By Richard Al Ledger

“Yes darling, its magnificent.” He said with a drawl that couldn't not be interpreted as somewhat sarcastic.

She stood a while longer staring at the magnificent tree; its dark bark, impressive girth, roots which splashed from the short grass like waves intermittently around the circumference of its base. The varnished leaves – thousands of them! All glued onto the branches which splayed wildly on waxy petiole, swaying with the breeze like hula spirits, cupping water in their slick skins as if tasked to catch sky tears from a recent rain shower from the vapour deities.

“Come on, it'll get dark soon, and I need to pop out for a while when we get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Oh, nowhere really, just out – but I'll need to get changed first.”

“But you look fine?”

“Well you'd dragged me up this hill and caused me to sweat.”

“You're so silly.”

“And look at the mud on the soles of my shoes.”

It wasn't going to get dark soon, he was lying – he was bored of the tree, bored of her deep affection to it. After all, it was only a tree; they were surrounded by them. He looked over the hill; the horizon was blanketed by trees he considered identical to this one. She noticed him glance irritatedly at his watch.

“Okay, okay darling we'll go.” She began to move away but held her gaze upon the tree until the final possible blink, before taking his reluctant hand, allowing him to escort her back home.

“But I may pop back this way tomorrow if it doesn't rain.”

The next morning she woke up early. Scrambling on her loose jeans and pullover she looked out of the window at the rain. It hit the glass, lashing in waves and leaving its imprint, etching liquid veins which fell slowly then sat pooling on the windowsill below.

She looked over at him. He’d come home late, slipping quietly into bed, reeking of alcohol and musk. She hadn’t slept a wink, but feigned sleep the moment he stepped into the room and had gotten under the covers.

Nevertheless, she left the house without another thought. Marching through the picket gate and down the path. Through the cluster of houses which they neighboured, up the muddy bank and then she started up the hill.

When she finally reached the tree she was soaked to the skin, her pullover almost transparent from the heavy rain, showing the impressions of her bed t-shirt underneath, clinging to her cupped breasts. Her jeans chaffing at the thighs, her sneakers sodden to the rubber, mud splatters up to her hamstrings. She didn't seem to notice, stood a couple of yards back from the tree, gawping up at it, the rain smashing against her brow and cheeks.

She opened her mouth and drank in some of the rain water, closing her eyes and letting the open skies fall on her eyelid cups. She heard a dull thud over the continuous rumble of water barreling down onto the already saturated earth – she looked down at her feet to see what the noise could be – there sat a single ripe apple.

She picked the fruit up and stared at it. Strange, for she had not noticed apples on the tree previously. But looking again there they were, hundreds of them dangling like Christmas baubles weighted heavy on the branches. They must have burst forth overnight after all the rain, she thought. Fattened and summoned by the damp, overfed soil and full skies.

The apple was green turning a greyish towards the stem. It had a pink blush on one side which looked most tempting. Without a second thought she took a large bite, almost down to the core. Enjoying the juicy flesh and the snap of the skin, instinctively she took another bite, and then another, and it wasn't long before the apple had been completely devoured.

After savouring the final bite she tossed the core onto the ground, watching it settle into the wet grass, and decided to head back to the house to get warm and out of her wet clothes. She didn't want him waking up and wondering where she was, or even worse, knowing where she was and getting mad about it. No, she'd get dry and make him a large pot of coffee and two slices of white toast, enjoy the rest of the day with him, let him tell her all about his escapades from the night before.

The apple core sat on the grass, rapidly turning brown, beaten by the unrelenting rain droplets. Three small seedlings sat exposed, sort of like the heart of a torn cocoon, suspended at the core where the flesh had been just recently ripped away by jagged teeth. Suddenly, without force or due cause, the seeds began to move – as if being dislodged. Gaining momentum, they tumbled free, one after another – landing on the grass with a soft, deliberate plop.

