Strange Plums

No one could have told you exactly how long the old, red plum tree in the meadow had been standing right where it was, swaying in the breeze each day, but suffice it to say it had been quite some time. No one in town could remember a day when the tree hadn’t stood there – big, tall, and impossibly knarled like the fairy knots in your hair after a fitful sleep. Everyone had heard at least one story that connected that tree with some suspicious happening in town.

It was said that the tree was full of the ghosts of those who’d disappeared over the years, and on the stormiest, darkest days, you could almost believe it. When the wind blew through the crooked branches, causing them to creak and groan, it was hard not to think of souls moaning in pain. The red, papery leaves of the tree sounded like the pages of an ancient book full of secrets as they rustled together.

The plum tree no longer bore fruit every year, but the years it did tended to coincide with something untoward – a murder, an accident, or yet another unexplained disappearance. The plums were sweet, dark, strange, and juicy – the most flavorful plums you’d ever tasted – but they turned your teeth and the insides of your mouth beet red for days at a time. Not quite normal for a plum, but who was to say what normal was and wasn’t when it came to Mother Nature?

“I’m going out, Mom,” screamed Kelly over her shoulder as she grabbed her bike from where it leaned against the side of the house. “I’m taking my bike.” Kelly fiddled with the end of one of her long, messy, red pigtails while she waited for her mother’s confirmation that she’d heard. When she did, she flung herself onto the bike’s seat and lit out down the street, pedaling furiously.

Although she knew her mother wouldn’t like it, she hung a hard left and headed for the meadow where the plum tree grew. It was a stormy day, and Kelly was a strange girl. She wanted to sit under the tree with her back to its trunk and imagine she heard the ghosts everyone talked about so often. She may have been a 10-year-old girl with freckles, pigtails, and a squirrel on her shirt, but she liked to imagine she was something much braver and more important – a knight, or perhaps a witch depending on her mood.

That day, Kelly sat and leaned against the trunk of the plum tree, listening to the papery rustling of the red leaves overhead. She sat there long enough to fall asleep and dream that the tree was talking to her, the folds of its trunk twisting into the semblance of faces that whispered in her ear. They spoke backwards – the mirror language of shadows and spirits – and the trunk rose and fell, as if it had a great set of lungs inside it, breathing and breathing.

When Kelly woke up, she noticed that her hands were itching. Expecting ants or perhaps a stray patch of poison ivy she’d touched earlier in the day without noticing, she investigated the situation. She was horrified beyond belief to find several colonies of small mushrooms growing out of the backs of her hands and sprouting from underneath her fingernails.

She snatched at the mushrooms desperately, pulling them away in handfuls, their strange roots soft and stringy as they came away from her skin. However, they’d promptly grow back as quickly as they were removed. Breathing hard, Kelly began to cry hot, frightened tears as she got on her bike and sped away from the meadow as quickly as she could, headed for town.

As Kelly saw the familiar sights of the town square ahead of her, it began to rain – warm, fat droplets that made wet smacking sounds on Kelly’s skin as she collided with them. Where the raindrops hit the backs of Kelly’s hands, the mushrooms that had been growing there withered, died, and fell away until finally they were all gone. She didn’t know whether or not to be relieved. Had the strange mushrooms even been there, or had they simply been a part of the odd dream she had been having?

Kelly had been paying so little attention to where she was going while she examined her hands for traces of the mushrooms that she didn’t realize she was headed straight for the steep stairwell that led down to the receiving dock at the back of Mr. Zamir’s butcher shop. Before she knew it, she was crashing head over heels over bike down every last stair.

Finally, at the bottom, there was a blinding flash of pain and white light as her mouth collided with the wet, rain-soaked cement. There was a sickening cracking sound as she felt several of her front teeth break and give way. A salty, meaty taste on her tongue that could only have been her own blood. A scream of dismay as Mr. Zamir discovered her lying at the bottom of the stairs and yelled for his assistant to call Kelly’s mother.

The next time Kelly would go riding, she’d do so with a new set of shining, silver teeth. She liked them, because they made her feel like a robot, a cyborg, or something equally indestructible. She grinned at everyone she passed on the street just to show them off, and she reveled in the way they made her feel like she could do anything. Anything except go back to that plum tree in the meadow, that is.

Ben had just turned 45 the day before. A strange age. Not only did his back and hips remind him constantly that he wasn’t the spry, young man he used to be, but his father’s salad days were even further in the past. He’d been caring for his dad ever since the terminal cancer diagnosis last year, and it hadn’t been an easy road to travel by any stretch of the imagination.

Ben’s dad had brain cancer, which affected the man Ben used to know in troubling and scary ways. Sometimes, he didn’t know who he was. Other times, he didn’t recognize Ben or anyone else he used to know. And then there were the times the tumor would cause him to have seizures or lose control of his bodily functions.

Not only was it getting harder and harder for Ben to care for his father, but he hated seeing the man who raised him becoming a mere shell of himself. Before he knew it, he was having passing thoughts of taking his father to the plum tree in the meadow some quiet afternoon. The tree had a reputation among the wise-folk in town for bringing issues like these to a respectful, dignified conclusion.

At first, Ben banished the thoughts from his mind. But then, as his father’s condition continued to deteriorate, they started making a lot of sense. The good days when his father was lucid, clear, and not in too much pain were becoming the exception rather than the norm. And Ben knew that if he were ever in his father’s shoes one day, he’d hope his son had the courage and the fortitude to consider something similar.

The day his father woke up unable to see or hear, Ben knew that the day had come. He dressed his father in his favorite sweater and helped him into his wheelchair. Then he drove out to the meadow. The weather was cool and crisp, but not cold. The wind was blowing, but not excessively. It was as good a day as any to make a difficult transition.

Ben prayed for strength as he pushed his father’s wheelchair over to the foot of the plum tree and helped him onto the ground in front of the tree. The grass at the base of the tree was mossy and soft, a comfort to an aging body that had trouble getting comfortable under even the best of circumstances. The trunk of the tree was strong and comforting, even if it did give the impression it was breathing in a manner no tree should. Ben’s father breathed in unison with the tree, his sightless eyes turned toward the heavens as if something were visible there – and for all Ben knew, there was.

Just as Ben was beginning to wonder whether the stories he’d heard about the tree had any truth to them, it happened. Woody, red shoots began to emerge from the trunk and roots of the tree. They wrapped themselves around Ben’s father’s legs and arms. Then they curled around his chest and abdomen in a strange embrace.

Finally, the tree began to squeeze, and Ben grew afraid of what would happen next. However, the branches and tendrils that had wrapped themselves around the aging shell of Ben’s father did not crush as Ben was afraid of. Instead, they pulled his father into the body of the tree itself, seamlessly and bloodlessly. And then he was gone, and Ben was alone.

Ben stood in silence for a moment, holding his hat in his hands in a gesture of quiet respect and crying silent tears of grief and relief. He would miss his father, but he was grateful that he wasn’t in pain anymore.

Through his tears, he looked up at the thick, high branches of the plum tree as they stretched toward the sky. Before his very eyes, he saw the strange, dark, juicy plums forming on the branches in heavy clusters that caused the smaller branches to hang low under their weight.