"The Echo Tree"

 

[A note about this post: When I began writing it, I had an idea of how the story would end. As I continued writing, I liked that ending less. I might be able to fix this, but I couldn't in the time I had today. So below is what I was able to get down of this story.]

The Saturday night before classes were set to start, everyone else on our floor left for a party at one of the nearby apartments, which meant that it was just Lori and I who went out to see the echo tree.

The echo tree was on the west side of campus, near the intersection of Howard and Taylor. It looked like an ordinary tree, except for one abruptly terminated growth about five feet up the trunk. That looked like the remaining nub of a severed branch, except that it was hollow at its core, leading a cavity within the trunk and giving the impression that the tree was whistling, or puckering up for a kiss.

Lori tilted her head as she examined it. "'I'm a little teapot, short and stout,'" she sang.

"Oh, please don't let this tip over and-or pour anything out," I said. "I don't care if it really is empty inside. It's still pretty big."

Lori snickered. "Hey, thanks again for coming out to see this with me."

"No problem. Like I said, I was curious, too. And parties--not so much my thing." Which was true, and which made my assignment to a roommate like Lori, a stranger until yesterday who seemed to feel the same way that I did about what the resident director had labeled "social endeavors," all the more surprising.

"I know," she told me. "I mean, I know shouldn't be shocked, but I am, I can't believe how many people are spending their first weekend at school doing who knows what stupid things that they won't even remember. I mean, new-found freedom and all, I guess, but...."

"Freedom, and learning who you are," I said, "not to mention the fact that we're about to spend our Saturday night talking to a tree, so if anyone's wandering the realm of stupid...."

The story behind the echo tree was that whenever someone spoke into its hollow branch, the tree spoke back--made sense, given the tree's name. The thing about the echo tree, though, was that what it said back was never the same as what had been said to it moments before. There were all sorts of theories as to what was actually happening: that there were pipes that ran underground between the tree and apartments across the street; that one of the frat delegations had slipped some kind of device inside and passed down the secret from one batch of conscripts to the next; that some of the city's homeless, known to shelter in the underpasses, were having some fun at the students' expense. The only one with any answers to share was the tree, and the tree offered only what it had been given to say.

"Preserved"

 

Outside the labs, all along the hallways on the second floor of the science building, display cases stood silently, like sentinels. Most of them contained skeletons; a few held geodes. One was devoted to a collection of expertly preserved snakes. Jeri stopped in front of a case that offered a glimpse into prehistoric plant life through the fossils on its shelves and pondered what it meant that something that had survived the onslaught of so many years had ended up on display at a community college in the suburbs.

In the reflection of the glass, Jeri saw her instructor slowly approach. "You okay?" Ms. DuBois asked her.

Jeri heard her laugh cut the air open. "About what? The fact that I'm going to fail this lab? Not really," she said.

"No failure here," Ms. DuBois said. She folded her arms across her chest and moved to Jeri's side. "Dissection is hard on a lot of people, even the ones who look forward to it. I had a lab partner in college once, the second we made our incision into the abdomen, just threw up right there, right in the opening." Jeri raised her eyebrows and turned to see her instructor smile. "Look, take your time," Ms. DuBois told her, "but come on back. And my advice? Honestly?" Her smile was almost ghostly in the glass. "Ask your group to be the one to use the knife."

Jeri remained under the quiet watch of the display case a little while longer after Ms. DuBois returned to the lab. She took another peek at the fossils inside, split wide, their stories released into the air like souls and revealed to everyone despite what protection the case could lend, before drawing in her breath and heading back to continue with the dissection.

Her group had named the cadaver William.

"No Special Waste Accepted"

 

"Aw, too bad, guys," Nathan said as he shoved Ed onto the gravel next to the dumpster, "looks like we can't drop him off here after all." The other boys stood around Nathan, flanking him, and watched Ed pick small stones out of the gash on his knee until Nathan shook his head and began walking. "Better get up before someone catches you," Nathan called to Ed over his shoulder, over the boys' laughter, which bounced behind Nathan like an eager pup. "We'll find some place that takes special waste like Ed tomorrow, right?" Ed heard Nathan ask. The boys yipped and howled, hyenas answering the call, while Ed licked the blood from the scrapes on his palm.

"Bright Little Blossoms"

 

I think I noticed Dorelle and Keith at the reunion the same moment they noticed each other. Ten years after the last time we'd all been together in that gym, and there they were, looking at each other with new eyes and offering each other smiles that neither one would have had the chance to see the other wear before, given how things had gone in junior high.

It was like this: some trees start out in spring with a show of bright little blossoms, the kind with petals that curl under perfectly, the kind that make everyone who sees them feel lighter and happier. That was Dorelle. Then there are the trees that, instead of flowers, present buds at the tips of their branches, dull, difficult things all covered with scales. That was Keith, and he'd had terrible acne. Yet none of that mattered, not ten years later, when they both had had time to grow and flourish. You doing okay? I saw Dorelle mouth to Keith. I am, I really am. You? Keith said to her. And suddenly it felt like the end of summer, when no sounds were greater than the whispers between tree leaves, and everything was about to happen.

"The Pen and the Sword"

 

Before the exam, two students ran out to the student commons to get writing utensils.

The first put her quarters into the machine and received a thin, black ballpoint pen, as plain as could be.

The second inserted her quarters and was given a sword, short but well balanced, with a sturdy silver hilt and a blade that gleamed like a pearl.

The two looked at each other.

"You know, you're still probably going to do better on the test," said the second student to the first.

"I guess," the first said with a frown, "but then there's that whole difference between what you do in school on your tests versus what you do in the real world, and in that case...." 

She fumbled through her coat pocket in search of two more quarters.

"Glue Skin"

 

"Teacher, look, I'm peeling my skin off!"

"Jenny, you have until I'm done writing this problem on the board to clean up your art supplies."

"Teacher, why am I all red and squishy underneath? Is that where blood comes from? I think I see my bones. I'm a skeleton! Raaaa! I'm dropping my skin on all of you!"

Lessons put into practice during arts and crafts that day: using fine motor skills. Following a sequence of events. Walking, not running, on the way to the principal's office.