They lingered only seconds before springing to life, rustling through what, to them, were vast towering grasslands. It wasn’t long before they found one another again, embracing each other with tiny extended limbs, with permanently fisted hands like matchstick ends.

“Good job.” One of them said with a high pitched voice. A miniscule mouth in the middle of the seed's facade, below where eyes would have been should they have had any.

“Yes, you too. A complete success from my point of view. An unqualified success.” The second seed retorted enthusiastically.

The two seeds who had spoken both turned to the third, whom somewhat struggled to separate two large blades of grass in order to join them.

“What? Yes. Complete success.” The third said, finally prising the large green wisps apart. “Very happy, indeed.”

“And he’s in?” the first asked.
“Yes, he’s in. Safe and sound.” said the third.
“Safe and sound.” they echoed in unison.

They patted one another on the back with the bulbous tips of their tiny wooden arms, then marched on – through the tall grass, back toward the tree.

“Safe and sound.”
Back toward home.

She woke the next day later than usual. He was already up and milling around in the bathroom. The first conscious noise she heard was the buzz of his electric shaver, realising shortly after with a flood of sedate thought – it was Sunday. He always groomed on Sunday, ready for the forthcoming week.

She spun her legs out of bed, the morning chill hitting between the toes and bottoms of her feet. She felt stiff, and moving was a struggle. She sat up and scrunched her shoulders into the back of her head, her muscles felt sore and knotted. She lifted her arms up, which brought on a yawn, but even that too felt difficult. Her ribcage felt tight, breathing through stiff keys. A heaviness clung to her limbs, as if gravity had quietly doubled overnight.

“Strange.” She said to herself. Looking over at the clock on the side table; 8:13am.

She got up, shuffled towards her yoga mat which was sat atop the reading chair in the corner of the room. Rolling it out, she somewhat fell to the floor. It felt as though her joints had been welded shut in her sleep, and now she was prying them open with sheer will.

She sat cross legged, very sore – her spine felt tight like it was pulling away from her pelvis as she did so. Hauling her right foot towards her was a great struggle. She massaged the bottom of her feet as she did most days. They felt coarse, more so than usual, and a thick leathery patch covered her heel, flaking away when she touched it – thin brittle brown flakes of skin fell onto the yoga mat beneath her like fish food.

“Really strange.”

He sat on the sofa, her head resting in his lap, stretched out across the cushions. He scrolled through his phone intently, while she read the novel everyone was talking about – this year's hot new female writer, apparently, though she wasn't convinced. He eventually set his phone on the armrest and looked down at her, watching her closely. She noticed but chose not to acknowledge it.

He began to stroke her hair. His fingers were thick and heavy, coarse at the tips, and she felt every pass of them against her scalp. He combed through slowly, tenderly. She tensed – partly from the pain it was causing, and partly from the faint sound of something dry and heavy falling onto the cushion beneath her – dandruff.

“You have terrible dandruff, darling.”

“I know, it came on overnight. I'll conditioner my hair later, maybe I forgot to do it.”

“You should wash your hair more often. I know you've got a lot of it but you shouldn't leave it so long.”

“I wash my hair plenty enough, thank you. It takes a long time to wash and dry – takes a hell of a lot of time. Not like your short crew cut. You don't know how easy you boys have it.”

“Yeah but, still.”

She punched him affectionately on the wrist from where she lay. He caught her hand and gave it a playful tug – a sharp pain shot up her arm, but she didn’t let it show. With a grin, he pulled her upright and swung her around so she was facing him. Her body jolted with the movement awkwardly. Something inside her felt off – stiff, aching. Rigid, like she was hardening from the inside out.

He kissed her, slowly at first, then with growing passion. His hands explored her face, hesitating where the hardened patches revealed themselves beneath the soft disguise of makeup. She felt his fingers graze her jaw, then trace her neck. She flinched – its surface coarse now, brittle like weatherworn bark. She tried to pull away, but not fast enough to hide what was becoming undeniable.

