Tree Expert
Pallid and quivering the pillar of flesh stood, an offense to the earth from which it sprouted and the sky to which it reached. Thick, pulsating veins pulsated thickly up and down its length, ferrying the life-giving ichor deep from wherever into the bowels of the earth those foul roots reach, up to the sprouting branches of hands and fingers which clawed ever upwards. The smell was, unsurprisingly, appalling.
Bill Johnson stood at the base and stared up. He tipped his hat back. He scratched his forehead.
“I am not sure that’s a tree,” he said.
Bill Johnson of Crystal Clear Tree Experts (the thinking behind this name was, ironically, unclear) had been summoned to the pillar of flesh because, at first blush and if you squinted and faced the wrong way and held your nose, it was vaguely similar to a tree. As a company of self-professed tree experts, it was thought that he (or any of their other employees, not just him) would have at least some idea of what was going on.
But Bill Johnson was stumped. That’s a tree joke.
“Are you sure?” Asked one of those who had summon Bill Johnson.
They were not tree experts, so by what right they felt to question one who was was unknown. And yet they did. Their veiled criticism stung Bill Johnson, who poked the pillar of flesh. A deep groan rumbled up from deep beneath the ground, which also trembled. The fingers at the tips of the branches curled - in fury or in sick pleasure, who could say?
“Yeah, pretty sure. See, most trees don’t do that,” Bill Johnson said.
His choice of words was unfortunate, and immediately seized upon.
“Most? So some do?” Asked one of the non-experts, pointedly.
Bill Johnson’s next words were chosen with slightly more care.
“Allow me to rephrase: trees don’t do that,” he said.
An impasse.
The wind chose this moment to roll lazily past. As it passed the pillar it picked up and carried the stench of death and, worse, as it wafted through the arcanely-arranged digits of the flesh pillar, it transmuted into the pained wails of the damned. A dreadful and soul-chilling whistle of doom and despair. Bill Johnson frowned. Again, un-tree-like behaviour. Further evidence this was not a tree.
“So can you cut this down or… ?” One of the non-experts asked, leaving a pause for a ‘yes’ or a ‘yes right away’. This did not happen.
“How long has this been an issue for you? This… whatever it is?” Bill Johnson asked, sandbagging their question with one (or two) of his own.
“It showed up yesterday.”
This was a sufficiently unusual statement to arouse both a raised eyebrow and a pause.
“Yesterday?” Bill Johnson asked.
“Yes. Yesterday.”
Another pause.
“That is also not conventional for trees,” said Bill Johnson.
“It isn’t?” One of the non-experts asked with genuine surprise. That was because they were not an expert, so any knowledge on trees came as a genuine surprise to them. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t have needed to call Bill Johnson.
“No. Typically trees take more than a day to grow. Further evidence this is not a tree.”
The narration was beginning to leak into Bill Johnson. Not that he knew.
“Well you’re the expert. Supposedly.”
The doubt was palpable. And palpably insulting. Bill Johnson let it waft over him, much as the scent of death had not even that long ago.
“So what are we meant to do?” The other non-expert asked, irritation plain (which is similar to palpable, but subtly different in ways only true connoisseurs can appreciate). Their tone suggested they felt this was both Bill Johnson’s problem and Bill Johnson’s fault. It was neither, but it rankled him anyway.
“What would you like to happen?” He asked.
The non-experts both gesticulated in disbelief at the flesh pillar, as though the answer were obvious. Nothing about any of this was obvious.
“We want it gone!” They said as one.
This was fair. Who’d want an abomination against the natural order thrusting forth outside their front window? Not many people, one would assume. Or one would hope. Anything was possible in this economy.
(All of this was occurring outside their front window, to clarify.)
Bill Johnson considered the flesh pillar. Considered the mottled, pale skin straining to contain its vile bulk. Considered the foul blood languidly pumping beneath that mottled, pale skin. Considered the myriad, human-faced parasites visibly burrowing in and of its surface. Considered its turgid girth. Considered what exactly might happen were he to, hypothetically, feed it into his wood chipper.
Considered getting paid.
“Alright,” Bill Johnson said.
In a trice the chainsaw was produced. A quick glance told Bill Johnson’s keen (some might say expert) eye where to place the cut. A lesser expert might have insisted that the first step wasn’t to simply start chainsawing and that there were other, safety-conscious steps to take, but Bill Johnson was not them. He was his own man with his own ideas of how the world worked, and he went into this world chainsaw-first.
The two non-experts watched with unseemly eagerness as the whirring teeth approached, and then made contact. The stink and the sound were immediate and overpowering. The stench of burnt, rotting meat and the horrendous blubbery shriek of skin and fat being carved through. The hands atop the flesh pillar clenched ecstatically.
And then, all at once, the flesh pillar retreated. With a great sucking rumble it shot back into the earth from which it had come, branches snapping and folding inward as the whole length was pulled sharply downward. Bill Johnson very nearly lost his leg when the chainsaw was wrenched free and he stumbled, only barely missing grave injury. By the time he recovered and stood up again, the pillar was gone. All that remained was a deep, dark hole.
Into this hole Bill Johnson peered. Nothing peered back, and the nothing hated him.
“Right. Well. The invoice should arrive sometime early next week, I think,” Bill Johnson said.
