The tree

I am allergic to exactly one tree and that is the one that grows on the front lawn directly outside my office window. So on a lovely autumn day like this when I'd like to be able to crack my window open and fill my lungs with someone of that fresh semi-rural suburban air, I can't, because if I did, my nose would clog and I would itch all over and my eyes would swell shut like I had been punched and I'd be sneezing so bad I'd scare the kids and my head would be propelled forward so quickly I'd slam it against the desk and die, probably. As it is, the window is shut and half these things are happening anyway, so fuck it.

My wife planted the tree. She said the lawn looked "barren" shortly after we couldn't have any more kids and wanted to "spruce" it up a bit. The first thing she did was plant a tiny tree directly in front of my office window. I complained even then, before I knew it had been genetically engineered to murder me.

"It'll block my view," I said. I like to be able to look out into the yard and see the animals running around, or the street and see the kids riding their bikes and playing basketball while I'm working. "Shut up," she said in that humorless tone she has only recently acquired. "It won't grow that big." And then again, "shut up."

Well, it's grown. Sixteen or twenty feet in one season, and now all I can see when I look out the window is bark.

That tree was to be only the beginning--that was my understanding. The beginning of her yardwork, that is. But she planted the one tree and stopped. I ask her about it and she says the tree has made a world of difference on its own, or how is she supposed to get any work done in the yard when I make such a goddamn mess around the house (I don't, for the record) or what the hell am I talking about or shut up.

The tree was very crafty about when it began releasing its spores. If it had happened right away, I would have been confused for a few days (because I am allergic to nothing--NOTHING--besides this tree, and thus was unfamiliar with the symptoms), but I am an enterprising fellow and I would have figured it out eventually and I would have been completely within my rights to destroy it, or at the very least transplant it. But it was barren itself for months as it grew faster than any tree before it had ever grown and it was only after it had grown so large that I barely would have been able to wrap my arms around it that it began dusting the window every morning with its powdery seed. It waited. It sized up its enemy and waited for the perfect opportunity to "pounce," so to speak.

My wife is attached to the tree. Or claims to be, anyway, on an emotional level. She has carved our initials into the bark, saying it reminds her of the tree in our old schoolyard under which we shared our first kiss. I share no such memory (what I remember is lunging over the stick shift in my car, hand past her collarbone and on to her bra strap before she'd even had the opportunity to jam her tongue down my throat). She bred this tree to destroy me--I'm not sure how and I'm barely sure why. But this tree could have only been bred for me, with my discomfort and misery in mind. She must have collected a blood sample, sent it off to a lab, analyzed the results, etc. All because she wanted to make me feel what it was like to die, and to wish death upon oneself.

I know why she planted it. I used to keep my office door open all day long, and she or the kids would drop by, chat for a bit, bring me things or ask how I was doing, or just watch me work. I enjoyed it. And then one day--one day!--I shut the door because I wanted to masturbate. One day! What can I say, the desire overcame me. I was seized with it. So I closed the door and not two minutes later I heard my wife climb the steps. She stood in front of the door and listened. I (motionless by now) listened back. Silence. Then, she retreated. Then came back, apparently having "decided" to vacuum the hall. She started innocently enough at first, a few steps away, but then made her move and began slamming the vacuum into the door, over and over and over again, as if testing the door's mettle, or mine. It was over the sound of this thudding that I decided to leave the door closed from then on.

I haven't left the room since. I conduct my business through the door or sometimes (rarely) out the open window. I have no need for an alarm clock in here, because every morning I can depend upon the dull thudding of the vacuum against the door to wake me, just as the sun begins to rise and the tree opens its buds and mates with the world around it.