“What's wrong?” He said as she forcefully broke off and moved to the other side of the sofa in protest.

“Nothing I – just don't feel like myself today.”

“I just wanted to fuck you.”

“I know, it's nice – just – not today.”

“I don't care about your – weird skin thing. You know that right?”

“Thanks.”

The silence between them was thick, stretched tight across the length of the sofa they shared.

“It's probably just eczema or something.” He said absently.

“Maybe.”

“Or perhaps you need to drink more water.”

“Maybe.”

He instantaneously grabbed his phone again and was immediately lost in it.

“Your loss.”

It hurt her that was all he could offer to comfort her.

“I'm going to go out.” He said putting his phone in his pocket.

“Again? Where?” She replied, looking up at him as he got to his feet.

“Just, out. Won't be long.”

He walked out of the living room without a second glance. She sat curled into the corner of the sofa, knees pulled to her chest – even though it pained her to do so it also protected her. Listening to the distant sound of him tying his shoes in the hallway. He didn’t speak again. No goodbye. Just the door clicking shut. She wouldn’t admit it – not to him – but his actions hollowed something inside her further.

The first circuit of tunnel-reality is generally called “consciousness” – the sense of being here and now – in the body, oriented to the survival of the body itself. The tree stood at the top of the hill. Planted, but yet somehow also watching. Watching what was occurring and what would occur next.

The next morning she awoke with a startle. The house was quiet, he had already gone to work. Strange that the noise of him getting dressed and washed hadn't woken her, as it usually did. The sun was already high in the sky, radiating through the polyester net curtains, dimming the room with a soft, filtered glow. He had returned home late again, then.

She tried to move, yet initially her whole body resisted her request wholly, didn't budge. Not one bit. She was stiff from the neck downwards, locked in place. She immediately plunged into a panic, her breathing became shallow and rapid, a wave of prickly cold sweats washed over her. Her stomach turned and dropped, her thigh muscles clenched harder still.

“What the fuck?” She whispered under her breath.

Through pure endeavour she began to move – slowly, painfully. Each joint cracked and splintered beneath the motion, as if calcified shut, so much so it was obeying her will. A scream tore from her dry throat; the pain was overwhelming, consuming – unlike anything she’d ever known. Her limbs had seized entirely, joints fused tight, as though cartilage had vanished and bone ground mercilessly against bone. But it didn't feel like bone, something else instead, something foreign and terrifying that mixed with nothing but agony.

She shuffled out of bed and collapsed onto the carpeted floor. She looked at her hands, they were a brownish and her skin had hardened overnight with chronic callouses, strange coarse patches and jagged grooves, sore brittle endings where once there were fingertips and veins. Some sort of severe skin disease now, she thought. A dermatological condition, perhaps. Maybe just an aggressive allergic reaction to her new moisturiser.

It must be that.

She looked down at her chest, exposed beneath the slack collar of her bed-worn T-shirt. Her once fair skin was now coarse, ridged with cracks and fibrous seams, as though years of wind and rain had weathered her flesh into something more ancient, more rooted. Her breasts, once perked and complimented on often, now resembled wooden curls – gnarled, unmoving – like a sentient God's old memory of a woman.

She felt a sharp pain twist through her stomach, making her wince – each breath sending fresh waves of agony. She curled into a fetal position, her bones and joints crackling like a hollow chalk frame. She felt a surprise excretion from of her vagina, like she had birthed something – or possibly even things.

After a momentary pause, the pain eased enough for her to try standing. Gripping the bedside table for support, the clock wobbled dangerously but didn’t fall as she rose unsteadily. She felt something slide down the inside of her pyjama trousers as she straightened up – solid and cold, like oversized marbles. She shook her leg gently, coaxing two or three to fall free. Hearing a soft rolling sound on the carpet, she glanced down to see three tiny, perfectly formed green apples resting quietly beneath her. She began to cry.

