The Dark Corner

The Boy declared to The Father how lucky they were to have a moving tree. The Father rolled his eyes and explained that trees cannot walk. Some trees can be said to “walk” by nature of the core trunk dying and a secondary one emerging from its tendriling roots. This network threads far beyond the tree’s canopy to create a new head, like a hydra constantly regenerating. The Father reinforced how this is a process that takes years, even for the splendid standalone Willow Tree in front of their bungalow. For though all trees are beautiful, not all are grand, few are so striking, and a moving one would be singularly unique.  

The Boy, as children do, observed things only in shorter timelines. His days were measured not in hours, minutes and seconds, but in breaths between kicks of a football, bites of his buttered toast at breakfast, and the lengthening of shadows to interpret the passage of time. The Father counted the same time in different ways, such as the growth of his child into a young man, or the distance between two memories of The Boy’s Mother that increasingly pixelate her portrait in his mind. 

In only a brief two years, the idea of her in The Father’s mind had become polluted. Her imagined body was thinner, her features larger and more dreamlike. He and The Boy made a pact to not keep any photos in the house. That kind of pain scarcely sprouts into something pleasant. The Father decreed what they remembered would have to suffice and would honour her enough. The Boy had said he’d give anything to get her back and he said it often. 

The Boy kissed The Father on the cheek and went to bed. The Father looked out the window and his heart unfurled at what he saw. The view from their little country house, in a clearing in the fir-dense forest, was immensely comforting. Their land a neatly-mowed half-acre occupied by a single, sullen Willow Tree. It was twice as tall as the bungalow, and its branches spread just as wide. A solitary beauty in the quiet world around them. She would have loved it. 

The next day, The Boy was jubilant. He leapt in the air and proclaimed once more how lucky they were to have a moving Willow Tree. Not only that, but the tree could talk. The Father laughed affectionately at his good nature and again disagreed, reiterating how trees do not move or speak. Except The Boy claimed the tree showed him how to prove that it moved. The Boy dragged his father by the forearm out to The Tree. The Boy showed how he had stuffed two tent pegs in the soil, one single pace either side of the trunk. The Tree was much closer to the peg nearest the house, maybe ten metres from the back door. 

They fell into an argument, as The Father contested whether The Boy had even used any metrics or genuine scientific method. He had not informed The Father of this experiment, nor, as they were both well aware, was he particularly intuitive when it came to problem solving. An imagination is only ever useful when it does not quarrel with the truth. 

The Boy’s defence faltered and, seeing his deflated spirit, The Father proposed a new experiment. He would connect a line between the two tent pegs and hammer another into the bark of Willow Tree. The Boy protested, not wanting to harm The Tree, though he eventually relented to The Father’s calm insistence and experience. Had trees ever felt pain, humans would have suffered for it long ago. 

The Father used a hammer and drove deep into the core of the young Willow Tree. The Boy flinched at each hit, each shard of bark flying sadly like debris from a space shuttle drifts to the earth. The Father plucked the taut line like a guitar string and brought them back inside for breakfast. They shared pancakes and tea, and The Boy ran out to the yard to play for the day, while The Father went to the study to write. 

Every so often, in any absence of noise, The Father would look outside, checking to make sure The Boy was fine and, equally, that their experiment remained untainted. The Boy did lean against The Tree for a time to read his novel – yesterday The Jungle Book, today was something else – and seemed disinterested in interfering with the pegs. As the shadows grew long and The Boy went to bed, The Father went outside to inspect the pegs. The chord between them was fraying, and he strengthened it with tape before retiring to bed. Standing at the window before turning off his light, he looked out to the Willow Tree. It did appear taller than before, but then again, he was paying more attention to it than at any point in the last pair of years. Sometimes a watched pot does boil. 

By the crack of dawn, the situation was no clearer. The Father had wandered into the yard in his dressing gown and observed the experiment. The peg had come loose from the trunk and had fallen to the ground. The Boy emerged and did not disguise his disappointment. He asked what this meant. The Father said no conclusion could be drawn, but they would not repeat the experiment. It was likely animals or a storm that dislodged it. The Boy insisted there was no storm last night. The Father acknowledged it, and explained how a moving animal was a more likely culprit than a moving tree. 

Both were unsatisfied, though both were content to let it pass, at least in discussion with one another. After The Father had moved to the study to work, The Boy took the loose peg at the end of the chord and stretched it back to The Tree. The peg did not reach the trunk, even as he strained. 

