strange fruit

I was on the archipelago again, trying to purchase a tree on Craigslist. I followed an ad to a rural neighborhood on an island with long dusty streets. The house from the listing was a dark wood cabin looming over a deep, thin yard, and I wandered to the back where a hill rose sharply to meet the fence. It was a horrific scene: at first the trees were tropical—thick, swollen bulbs at the ground tapering off to dozens of small growths each like a palm—but slowly they resolved into human figures. They lay sprawled around one another, grown together with skin like pink, faded paper and large cartoonish sutures at the seams. The entire body of the first was growing out of the groin of the second, whose face was larger than my torso. He couldn’t focus his eyes very clearly, but he gestured up the hill toward a ladder leaning against the fence. I climbed up and picked through the contents of a forgotten tool belt, finding a machete. A clear sense of its purpose dawned on me with that usual dream clarity just as the owner emerged from the cabin, pointing a gun at me. I descended and we discussed the tree, though I had to apologize immediately as I didn’t intend to take it. He asked why I’d come and I told him about the machete, about what I thought the trees were up to. Though both the man and the trees smiled at me sadly, I struggled to determine my loyalties in the scene. He told me it was time to leave so he could work in peace, then turned to gather the machete as the trees began to wail.

Seconds later, I was in an underground mansion. Packs of dogs chased one other around a kitchen of at least a square mile while my cousins, Mormon but clean cut with slicked back hair, discussed wine in a series of scattered vignettes. I kept trying to find my bedroom but it was hidden, so I slept in shifts, continuously awoken by shouts and laughter from the party. I tried to warn everyone about the slaughter of the trees, as that property was clearly just above the mansion, but nobody would listen. Finally I found my mom, helped her into the glider, and we resumed our usual aerial tour of the islands.