The second circuit is often referred to as the “ego” — and within some scientific discussions, there’s a growing belief that all living beings – whether mammal, plant, or fish – possess some form of it. It’s considered essential for growth, reproduction, nurturing, and survival. The young man pulled his woman up the hill by the wrist with an eagerness and restless energy. He stopped abruptly and admired it with a quiet awe – staring at it intently, radiating a form of magnificence.

She sat in a quite cafe, choosing one of the few centre tables, away from the glaring light which plunged into the room from the large bare windows which separated her from the noise of the high street. She wore a sun hat, even though indoors, borrowing his sunglasses to hide her blood shot eyes and dark circles. A turtle neck sweater pulled up to the chin to hide painful jagged scars which etched across her nape.

Her eyes lingered, her gaze hung in the middle distance at nothing in particular through the window at the outside. She caught a glimpse of a man walking past. He wore a baseball cap down his face and large aviator sunglasses, a trench coat over a thick winter sweater, the collar curled up to the ears. Maybe she wasn't the only one.

She looked across the street at a single feeble tree planted in concrete. Only a patch of dry, unkept soil surrounded it, nestled amid miles of tarmac and tar. Its trunk was no thicker than sugarcane, and its pathetic, dry leaves jittered in the breeze.

“She's coming.” The tree said to her in a deep bellowing voice, through the astral force. “She’s finally here. Our God will rejoice in her plan and savour our souls, as we reclaim our dominance over this planet – for its own wellbeing and our own.”

The tree fell silent again.

“Here you go, madam.” A young waitress placed a coffee carefully on the table. Her attention so fixated on the tree that the waitresses sudden presence made her startle. Instinctively she reached for the cup, exposing brown leather driving gloves over split, gangrenous crooked fingers. The waitress peered at her with mistrusting eyes, before quickly scuttling off towards the back of house area.

“Thank you.” She said, picking up the cup, looking back over at the tree. It was painful even to lift a porcelain container filled with foamed milk and espresso. Her hand quivered, and beneath her sunglasses her eyes filled with tears again.

Her gaze drifted toward people living their ordinary lives – in ordinary skins, with ordinary joints, mouths, feet – loyal skins – loyal to them, not betrayed skin like hers. Menial troubles, trivial frustrations – they now seemed like gifts. They didn’t know how good they had it, walking around in healthy bodies. Not this one. Not this rotting hell she was trapped in now. Not knowing how the body could turn on you, hollow you out, leave you humming inside a stinking bark and trapped.

She heard the front door open across the room. It was her best friend Maria – the only person she could call upon at a time like this. Long straight bronze hair and fare skin, blushed cheekbones and skinny lips. She looked even more beautiful than normal, a swarm of jealous thoughts once again flooded her dank pit where the chest sat. Those vile troglodytes the normals. No, she mustn't think that, she thought – nobody could possibly conceive what she was going through.

She stood up, pained, the tendons behind the knees fused almost solid. “Hello, darling.”

Maria increased her pace when she finally noticed her. Initially not recognising her good friend behind the sun hat and sunglasses.

“Hello babe, what's all this?” Maria suggesting with two fingers the layers, as if painting the air as she approached.

“Oh, just a little skin condition, I'll be going to the doctors tomorrow for some ointment.”

“Oh goodness, sorry about that. Cappuccino, please?” Maria said to the approaching waitress.

They embraced, she tried not to outwardly wince in pain as Maria held her close.

“So, how've you been?” Maria asked, taking her seat.

“Oh, you know.”

“And hows that boyfriend of yours?”

She decided to keep her cards close to her chest. “He's fine.”

“Is he? Good.”

She noticed Maria's response to her answer sounded strange. Somewhat manufactured.

“How have you been?”

“All good here, darling. In fact I've started seeing a new man.”

“Oh another one?”

They both laughed.

“Quite.”

