Nightscript 2

by C M Muller

  The foreman was annoyed when Harry didn’t come back from his coffee break on time. As the hours passed and he failed to emerge from the woods, annoyance turned into concern. A few men who could be spared were sent in to look for him. The half-smoked joint they found beneath a stately wych-elm told them that Harry had stopped for a few minutes in this clearing, but they never did figure out where he’d gone after that.

  7.

  In 1943, four children found a human skeleton hidden inside the hollow trunk of a wych-elm in the Hagley Woods of Worcestershire. The skeleton was that of a human female who had died of asphyxiation in 1941. Although a definitive identification was never made, many believed the victim to be a prostitute known as Bella. After this speculation was voiced on a BBC Radio 4 broadcast, graffiti demanding to know “Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?” began appearing in the local area.

  8.

  Unlike the other trees of the forest, the wych-elm in the clearing didn’t play host to nesting birds. No squirrels scampered through its branches, and no moles or foxes sheltered beneath its boughs. Even other trees left a perimeter around it, hence the clearing.

  When the elm bark beetles arrived in the British Isles in the 1960s, most of the other elms in the region succumbed. Their serrated leaves turned yellow and brown, dried up and fell from the branches. But the wych-elm in the clearing was unaffected. Its leaves remained vibrant, and while its branches slumped, it was not from weakness.

  A few arborists cataloguing the remaining elms in the area made note of the wych-elm. It was listed several times because each purple ribbon the arborists tied around its trunk to mark it as uninfected fell to the ground and was quickly subsumed into the loam. No one was present to watch the ribbons fall, but if they had been, they would have seen the trunk expand and contract like the chest of a breathing man, stretching until the ribbon snapped.

  What they did notice was a spongy texture to the trunk, but this didn’t make it into any of the written records, since the clear absence of withered leaves and beetle feeding galleries showed that the softness wasn’t indicative of Dutch elm disease.

  9.

  Elm trees have a reputation for shedding branches even in the absence of wind. On some occasions, these unexpected falling branches have injured—or even killed—bystanders. As a result, several ominous folk aphorisms have developed regarding this genus of tree. “Oak do brood, and elm do hate,” says one, while another warns, “Elm hateth man, and waiteth.”

  10.

  Clara gasped as they entered the clearing. The tree in its center was huge, a broad gray trunk with striated bark crowned by a jungle’s worth of leaves.

  “Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Michael asked.

  “This must be the oldest wych-elm in the whole county!” She poked at her tablet with a stylus. “You should definitely take measures to preserve this.”

  She stepped toward the gently waving branches. Michael suppressed the urge to call her back, or to reach out and grab her arm. He had passed the wych-elm many times on his walks through the woods, and had sometimes considered stopping to eat lunch in its shade. But going close to it had always made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he’d hurried away, glancing back over his shoulder as if he wanted to be sure that the tree wasn’t following him.

  Clara was barely visible through the leaves now. “I don’t see any signs of disease or damage at all,” she called back to him. Her voice was muffled by the greenery. “The bark is perfectly—”

  Her voice cut off, and Michael was overwhelmed by the sense of an expected disaster coming to pass, like seeing two cars on a collision course and knowing they were going too fast for either of them to stop in time. “Clara! Clara, are you okay?”

  Clara stumbled out from under the elm’s canopy, her hair disheveled and her stylus dropping from her fingers. “I’m fine,” she said, pushing strands of hair back into place. “I just got a little—the heat, you know.”

  In fact, it was a mild day, and the trees blocked enough of the sunlight that it wouldn’t have been too unpleasant even at midsummer. But Michael nodded acceptance of her explanation. He could see Clara’s stylus lying in the grass just at the edge of where the overhanging leaves slopped down to the ground. He certainly wasn’t going to go get it, and he suspected that if he pointed it out to Clara, she would find some reason not to approach as well.

