The Tree

Just a description exercise really. (once again no dialouge. sigh) The way I figured there were two ways to end this piece - either with escape or without - and then I decided it didn't really need an ending at all. If you're the kind of person who hates stories without endings, you are more than welcome to write your own.

Maribella dropped her haversack at the base of the oak tree, sat down, and leaned back to feel the rough bark press against her scalp.

The air was rife with the sweet rot of autumn and the throat tickling sting of auto-exhaust. She picked up a handful of the yellowing leaves that had exploded like confetti among the acorns and over the browning grass; disappointed that they were still to damp – to determined to cling to life, and refused to crumble to dust in her fist. She tossed them to the side with disgust, having forgotten about them as soon as they were out of her hands.

The tree sat near the edge of the one square block of depressed, stunted vegetation that counted as a city park. Besides the stout trees and withering vegetation one could find city wildlife: squirrels so used to humans they thought they were one of them, and the black rats, large as cats, that darted in and out of the cracks beneath the concrete stairwell that led out of the park and into the rusting steel and worn black rubber of the forgotten playground.

She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and pressed her body hard against the tree and the grass – trying to imagine herself in some cool, deep forest, but the noises of urban life wouldn’t grant her imagination a reprieve.


She stood and pulled her leather jacket closer around her, and took a quick stomp around the tree. When was ten years old – this had been her favorite tree, her favorite place to sit on spring day. Even now, twenty-odd years later, she could still recognize some of the tree’s charm. It was wide; too thick to wrap even her adult arms around – and being situated on a hill – the roots cut into the dirt creating staggered landings which she had once pretended where the rooms of her magical tree house. She had circled that tree dozens of times, maybe hundreds; circled it util her chubby, tender hands had been red and blistered; trying to find the secret doorway she was certain lurked there. Books had taught her that if you were clever and knew where to look, the world was full of doorways to other worlds; worlds full of adventure and wonder where everyone –even the loneliest, most awkward child – would find a kindred spirit to be friends with.

Well – the door had never revealed itself…no matter how hard she had willed and wished for it…she found no escape into wonderland. She kicked the tree softly with the toe of her boot. “Fucker,” she whispered.

Her adult escape routes hadn’t fared her any better. Four years in an out-of-state school and one near-miss down the aisle and here she was back again – back in the bosom of her misunderstood childhood – her clueless adolescence. And all she had to show for it was a piece of parchment with a gold seal, and an unworn gown infused with the heady smell of mothballs; both packed in boxes (along with her pride ) and buried deep within her parents basement.

This is not where she had planned to be by now. She was meant to be living abroad, painting and lecturing, embroiled in a tempestuous romance with a playboy prince; not working in the local arts and craft store, spending almost all her income on art supplies that dried, half-used around the ruined canvases that had overtaken the above-garage studio apartment she was renting from her parents.

From her parents.

Maribella sighed and shrugged against her erstwhile favorite tree. What the poster in the break room at the work said was true; life did, indeed suck.

Hard.

She couldn’t paint, she could barely afford to feed herself – and her Mother had started the mortifying practice of inviting eligible men (the plumber, the pizza delivery guy, the Sears repairman (Maribella was certain she sabotaged that avocado Kenmore fridge on purpose)) to stay for coffee and cake just at the time Maribella traditionally stopped in to let her parents know that she had safely returned from the endangering wiles of the downtown shopping center.

The worst thing though, was being unable to paint. Every night she’d face the white expanse of canvas, brush in hopeful hand – only to find herself frustrated and trembling within the hour; the canvas still pristine or else slashed in to bits by her exacto knife.

She couldn’t remember how to do this anymore. It all seemed so forced, so fake. All technique and no passion.

Not being able to paint was like having no control of her vocal chords. Everything she wanted to scream and shout at the world died a choked whisper.

She needed this. God how she needed this.

She moved back down the base of the tree, and pulled her supplies out of her worn bag. There was already a hint of rose to the west – she wouldn’t have light enough to work for long.

She deftly set up her small easel – placing the ten-by-fourteen machine-stretched canvas so upon it so that she was facing the tree. Instead of oils she pulled out pastels – their storage box staining her already colorful fingertips before she had even gotten it open.

She sketched the park. She sketched it dark and foreboding, with the glassy eyes of giant rats glinting in the shadows, dead clownish squirrels clenched between their slimy, pointy teeth. Blackened her fingers scrawling boxy, look-alike cars- belching pollution that coiled up to the sky in a black, lecherous cloud. She sketched the playground on the opposite corner – sharp and worn, bereft of children and full of loneliness.

She sketched the tree. She sketched it’s wide trunk and it’s stepping roots. She sketched it’s shady top and it’s indented base (perfectly sized for sitting). She sketched it big and bright and wondrous. Golden apples hung ripe and heavy from it’s branches, mingling with heavy, hearty acorns and leaves all colors of the rainbow. In it’s branches all frolicked every kind of small creature she could remember; the snake, the hamster, an armadillo.

She could feel the light fading around her, but her hands were fevered – her knuckles aching as they remembered this movement and were waking from a heavy sleep.

On the miniature tree trunk, she drew an arch – then used her fingertips to rub the arch into a doorway. Her fingers flew and the doorway became a door – heavy, oaken, and carved almost seamlessly into the trunk of the tree.


Then she sketched herself standing in front of the tree.– hair blowing in a violent wind, haversack slung over her shoulder, pastel stained fingers raised to the door - flat and spread wide – not to knock, but to open.

The darkness descended and Maribella had to squint to make out her drawing in the yellow pool of streetlamp light. She stepped back from it – adrenaline pumping. She looked at the drawing. She looked at her fingers. She looked at the tree.

Maribella through her haversack over her shoulder, grabbed her charcoal stick and walked slowly towards the tree. She bent down to the spot where she had sat so many times and touched the ground, cool beneath her fingers. Then she pressed her charcoal stick against the base of the tree and stood – drawing an arch that passed just above her head at full height, than back to the floor. She drew another, narrow arch above it, until there was an archway. Her hair whipped around her face. In the back of her mind a small voice warned that a storm was kicking up and she should get her things back in her bag and get home before her Mother called the National Guard to come find her, then invited them all over for coffee. Instead she stood back and looked at the tree.

She looked at it for a long while.

Then she lifted up her hand, fingers stained in a rainbow of colors.

She stepped forward, put her hand against the newly drawn door, and pushed..