Exploding Trees in the 1913's

My hand scraped against splintered wood and it felt as though I was not supposed to be there. Occasionally I would look up but the panic in my chest hurt too much and that was the panic I always got when I felt out of place. Instead I had to pretend that the only thing of any interest to me at that time was between my hand and that splintered wood. I knew that I couldn’t pretend much longer so I needed to think of something that could drag out my interest. I was never a very good actor. So I pulled my hand out hard and fast so that the splinters quickly became detached from the wood and found a new temporary resting ground in the palm of my hand. This bought me some much needed time as I could stare intently at the small particles of blood pooling around the tiny wounds. I slowly pulled at the splinters, pretending that I was clumsy and couldn’t get a good grip on them. I was slightly relieved as I knew this ordeal could carry me though for at least another ten minutes.

There was only one other person that I could count on. If there was ever anybody else in my life, I had completely forgotten them. I’m sure they must have existed as it was not possible that I could have gotten to that age without having gotten close to more than one person. It was difficult to have few memories. I spent a lot of time inventing things in my mind and focusing only on what was happening at that exact time, and in the most insane amount of detail. This was purposely so that there was little time to remember all that I had conveniently forgotten. I chose to assume that I conveniently forgot anyway.

The only person that I could count on was unreachable. This was why I was so focussed on the splinters, partly. It was also because there was a strange smell and everything in the air was red and people just stood around with no intent of going anywhere or doing anything. They just stood around. In fields, in streets, in gardens, in the middle of pools. It was eerie, to say the least.

The only person that I could count on had been found guilty of murder. I was sitting on a park bench underneath one of those trees. I knew that these were the trees that had massive leaves made of thousands of smaller leaves and children would rip them to pieces just to see the smaller leaves flutter to the ground. It was terrible for the tree but was so amazing to the children. It was sad. The trees had pods that grew very large and eventually exploded throwing tiny little seeds onto the ground but no matter how much love and attention the children provided, the seeds never grew into more trees. I didn’t even notice the leaves this day. Maybe I was old. Maybe the tree was deciduous. Maybe it was dead. I don’t know.

I pulled a particularly thick splinter from the palm of my hand and suddenly blood began to pour out of the hole and there was nowhere for it to go so it spilt onto the park bench. I liked the blood because it was the right colour. It was not the pretend red that filled the air and stuck itself to every living and non-living thing that currently existed. I knew that blood was supposed to be red and I was happy to see that it still was. I allowed myself to think about this for a few minutes. Thinking felt justified to me as a time waster and even if it did not appear that I was doing anything, I could be apparently fascinated by the blood that felt as though it would never dry.

Somebody sat on the end of the bench.

It did not occur to me that it was strange for someone to be animated in a world that appeared to have lost its animation. I did not dare to look up. I hoped that my movements were subtle as I slowly tried to move to the opposite side as I knew that once I accidentally looked up, I may have to communicate with this stranger and that left me with a feeling of discomfort.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and choked with instant panic, somehow I managed to feel as though this person was not going to force me to associate with anybody and that perhaps I had two people that I could trust. One not, perhaps, being on trial for murder. I looked up, and there was no feeling of realisation or comfort or terror or any other sort of emotion filled movie moment. There was just a young man sitting on the end of the park bench who happened to have a pair of tweezers in his front pocket. I knew that he knew they were there. I also knew that he knew that I didn’t want them as it meant that I would have less time to think of some other monotonous task to occupy my time.

Occasionally I felt I had to look up at this young man and smile. Perhaps he too had something going on inside his head and all he needed was a smile from a stranger. But I also doubted that. I felt slightly annoyed that he had broken my silent mind and interrupted my nothing. I felt slightly annoyed at him for existing when everyone else seemed to have ceased existence and now I was not the only person still existing.