  “Anyway,” she said in an aggressively businesslike tone, “it’s a very old, healthy tree, and whatever you end up doing with the land, you should make sure it’s protected.”

  No, Michael thought, I should make sure it’s chopped into pieces, and have the pieces burned. Do it out on the open moor, and make sure no one breathes in the smoke. He and Clara left the clearing, and as always, he looked back as they did. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought that maybe some of the leaves had curled around the stylus and were drawing it up.

  A Silence of Starlings

  Kurt Fawver

  Every morning for the past four years I’ve been woken by the whistles and trills of the starlings in the gnarled oak tree outside my window. They don’t sing so much as converse and it’s a conversation that’s always given me hope somehow. It’s a lot like my kids, so long ago. Behind closed doors, they’d sit in their rooms and talk to their friends on the phone and sing along to music and laugh at television shows. They were constantly making the noise of lives well lived. And I was always a bystander, a watcher through the window. I had no idea what they were really doing, what they were really thinking. But I could hear their energy through the walls, the doors. I could hear their dreams and desires bubbling over, their excited plans and personal celebrations, muffled and murmured though they might have been to my ears. And that gave me hope. There was passion and promise hidden within their rooms and even if they didn’t share it with me I knew it wasn’t too far away. The starlings out in the twisted old oak whose branches tap against my window pane give me that same feeling. I wake up to their chirrups and think, “Today is a day when things might get better, when things might change. There’s energy in the air.”

  But the starlings didn’t sing today.

  I drifted awake and there was silence, so much silence I thought maybe I was dead. No birds. No wind. Not even a fragile tick from the alarm clock on my nightstand. Dead. I was sure. But then I heard the creak of a wheelchair down the hallway and the metronome beep of Harry Bernson’s heart monitor next door and knew—no, that’s not right, I assumed—I was still alive because surely eternity wouldn’t include a house of infirmities like this one.

  I rolled over and checked the clock. It had stopped on 5:55. I thought I wound it the night before, but maybe not. At my age, the mind contains more dark ravines than bright mountaintops. I fumbled for my wristwatch—a present from my Suzanne before she passed and, thankfully, digital—and the heat of panic began to spread up my spine when I saw the time. 10:41. The starlings weren’t my only concern. I needed my pills.

  The staff usually wakes us for breakfast and our morning medication around 6:30. We call those early morning rounds what they really are: the body count. Obviously, though, no one had been by my room to knock and make sure I was still breathing today. Maybe, I thought, they were running late or maybe they’d forgotten me. But that never happens. If it’s one thing this place has going for it, it’s efficiency. In and out, quick and clean—that’s how everyone on the staff here works. I think it’s mostly because the more time they spend with us, the more they have to look at us and the more they look at us, the more they’re forced to realize that we’re all just sacks of meat in various stages of spoliation. Not a pleasant thought for the younger set.

  Having already overslept by hours, I decided to track down a nurse or an orderly for my pills and then shuffle down to the cafeteria to grab some food. A nice bowl of oatmeal with banana slices. Cup of coffee. Nothing fancy. I had to save room because today was different. Today wouldn’t be a day like most other days, with
me sitting by a window, wondering whether anyone would notice if I just walked outside and never came back. It wouldn’t be like most other days, with me playing four-hour checkers games with poor Jenny Sturm, who has Alzheimer’s. It wouldn’t be like most other days, with me staring at the phone, willing it to ring, just once, and for someone to say hello and tell me they wondered how my day was. Nope. Today was different because I had a birthday party to attend and I was damned if I wasn’t going to gobble up some cake and have a good time.

