Soil Keeps The Score
This tale is not for the faint of heart.
It was August when the tree began to bear its ugly fruit.
The first day in July it hit 90 degrees the smell of rotting flesh permeated everything. I moved the furniture, checked the vents, stuck my head in dark corners, and my fingers in dusty ones but could not find the source. At first, I thought it was a dead mouse, a dead bird, or a squirrel. It wasn’t until I stepped outside to escape the disgusting, wretched smell that I found the tree was the source.
The smell inside the house was dastardly but outside it grabbed you by the throat and begged you to stop breathing. It begged to do anything but exist in a world that could harbor a stench so fucking foul. I scurried back inside before I threw up the muffin I had for breakfast.
A week after calling for someone to chop the tree down it began to bloom. I had never seen such striking red blossoms. They were as stunning as they reeked. The flowers were a five-pointed star-like shape that tapered off to a pristine white, an eerie contrast to the bloody red at the tips of the leaves. At this point it wasn’t that the smell stopped being unbearable it was just that I had grown slightly accustomed to the stench of decay.
The woodcutter arrived in a matte black truck. He was quite tall and had a very handsome face and thick forearms. He covered his nose immediately as he stepped out of the truck and retched. Our conversation was clipped to minimize both the amount of air we had to breathe outside and the time he would have to spend soaking in the stench. I went inside and left him to work. It only took 10 minutes before he pounded those meaty hands on my door.
“Hey yo! Something’s wrong with that fucking tree! It broke my saw!”
I yanked the door open and glanced at his saw which was now in two pieces.
“How the fuck did that happen?”
“Listen, I won’t charge you the full price but imma need something for the time and the broken equipment…” he said looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting the tree to disappear or grow arms and grab him.
“Send an amended invoice,” I said and didn't wait for him to respond before I closed the door to minimize more of the carcass stench getting inside.
When the sun set I found myself under moonlight staring at the massive beast of a tree. I had lived here since I turned 30 and had never really taken a good look at the thing. Tonight I became intimately familiar with the beast. I dragged my palm against its bark which was surprisingly smooth. It had been a few weeks and it’s true the stench although still disgusting had become a part of my daily dealings and so I had become the slightest bit desensitized to it. Either way, the smoothness of the bark caught me off guard. It was surprisingly soft too and almost gave way to the pressure of my palm. It felt skinlike and the thought to press my face against it rose in me and so I did and it was warm too. I took a deep breath and the saliva pooled in the back of my mouth as if preparing for vomit. I sat down and stuffed my head between my knees trying my best not to regurgitate at the discomfort of the skin-like bark and the rotting stench.
The problem was that deep slow breaths only filled my head with the revolting smell and in turn, made me more lightheaded. I pressed my back against the bark and looked up. There I saw several odd-shaped lumps hanging from branches. I was kicking myself for not bringing out a flashlight but; I was not expecting anything dangling from branches. The queasiness in my stomach had started to settle and so I decided to finally get my ass back inside before I experienced any more weird shit out here. I pushed myself off the ground and yelled “FUCK!”
There was a stinging pain in my hand and I could feel liquid trickling down my forearm.
“WHAT THE FUCK!!!” I screamed into the darkness of the night except it didn’t reverberate through the air the way words should on a clear summer night. It felt as if the tree had smothered the sound.
I drew my face close to the bark and whispered “What the fuck is your problem? Huh? What the fuck is your problem you stink ass bitch ass tree?” then I spat on its ghoulish bulging roots and kicked its thick trunk.
“WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. YOUR. PROBLEM?” I asked again emphasizing every single word and squeezing my palm tight to slow the bleeding, not that it made much difference.
I walked backward keeping my eye on the tree as I made my way back to the door of the house. If I didn’t know better I would say that it leaned toward me menacingly but it could’ve been my lightheadedness or the lack of light. Whatever it was I still felt the dark discomfort clawing its way through my veins and burrowing into my brain matter too. In the bathroom, I wash my palm and do my best to clean the wound. The porcelain sink cradles the blood as if it’s hesitant to let it drain out. The contrast reminds me of the tree’s blooms and I open the pipe wider to speed up the process.
Tonight, sleep is a bullet train and I cannot catch it. I couldn’t decide if the smell was stronger or if I just couldn’t shake the warm skin like feel of the tree bark. The stinging in my palm didn’t help either. I greet the sunlight with dry eyes and an aching palm eager to be distracted by work. I ignore the text from my brother asking how I’m doing. I do my best to bury myself in tedious and mind-numbing admin tasks. Still, I find myself at the foot of the tree at noon.
I’m still a few strides away from the trunk but even from here, my feet are centimeters away from roots in any direction. I don’t remember there being this many above ground but perhaps I had been… distracted lately. I don’t think I should close the distance between myself and the tree’s trunk but I do. I am a beetle’s wing span from it and it doesn’t look like skin but I still find myself hesitating to touch it. Scared to be right… scared to be wrong. The fear curls up in my core a Komodo dragon dangerous, scaly, and poisonous. I shove my hand against the trunk and gasp at the softness. The feel is so different from its look that I can’t pull my hand away. I’m not sure that I want to. In response, I feel the tree throb. The force with which I pulled my hand back in disbelief almost threw me to the floor. The branches above tremble and I look up and see the odd shapes of what I assume to be fruit. They dangle between the bloody blossoms like angry dark red splotches.
