60 start walking off. Neighbors coming over in the middle of the night. Stealing a handcrafter, one of a kind, hard-ish wood…” He looked into the forest in each direction, none of which seemed likely to have a neighbor within miles. “No more drinking. Today is the first day of a better life.” # Merle unloaded his tools from a yellow threegallon bucket he carried them in and drove to where he had seen signs for a manmade swimming hole. There he found a waterspout meant for washing sand off your feet. He slipped the bucket underneath the spout and stepped on the on-switch. “Isn’t that for laundry soap?” asked a little boy who was dripping wet and covered in sand. “Sure is. That’s how you know it’s clean.” Merle lifted the bucket, halfway full, shook it into a swirl. “Arms up now.” The kid lifted his arms and dramatically squeezed his eyes shut. Merle splashed the water onto him. “Woh!” he said, gasping for breath. “Again!” Merle was already refilling the bucket. “You bet. Need to rinse this thing out more anyhow.” When Merle looked up again, the little boy was being pulled away by his father, who was shaking his head. “What did I say about talking to strangers?” After rinsing and filling the bucket, Merle drank from it before driving away. The water mostly didn’t taste like laundry detergent. Standing in an aisle at Walgreens, Merle’s head pounded as he stared back and forth between generic aspirin, and a giant bottle of children’s aspirin, a whole two dollars cheaper. In the parking lot he chewed on children’s aspirin, and squirted diet berry flavoring into his almost entirely sudsless bucket of water. He washed down the powdery medicine with another dozen swallows. # Head swimming and eyes blurry, Merle drove back to his plot of land. He let out a sigh as the branches scraped his roof, doors, and windows and the Scout jostled over bumps. He was certain that he had cleared the drive and trimmed out a wide tunnel with room to spare. But somehow, it kept growing back. Part of him had started to question if there might be a reason nobody built here, and maybe it wasn’t by choice. Merle felt a stabbing pain. He had been scratching again. He looked at the back of his hand where
CIRQUE the smallest of leaves must have fallen through the open window and caught with other dust and debris on one of the lymph dampened boils. He went to flick it away, but it must have been sticky with sap because it didn’t move. He pinched the tiny leaf between his fingernails, and as he drove over another bump, he plucked it from his hand, but with it trailed a thread of root, draping down into his skin. He slammed on the breaks. He pulled the leaf until the roots were taught. After that, he felt them sliding out from under his skin, like a snake being pulled from the earth. He started prodding the other inflamed mounds across his hands and arms, fishing for places to tear back flesh. As he did, the flaps revealed more leaves. He plucked one after the next, each drawing a taproot from where it had wound between his follicles and metacarpals. Each, when expelled, left his hand looking more withered after its removal. As if they took color and strength with them. The series of punctures they left behind looked, at a glance, like age spots. Hairs nearby began to catch the sunlight and shine a little more silver. He pulled out a handful of them with growing panic. The last broke off, leaving tendrils wriggling inside him. Pain shot up his wrist, arm, and into his chest. He shifted the Scout into reverse and started to back it out towards the road, but when he used his hands—or was it as he pulled away from the heart of this place—the pain became unbearable. He reached for his cell phone and dialed 911. “911, what’s your emergency?” “Something’s wrong with me. You’ve got to pick me up.” “Ok sir, can you give me an exact address?” “I’m on the old highway between mile marker 87 and 89.” “Have you been in an accident?” “No accident. I’m alone in the woods, kind of. There’s something inside me. I might be sick. I feel sick.” “We’ve got paramedics on the way. What’s the nature of your ailment?” “It’s like something tunneled into me. Like that moth that plants its eggs in caterpillars, and they eat their way out when they hatch. Except, it’s trees.” There was a long pause on the other end of the call. “Have you taken anything today we should know about? Drugs, medication, alcohol, anything that might be poisonous or might cause allergic reactions?” “Just some kiddy aspirin,” Merle said, then looked at the bucket. “And I might have drank some soap.”