  I checked the note I’d written to myself when my oldest son, Zachory, had called last week: “Camilla’s 10th B-Day Party—Saturday, April 18—Zachory or Annie will pick me up by 2.” This was only the second time I’d seen Cammy since Christmas. Such a good girl. Crazy smart. Funny. A lot like her grandma. I guess that’s why they got along so well. I guess that’s why I love them both so much. I don’t see her often, though. I don’t see much of anyone often. My daughter Janice and her partner Zora live two thousand miles away. My youngest, Nick, hasn’t called me in nine months. And Zachory and his wife Annie are always so busy with their jobs; much too busy to visit. But sometimes they drop off Cammy for an afternoon and when Cammy’s here, we have a blast. We race wheelchairs. We paint pictures together—a lion landing on the moon in a space suit was our last masterpiece. At Christmas, we had a milk and cookies-eating contest that neither Zachory nor Annie nor any of my nurses knew about. Sure, we both felt a little sick afterward, but if an old man can’t indulge his granddaughter, well, then there’s probably no point in growing old.

  I pocketed the note and braced for shooting pains in my knees and hips as I swung myself out of bed. The arthritis was acting up, bad. I pawed at my cane—another present from my ever-adored and ever-missed Suzy—but my fingers could barely curl around its raven-headed handle.

  While I was trying my best to loosen up my rusty hinges and pull myself off the bed, Patricia Cortez shuffled into my doorway. Her eyes were large and wild; they darted around my room, searching for something or someone.

  “They’re not here, either?” she asked me, almost pleading.

  I stood with effort, so many joints popping I sounded like a New Year’s Eve party just before midnight, champagne corks flying. “Who?” I asked.

  Patricia kneaded her hands in a ritual of anxiety. “Katisha. Alexis. Franklin. Any of them. The nurses. Where are they? Have they been to see you today?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I overslept. No one came for the body count today. Maybe we’ve all already died.”

  Patricia’s jaw went slack and I could see a tsunami of tears cresting behind her frightened puppy dog eyes. It’s been one of the curses of my life to never be able to say the right thing to anyone. Suzy forgave the awkwardness, the social fumbling. Maybe even loved me for it. She understood that I didn’t want to be weird and distant, but I didn’t know any other way, even with my own children.

  “A joke,” I said, forcing out a sputtering laugh. “Just a joke. Sorry. We’re clearly still alive. At least as much as we were yesterday. Pinch yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  She did, and seemed satisfied enough with the painful results. “Well, we still need our medications,” she said. “Charmaine told me she went downstairs to the nurses’ station an hour ago, but no one was in it. Some of the staff’s cars are in the parking lot, but whoever drove them isn’t here, anywhere. I think we’re going to have to break in to the nurses’ station. That’s what Charmaine thought, too.”

  I considered Charmaine breaking down the door to the nurses’ station. Eighty-one year old, four foot ten, ninety pound, hot tempered and always opinionated Charmaine Jackson, landing a flying kick to the door.

  I grinned at the possibility. “Charmaine would be the one to do it.”

  Patricia took a step into my room, then paused, her mouth pursed as though she wanted to say something more. She glanced at my open window.

  “Does it seem like the sunlight isn’t quite right? Or is that me?”

  I turned to look. I saw sunlight. Maybe it was a little dimmer than usual, a few shades more grey than white, but I didn’t think it was all that notable.

  “Probably just overcast,” I said. I hobbled over for a better view. Outside, the leaves of the ancient oak where the starlings usually perched didn’t stir. Nothing stirred. Not a bee or a butterfly or a bird or even a car on the street beyond the lawn. I moved into the light’s direct rays, and, for no reason I could understand, I was overcome with a bout of shivers. Where the light fell upon me, it felt like a sheet of ice passing a hair’s breadth above my skin. It had to be in my head, though. The power of suggestion and all.

  I pulled the curtain shut and snatched up the television remote control from my nightstand.

  Patricia wagged a finger at the window. “See? You see? It’s not right. And the TV’s not working, either. You might as well not even bother with that.”

  I turned on the television and was greeted by a big blue box that read “No Signal.” A tiny knot formed in my throat. We definitely needed to find the nurses and the rest of the staff. We needed to hear from somebody that everything outside was okay, that we weren’t adrift here, forgotten.

