Copyright 2001 by S.R. Sudekum
Chapter V - Vozza
Traffic on the roadway outside the tree lot thinned and began to quiet. The light had taken on that deceivingly warm, waning tone, the day is ending supposed Chris. Only to lead to how many more like this one. The spruce had been here for weeks he said...do I have weeks of this to go myself? he wondered. Painfully with black despair he shivered. No. It cannot be. It's unthinkable. I won't even think the unthinkable. But...if it's unthinkable, how can you think it in the first place? If you think the unthinkable it's therefore thinkable and therefore once again it's possible and if it's possible it's likely and then a certainty...
"Nice knowing ya. Say hello to the wood chipper for me."
The spruce's muttering shocked Chris back to his here and now. Before he could ask what did he mean, he already knew the answer before the question could be asked. Close enough to bite was the man with the shining blade. Roughly he grabbed the crossed twine around Chris and pulled him upright, for the first time the entire weight of the tree pressed down on the raw stump wound. Bright red pain washed over Chris and the world swam before him, the twine cutting deeper into his branches. The man hefted Chris, and with methodical swiftness slashed the glittering blade before him. Like magic the twine melted away, and Chris' limbs sprang outwards on their own. A momentary flush of relief was promptly replaced by a glassy agony as the branches assumed their natural positions. From the sharp throbbing here and there Chris knew with despair that those branches were broken, hanging by a few woody strands. Unbelievably the man reached down and with a quick yank and twist, tore them away and tossed them into the aisleway, where they twitched before laying still .
Chris gasped and cried out "Let me die!!! let me die!!! Nooooooooo!!" The man grabbed him around the trunk and half-dragged, half carried him through the stacks of bound trees out into the main lot. Manic terror possessed the tree. Chris gibbered "I don't want new feet! I don't want new feet! O God no let me die now!!! Let me DIEEEEE!!!" The tree's cries rose and mixed with the cawing laughter of the spruce, leaning drunkenly against the chain link fence behind it.
"See you in hell, scrub! See you in hell!!!"
The light was bright, too bright, the space too open, the air too fresh. The world a mass of confusion and noise, bright colors, loud sounds, foul smoking stenches. The man gripped Chris in an iron hand and held him upright.
"Here you go, Mr. Vozza! This one should be big enough for your front room, what do you think?"
"Yeah, okay, I guess...is it fresh? Give it a bounce for me, okay?"
Unbelievably the man lifted Chris slightly and dropped him to the hard pavement. The shock jarred every branch and every needle, and telegraphed the agony of the raw stump to every fiber of his being.
"Sold! Can you put it up on the SUV for me? I'll write a check."
"Sure thing, but I can't tie it down for you, you know that. Insurance liability."
Vozza chuckled "Tell me about it. No problem, I can handle that. I was a Boy Scout once you know."
The world swirled and careened as the man hoisted Chris up in the air and hefted him up over his head. Chris bumped down on something hard, sharp bars cutting into him at two places. He groaned, the setting sun blinding him. The sky stretched infinite above him, some strange shining red thing beneath him, the grey flat ground beneath that. A slight breeze stirred his branches and for a fleeting second he thought himself back in the forest.
Vozza, the new man, reached up and wound twine around his trunk and tied him snugly down to the sharp bars. Once again he was wrapped in bindings, but at least this time his branches could still stretch out at his sides. A faint glimmer of hope...maybe...maybe the worst was behind him now? He had no new feet nailed to him, his needles were still tight and firm, he could stretch out his limbs...the sky and sun were above him...maybe things are looking up?
A strange bouncing sensation beneath him, a vibration, a roar, and movement...the world was moving...no...Chris was moving. The breeze strengthened to a wind that tugged at his boughs, and then pulled and with a mighty roar, he was in a storm of wind, slapping and yanking at his branches, threatening to pull the needles from their twigs. But there was no pain, and Chris could watch the world streaming past him at a blinding pace. A cacaphony of sounds and sights and smells and sensations flooded over him, bouncing and rattling his branches. A feeling of air and weightlessness, of flight. He was flying like the jays and the chickadees. He had become a bird! Into the setting sun he flew, light as gossamer, reaching speeds unknown, his branches flapping in the wind like the wings of the mighty eagle itself! The worries of the lot had vanished, the pain of the binding and the hot ache of his stump forgotten. Now he was flying in the wind, he WAS the wind and into the night he flew, free at last from the binds of man and earth alike.