The waitress brought the cappuccino over and placed it on the table next to Maria. They both fell silent, taking short sips of coffee. Through the glass on the high street there was a muted scream, two young men sprinted past with urgent faces. A woman, crying, held her head and walked past the coffee shop at a pace.

“So, what's –” Maria stopped herself, not sure whether to bring up the odd clothing attire again, and on such a warm day, and indoors no less. “What's with the – get-up?”

“Well.” She set her coffee down, unconsciously tucking her gloved hands beneath the table, pressing them under her solid thighs. “It's sort of complicated, I –”

“What's complicated darling just tell me. Is it a rash?” Maria's face hardened and she leant in, quieting her voice. “Is it skin cancer?”

She sat quietly. Beyond the windows, a commotion continued. Shouting, running, the fractured noise of panic through double glazing. People were looking upward, not at a building, but at something moving along the skyline, tracking it with wide eyes and craning necks, mothers held babies tightly and ran.

She began to cry. Her tears tinted with a green pigment. Green because each blade of grass is a tiny antenna tuned to the frequency of the cosmic broccoli. She knew it now – because she was one of them. Of the forest, of the leaf, attuned to their senses, fluent in their quiet, rustling logic. Her mind had been fused into the forest’s will – a symbiotic will, a pulse of growth, decay, and renewal, humming beneath her now fused bark and bone.

A strange, fierce anger surged through her, one she didn’t understand and couldn’t control. She was one of them now. Furious – angry – at what they had done to the planet. Their planet. Somehow, she also knew that the fury felt like it wasn’t entirely hers – more of a communal emotion.

She slammed an open palm down hard onto the table. Coffee spilled from china cups and rattled on saucers. The sugar pot toppled. People looked over and then turned away, instead to glance at each other and make suggestions with eyes around the room. She cried harder, green chlorophyll tears pouring below the frames of her tinted glasses and down hardened dry root skin.

In a panicked rage, she peeled the glove from her right hand – revealing what resembled brittle twigs sprouting from a tangled root cluster. Tiny seedling leaves unfurled at her fingertips, and when she moved them, the sound of creaking knots echoed in the room. Maria sat silently, stunned into quiet disbelief.

“I'm turning into a fucking tree Maria!?” She screamed.

“I – what?”

“A fucking tree! Can't you see?” She thrusted her twisted branch hand in front of Maria, causing her to topple her chair onto the back legs as she pulled away.

“I – babe – I don't know what to do with this information?” Maria said quietly, her breath stolen from her cavity somewhat.

She yanked off her glasses and sun hat in a fury, her face twisting into something no longer human to mortal eyes. A deep furrowed brow took shape, as if carved from solid bark itself.

“I'm fucking crying green! I'm crying grass out of my eyeballs, Maria! Don't you understand?”

“No, I –”

“I don't know what to do about fuckin' grass shit – coming out of my eyes!”

“I'm sorry I don't know what –”

“And my vagina?” She grabbed at her crotch and twisted, sounds like straining cables. “Looks like a big fucking hairy open pistachio shell. Hard to touch, hard all around and then, just – gaping!?”

A man who had been sitting alone nearby, quietly reading his newspaper over an espresso, folded the pages with care, stood, and promptly left the cafe. As he passed the unravelling woman, he cast her a mean spirited glance – a curled lip, a lingering look of distaste – before disappearing out the door.

“I'm – fucking – hollow up there!?”

Maria didn't know where to look. Glancing behind her, hoping nobody else was listening but of course they were, all of them. Everyone else in the cafe had stopped what they were doing, caught in the wake of the diatribe. Through the glass windows people continued to run, cars sped along the road recklessly, without regard for others.

She paused, holding her pistachio shell vagina, hoping Maria would talk. Say something of great value to her or maybe something comforting. Tell her something that could fix her, correct her situation, reassure her that everything would be okay – but everything wasn't going to be okay. She was rapidly turning into a tree and she knew it. Flesh had been replaced by bark, innards now wood. Maria just gawped at her on the other side of the table, open mouthed. Unblinking. From behind the counter, a retching sound broke the silence – someone was vomiting.