There was a man who had been standing in the field since I arrived. He always had his back turned away from me but now he was walking towards us. It was a little odd. He had a plastic bottle in his hand and the man next to me spoke some silent words that I didn’t bother thinking about and then quickly walked away, somewhere behind. This man came closer. He was an older man with hair around the sides of his head and some wrinkles that perhaps had just begun to show. The top of his head, however, was free of any signed of age. I wondered for a while if this were to be the case for the rest of the man’s life, should he live to an even older age. He handed me the bottle. It was not a bottle, but a weapon, and now it had my prints on it. This worried me as I felt as though I was now guilty for some invisible crime that I knew nothing about and perhaps now I was in the same situation as my friend, the only person that I could count on.

My friend, the only person that I could count on. I always remember it, but I never really remembered it. So I stood up and walked away without even looking twice at the man or the bench or the bottle that was actually a weapon or the tree that existed purely to entertain small children. I just walked away and suddenly that was all forgotten as well. My friend was the only person that I could count on and he was soon to be killed, all alone. Death was not a prospect that I really cared a great deal about and I had never thought that perhaps somebody else might care for it. I didn’t understand what was so special about a world of breathing and red nothing and the only things that moved or lived were things that were there to tell a non linear and impossibly boring story. Nothing was real yet there wasn’t anything else and I understood that perhaps I could not help but I could at least pretend that perhaps, maybe, something existed and if my friend believed that it did then I could pretend, just for him. Just for a moment.

The time on the clock read half past three but in my mind I believed in was half past two and I felt somebody me it was half past one and that my friend had died at half past twelve. I did not know what was true. I knew he must be dead though. I did not understand why, punishment of death by death? Even if it was supposed to make sense, it never would. My stomach hurt from sudden guilt. Like that fear that maybe I had killed someone or caused my friend to be forgotten and therefore perished alone had all fermented inside my stomach and I couldn’t get away from it. It is not like a pain in your finger where you can bandaid it and it is not seen therefore it does not exist. Or an emotional pain that you can forget by falling asleep time and time again. It was physical and crippling pain in my stomach because I could not get away from the fact that my friend, the only person I could count on had died and they had died alone. Perhaps I was the only person that they could count on, and I let them down.

Now I had to survive and surviving just sounded so boring and long. It is like the prospect of going on a long drive when you are exhausted and every few minutes you look at your watch and groan a silent groan because there is so much more to go. This was like that. I could live forever for all I knew. I could live for too long for me to ever want to live and now I had to do it with this pain. I admit, perhaps I felt a little afraid.

There was a young girl. She was leaning against a fence. I call her a girl because she appeared vulnerable and usually the term young girl would refer to a child but she was probably closer to my own age. She just appeared young. She had brown hair with blonde regrowth and at the time I probably spent too much time dwelling on the fact that it was usually the other way around. I wondered if this was a reflection on her personality and how and whether or not it was shallow of me to consider whether or not it was. The fence surrounded a pub. This was strange as I had never seen any sort of business that had a fence.

Her knuckles were going white and I wondered if maybe she too was creating some sort of silent simile with my splintered park bench and me. This girl felt my guilt. She knew what had happened and she knew my friend. In any normal situation one would be slightly relieved that they had someone to share the guilt with. Unfortunately, my jealous side came out and I was angry that she existed and she was close to him and I had no idea who she was. She stared at me, right in the face, and I hated her even more. I blamed her for every sort of guilt that existed in the world and I threw the pain in my stomach metaphorically and angrily right at her and then I walked away. I knew that I had superficially relieved myself and in turn perhaps hurt someone who good be significant to whatever was to happen in any sort of future, but I didn’t understand that. I didn’t know what else to do. The girls name was Annette and there was no reason why I should know that.

I’d never known anybodies name.

I’d never heard anybody speak.

All I knew was that sometimes, at night, old houses with many rooms that were too small and with only the tiniest windows, the kind of houses that had peeling white paint that smelt bad after rain. Sometimes, at night, those houses made noises that I felt more so than heard. White paint, as apposed to red.