rolling around on the dirt and moaning something terrible, and did something that I could not see, and then Mr. Tice was still and silent.

The young man thought for a very long time, and then he began to dig. He dug two deep holes and he buried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend at the base of my roots, and he cursed my roots in his digging but I did not mind. He put dirt back on top of them, and got into the Studebaker, and drove it some where, and then returned hours later, and spat on the ground where he had buried Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend, twice, and then patted his hands on his bare and wounded thighs, and began to walk back towards the road.

I have not seen anyone since. I no longer see nor hear. I am happy. The seasons or years I have seen since have been good. I am well watered by the rain. I am safe. I am well fed by the bodies of Mr. Tice and Mr. Friend.