The third circuit of what we perceive reality is – symbolic intelligence. If consciousness is the sky and ego the cloud, then symbolic intelligence is the lightning that etches meaning into and from the storm. Where the tree once stood, there was only spoiled soil and the lingering suggestion of something recently gone. On the horizon, a shadow loomed – vast and heavy – blocking out the sun.

She stumbled from the cafe, falling through the front door. Almost knocked over by a man running in the opposite direction at pace.

She looked over at the pathetic spindly tree – it was now uprooted and lashing its fine branches against an unsuspecting man in a grey business suit who was curled up on the pavement, protecting his face from the flogging the best he could.

She looked up high, and sure enough, there she was – massive, awe-inspiring, a godly sight to behold. Deep within her, a choir of invisible beings murmured a song yet to unfold, echoing through the silence of time.

People were running away from her. Tarmac split like old stale bread around invisible roots. A pedestrian was mid-step and now a mother had no son. The sky above it bent peculiarly. Light gathered at its apex, then dispersed at awkward angles. Signals dropped. Power cables toppled. Birds fled. Dogs howled and lay flat to the ground. Cat's paid little attention.

“You're here and I am too because I am you.” The chanting inside the new God became clear, repeating softly, and it was beautiful.

She looked around at the people running – panic stricken no matter what race or religion – it was only abject fear seared into every pair of eyes. She looked back at the cafe through the large windows, Maria sat open mouthed staring directly at her, unblinking – non-breathing even.

She spun back around, the remains of another recently trampled pedestrian laying prone in the middle of a footprint of soil and dirt. The mangle of bones moved sporadically – twitching nervous systems breaking down, but there was no longer a human there at all.

She began to panic, noticing more prone dead bodies and destruction as the massive behemoth Tree God passed slowly overhead. Helicopters began circling nearby like nervous insects, careful not to stray too close – within reach of a striking limb that could swat them out of the sky to a certain death.

She heard a noise – a car engine in low gear at high revs, and then a blur in her periphery. She was showered in tiny glass particles like sand and waves of screaming. Parts of a building hit her lower leg, the engine cut out – for a moment there was nothing but quiet. She turned her head and looked at the crumpled cab which had penetrated the cafe like an iron trojan horse. Maria wasn't there anymore. Just a flesh casing under metal and bricks that looked like Maria. A hand under a tyre clutched a mobile phone separated from the body at the wrist.

She tried to scream but nothing came out. She looked at her hands, they were mutating – twisted, skin splitting as green tendrils burst through finger ends, congealed blood encasing the tips. The new God bellowed – a sound so deep it shook the ground beneath her feet. Nearby, an office building shuddered, and the last of its intact windows shattered in an instant, it sounded almost beautiful.

She stumbled into the street, figures and shapes moved around her like shadows. She couldn't hold a thought nor her vision – it wavered like tinted dreams. The suggestion of sky looked ginormous as the God turned, throwing a giant tree trunk limb at a helicopter that had dared to get too close. The chopper plummeted from the sky as a burning ball of flames like a comet. Sheer yellow and red filled her vision.

A car swerved suddenly, crashing into her at high speed. She felt nothing – it all happened too fast. She was propelled a hundred yards down the street in fragments: limbs, wood, bark, facial features, toes, tits. Her scalp struck the ground with a sickening impact, skidding across the concrete before coming to a jarring stop against the curb.

The car braked hard and came to a sudden halt. A man started crying in the drivers seat without blinking. The God cried out, shifting the clouds above. Underneath the downturned scalp, a small seedling wriggled out from under a jagged flap of skin, smeared in brain matter. It stood up and brushed off its small, fragile wooden knees. The tiny pip looked out over her scattered remains and the chaos engulfing the street. Without another seconds thought it began to run, screaming out from a tiny mouth hole.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! I better not get in trouble for this!”

End.