  “See?” Patricia asked. “No TV at all. And don’t bother 9-1-1. You get a weird clicking noise. The internet won’t load anything either. I tried on the computer in the lounge. It just says ‘No connections found.’ Anyway, I’m going to keep checking rooms for the nurses. Someone must have seen them.”

  As Patricia turned to leave, I asked her, “Do the phones work at all? Can we call other numbers? Besides 9-1-1?”

  She meandered out of my room and into the hallway beyond without responding. She probably didn’t hear me. Very few of us can hear any sound quieter than a scream.

  I hobbled to the room’s phone and picked up the receiver. The usual dial tone hummed from some distant place where nothing ever changes and everyone is safe. I reached into the pocket of my pajama pants and drew out a folded slip of paper with the phone numbers for my children written on it. Whatever pair of pants I’m wearing, that piece of paper goes in a pocket. I guess you can call me a ridiculous old man, but just having those numbers nearby makes me feel a little better, like maybe my kids aren’t so far away, like maybe just having that small connection means I didn’t fail as a father. Sometimes I call and talk to the answering machines or the voice mail or whatever answers in place of my children. I don’t say much. I never know what to say. I guess that’s why they don’t call back very often.

  I tugged on my reading glasses, unfolded the paper, and dialed Zachory’s cell phone. It kicked over to a prerecorded message. I hung up, the knot in my throat tightening.

  I dialed Annie’s cell phone. It kicked over to a prerecorded message. I hung up again and swallowed hard.

  I thought: Today is Cammy’s 10th birthday. My note says so. I can’t miss that birthday. She’ll get a kick out of what I bought her: an easel and a set of paints that glow in the dark.

  I dialed Zachory and Annie’s home line. It kicked over to their answering machine.

  “Hi, Zachory,” I rasped. “It’s your dad. I hope everything’s going okay there. We’re having some technical problems here. Wondering if you are, too. I hope our plans for today haven’t changed. Please call me if you can.”

  I hung up and immediately cursed my reticence. I should’ve said “I love you.” I never forgot with Suzy. I was never anxious about saying it to her. Same with Cammy. It just comes easy with the kid. But with Zachory and Janice and Nick, I’m too worried about messing something up. I don’t know what that something is, exactly, but it scares me and makes my other worries feel insignificant, even foolish.

  I refolded the phone paper and stuck it back into my pocket. Maybe I could try Janice or Nick later, but I had to find my pills before I did anything else. Just holding the phone and creasing that old sheet of paper curled my fingers into claws and set wildfires in each of my knuckles. If
I didn’t pop a Rheumatrex and some Aleve soon, I’d be lucky to be up and about by the afternoon.

  Creaking and cracking as though I were made of warped wooden boards and rusty nails, I shuffled to the elevator and took it to the ground floor where, it so happened, almost every mobile resident of our community had congregated. As I stepped out into the activities room I received some nods and a few furtive smiles, but the buzz of conversation in the room was tense, anxious. At the far side of the room, opposite the elevator, a small crowd had gathered outside the door to the empty nurses’ station. They watched as Charmaine Jackson and “Iron” Eddie Person, who was once a star college linebacker, rammed the door with one of the heavy metal carts that the staff used to bring meals to bedridden residents. It took five good strikes with that battering ram, but the door broke from its moorings and hit the floor with a thunderclap. Everyone rushed the station, scrambling for their medication, their shots, their towlines to another tomorrow.

  And that’s when we heard it. As everyone, me included, tried to shove inside the station and snatch up pills, the phone rang. The home only has one main line. All our rooms have extension numbers. So for the nurses’ phone to ring meant that someone was calling the home itself, and not one of us in particular. It could mean news. It could mean explanations.

  Charmaine ducked beneath an outstretched arm and answered.

  “Hello?”

  We all froze.

  Charmaine scowled. “Who?” A pause. Then, again. “Who?”