The Trees Swallow People: Part 21

It was dark on Easter Sunday. So dark I would have gone back to sleep had Diva not started barking, wanting to go out for a wee. I grumbled, swearing, getting dressed since I was sleeping in the nip with the warming nights, slipping into a pair of slip-ons and shuffling through the house and to the door. It was only when I opened the front door, with Diva shooting out, parading in a circle, and then piddling on the gravel, that I realised it was still as dark as night during the day. Street lamps still shone in the shadow of the great behemoth, spanning and stretching across the blue sky, eclipsing us in a paradoxical night. The houses were all abandoned as their doors hung open, the last remaining residents standing on the street, gawking up at the mass of fir reaching from horizon to horizon; from East to West. The rippling sea of branches shuddered and moved with a breath of a giant, threatening to give out from its own weight. There was no taper, no convergence of vanishing point; you wouldn't be able to tell if it was one straight body or if it' grew in diameter as it went. It was the mega-tree growing in the centre of the paddock.

The disconcerting estrangement filled the silence left by us standing outside our homes, as though we thought the stretching rings of sappy branches would reach down and sweep us up if we dared speak. Night shrouded everything, yet in the short framed glimpses of the sky we could see was an expanse of powder blue, nauseously discombobulating out sense of time and place, like fleeting seconds of not recognising your own reflection, skewed and prolonged enough to disturb and distress. Imagine the dysphoric lurch to tear off one’s skin in the dire hope that it would appease someone and grant you a modicum of release; the paradoxical feeling that death or self-flagellation would restore life to tranquillity.

We all watched, our necks craning up, settling into pangs of pain, as a rippling shudder ran the length of the tree, shushing a rattle of branches and creaking with the strain of buckling bark. Following the wave of moss green on the shaded underbelly of the tree, you could see the most westernly length was noisier; prickly like static from distance and myopia. So it was distorting its shape as it went on. Was it to block the sun completely?

We waited for another shudder, as if the monstrous creature was awakening, but no more came from the mega-tree. Instead, with a chorus of gnarling creaks, crashing glass, a percussion of cracking brick, and the horrified screams of women and men, the trees from the back gardens of our houses began to stretch upwards and grow. Willows, birches, oaks, aspens; they all ascended, scaling on a single axis, as if mocking us with just how horrendously misshapen and malformed they can make themselves into. I turned to my roof and sure enough, I saw that the tree in our back was wriggling and worming its way up into the sky. It reminded me of those spores that infect an insect, eat their insides, and then sprout a nimbly stem that bursts and spews more spores, repeating the process. Are we insects?

Up, up, and up they went, carrying with them pieces of houses and the garden. There was a skinny aspen that sprinkled dust and crumbling nuggets of cinder-blocks after most likely breaking through a wall. The willow in Mary's back looked clumsy with the tarp still shrouding it, blowing off and drifting down off into the next estate once it was high enough. We all watched, mortified, as an elm, broad and bulbous, carried away a bed, with a single, sleeping arm hanging over the side. I hope for their sake they're dead. Each one of the trees, stretching up hundreds of metres into the sky, vanishing into the shadowy chasms in between the bushy branches, giving the almost comical appearance of a spindle legged shaggy centipede.

How long we stood there, anticipating something else miraculously hellish to appear next, I couldn’t say for sure, but at some point that nosey Emma Murphy from three doors down brought out her old portable FM radio and yelled for everyone to listen. The radio was so small and far away that ironically our reaction was to noisily rush over to hear better. Diva gained the ire of Emma as she snorted and grunted along after me as I jogged over.

Once we all settled, we could hear an RTÉ news report confirm that it wasn't just our imagination; there was indeed a giant tree in the sky. Thank God; I was starting to worry. Aerial imagery was able to show, according to the report, that the tree was originating from the paddock and was landing and seemingly burrowing into Maynooth. I wondered if it was the business park. One of the local drug dealers in the estate chortled and announced how it wasn't any loss; it was only Maynooth. The shush and disdainful glances quickly silenced them. The news reporter, I think it was Eoin or Ian or something, fell silent as well, as though he heard us, but the rush of steps and rustle of papers from a station producer hinted that instead breaking news had just been received. The mumbling and heated whispers between the two drew us in closer with hungry curiosity and a fattening desire for information. Finally, a roar erupted, repelling everyone from the radio like a shock-wave.

I'VE GOT FAMILY THERE!

The producer, hissing and rushing incoherently in a hushed tone filled with stinging harshness, was able to at least contain themselves enough to pull us back in, straining to make out their words, echoing them out loud in part to confirm with each other we had heard them right.

Do it?

I don't care?

Good as dead?

Do your job?

Spreading?

Finally, Eoin or Ian or something returned, unable to contain the emotion and the struggle to not cry from appearing in every punch of every syllable. The government had been monitoring the situation in Leixlip closely and have come to the decision that military force is necessary to combat the mega-tree. As such, they've sought aid from the government and air-force of the United Kingdom, who have confirmed that they will be sending fighter jets to intercept it. In a quivering pause, the report clarified that the RAF are going to fire missiles at the mega-tree and as such all remaining residents of Leixlip are to stay inside and seek shelter as best as we could.

Leixlip being Leixlip, of course nobody listened. We all stood there, waiting to see if we would survive. Or maybe we hoped that if we were to die there and then, at least there was going to be a show.