I take more steps back and really look at the tree. The fruit is almost as large as my palm and looks plump to bursting. I take more steps back until I’m more than a step away from the roots and find a large pebble thankful that it wasn’t my dominant hand sliced last night. I cock my arm back and fling the stone with all my might at one of the fruit and it connects. The red thing lands with a wet dense-sounding thunk and rolls towards me as if to challenge me. I pick it up and it feels like it’s twelve pounds and has slick skin. It makes the hair on my skin stand in salute but I hold onto it tightly as I turn my face back upward waiting for something… anything. I carry the ugly thing inside and set it on the table.
By the time dinner rolls around I’ve done everything in my power to avoid smashing the thing open and seeing what's inside. I finally cave. I pick up my knife with the green handle and stab the thing. The knife slides in like it’s beef tallow. The fruit falls apart exposing a brown inside that smells like cheap perfume sprayed in a morgue. I toss it in the trash can nervous that it’ll kill me. I haven’t heard the sound of birds in a while. If the birds are avoiding it so should I.
I shovel day-old soup into my mouth and make my way to bed. It had been a while since I had said a prayer but I pray tonight. I pray for relief. I pray for the scent to disappear. I pray to wake up to an empty yard or for it to be any day before that day it hit 90 degrees in July. I pray until I fall asleep.
The first thing I feel is the cold tile of the kitchen floor beneath my feet. The second thing I feel is the soft squelching of whatever I’m chewing on. Then the sickening perfume smell assaults me. It’s then that I look down to see half of the odd-shaped fruit that I tossed in the trash is on the table and its shell is empty. The other half is in my sliced hand its dark juice is snaking its way between my fingers and down my forearm.
I gag. Gods, I dry heave but it feels like the flesh of the fruit has sunk its tiny claws inside me so nothing comes up. I am left trembling and nauseous. I fling the pieces of fruit across the floor and try desperately to get the juice off my hand or the smell from my upper lip but it’s futile. The smell is inside me now. I need to leave. Go. I snatch my keys and open the front door only to find the yard covered in the fruit. They are everywhere as if placed meticulously at my door and pressed together by a force of magnetism. There is no place to step without stepping on them and so I and the wet crushing sound makes me want to peel off my skin. It reminds me of… I shake my head. There is only escaping there is only getting to the car and driving away til that nasty scent is a faint memory. Only every step is a step toward the tree instead of the garage. Only I am sobbing snot tumbling down my lips and tremors racking my body.
I kneel at the foot of the tree and shove my hand into the soft dirt there. The bad hand stings and I stifle a moan. I shovel dirt frantically. It gets everywhere under my nails, in the cut of my palm, even the ends of my long braids hold soil. Then I find the fabric. I tug exposing more of the pattern under the moonlight and the monstrous branches of the angry ugly tree. It’s yours. It’s the blue shirt with the white pattern that you wore whenever you slept over. Then it comes to me a memory like a tidal wave swallows me with violence so primal I am actually vomiting at the roots of the massive tree still clutching to you–still clutching your shirt or whatever is left of you.
***
In our bedroom, I finally call you on your bullshit. You tell me there’s nothing I can do about it and you’d fuck them again. I call you a fucking bitch. You call me a stupid fucker with nothing but failure to show for a life of half-assing. We are a torrential downpour of insults and resentment sharpened to wound the deepest part of souls formerly housing love. I shove past you. I need to be anywhere but here screeching at you. In the bathroom, I splash water on my face and squint my eyes hoping this argument is a bad dream. You stand in the doorway in your stupid blue shirt smirking.
“It’s what you get,” you state. I stare at you like I have never seen you before. You fold your arms across your chest.
“Tell me you didn’t do it here?” It is more of a plea and prayer than anything else.
The silence stifles me and I feel my heart pounding a stereo to my ears.
“Our bedroom?” I choke out scared at the answer to what I already know.
“Right where you stand too,” you say with so much contempt that I start to think perhaps I have earned it.
I hate the smug look on your face and I want to wipe it off. The rage is so much I feel it racing through my like a rabid creature.
“Move,” I force the words out doing my best to keep myself from smattering you across the floor.
You refuse. I shove past. Then we are in a sphere of vengeful violence—rage. I black out. I black out and there’s blood. Blood in the bathroom sink. Blood on the knife with the green handle. I cradle you and now in my arms you seem too fragile to have caused me so much heartbreak. There is blood snaking down my arm and across my body. The slackness of your body makes me want to peel my own skin off. The soft squelching sounds of your deadness make me hollow. I take you to the base of the tree and dig. I dig and dig and offer you to the earth. The secret is mine, yours, and the tree.
***
I am still vomiting. I think the fruit has made me sick and I smell blood in the vomit. I know this is your doing. I know this is my doing. I am still crying but all the vomiting and whatever that fruit was has got me weak. I can barely muster the strength to sob loud enough to be heard. My head is the weight of a mountain. The sting in my bad hand intensifies and it takes all my strength to turn my head down. I see it then the root burrowing itself into my palm. If I could scream I would but I can do nothing but watch. I watch as it burrows deeper and I feel the pain slicing through me anywhere it goes. I watch as more of the roots wrap themselves around me and drag me down. There is no fight to be had. There is only the wet, cold, soil, your body, and mine. There is only thinning oxygen and the way dirt tastes a lot like regret and evening the score.
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Really enjoyed this! So well written could almost taste the smell in my mouth. I could see this as an A24 film.
oh my god NJ this is so good. that scene in the kitchen in the middle of the night actually made me gasp OUT LOUD. one of the best written scares in recent memory. this is so great.