The Father became further frustrated when The Boy asked whether or not trees could really keep a promise. The Father ranted briefly on the bad nature of playing tricks on one’s elders or imagining things. The rant evolved into a charged rage and both of them were moved to tears, then hugs. Neither of them spoke to one another for the rest of the day. Lunch and dinner were eaten in silence. 

That night there was a storm, with no battering rain, but relentless wind. The Boy shuffled into The Father’s room, clutching a book to his pyjamas. He asked if he could stay in there tonight. The Father did not refuse, despite The Boy being far too old to crawl into a parent’s bed, scared as he was. Neither fell fully asleep. The Boy admitted he had been reading about sacred Celtic trees. Legends had championed the sanctity of the Hazel, Ash, Elder, Yew, Oak, and others. 

The Willow was not one of them. 

The Willow was acknowledged in almost all cultures worldwide as being a vessel of sorrow, or death, or ghosts, or failure, or suffering, or pain, or hunger. 

The Willow was said to stalk men. 

The Father told The Boy not to believe in silly nonsense. That folklore existed for a reason, and how those from the past used stories to pass on wisdom, guidance and advice to younger generations. The stories were metaphors and not truth. The Boy asked how all of it could possibly be made up. The Father reminded The Boy that the best lies are the ones intermixed with the truth. 

The Boy passed out in the hour before sunrise and The Father thumbed through the pages. The endearingly childish annual had seen better days, and its pages were filled with stories of poltergeists, lake-dwelling monsters, and wolfmen. A solitary page detailed how in some Celtic legends the Willow Tree was known to consume men whole. 

The book mentioned nothing about a tree moving. 

The Father looked out the window beyond the Willow Tree’s span to see the glowing horizon. 

The Tree looked back. 

After breakfast, The Boy returned to his room and roared. His room was filled with leaves from the Willow Tree. Thousands of wispy green wings carpeted the floor and insects flitted and danced between them like fireworks. His bedsheets were nowhere to be seen, and an enormous invisible weight was creating a pronounced depression in the centre of the mattress. The Father entered the room and put his arms around The Boy. The invisible weight rotated on the bed, detectable through the churning of the mattress surface beneath. In a handful of heartbeats, the depression on the bed lifted. A sound whipped around their heads like a cable detaching from a power pylon. The sonic incursion was swift and pointed, and caused a ringing in their ears. The leaves of the room all hopped up and slowly drifted back down, as though the room were an elevator that suddenly dropped a floor. 

As the haze of green settled, The Father looked to the window. He had locked it tight last night and it had remained so. But outside, no more than a metre from the window, stood the Willow Tree, its broken trunk into where he had driven the peg turned to face them. 

The Father pulled The Boy outside and they ran to The Tree. There was no protrusion from the soil where The Tree stood yesterday, and now some of its branches were pressing toward the walls of the house. A particularly pointed bough had nestled under the eaves, causing the vinyl to buckle. Its roots had emerged all around the East side of the property. The Boy’s bedsheets were shredded and grass-stained at the base of the trunk. 

The Father demanded to know what The Tree had said to The Boy. The Boy was inconsolable. He kept repeating how he was sorry and didn’t mean it, and how they needed to go. His voice was high-pitched and his skin covered in goosebumps. The Father took his handaxe and ladder and chopped away the branch molesting the house. The Boy cried out for him to stop, but the branch fell quickly. The Father then took what cooking oils and alcohols he had from the kitchen and the parlour and emptied them against the base of The Tree. He took out his lighter from a previous life and tossed it against the primed bark. 

The flames were slow to grow, but they grew all the same. The Tree’s wild canopy was eventually entirely alight, each burning leaf a star collapsing into a black hole, each crumbling branch a lightning strike fading back into the dark night. The Boy and The Father stood, huddled together, watching the fire take The Tree down from its great prominence to a waist-high black stump. 

The Boy once more pleaded with The Father to leave as the final cinders smoldered. The Father agreed that they would as soon as daylight returned. 

They stayed together once again in The Father’s room. The Father had locked the door and barricaded the window with the room’s drawers and wardrobe, laid down and stacked vertically. After midnight, The Boy needed to piss. The Father instructed him to use the corner of the room rather than risk heading to the bathroom. 

Again a windstorm descended in the darkest hours and The Father found it difficult to sleep. His thoughts were punctured by images of The Boy’s Mother, their life before. 

The shattering glass woke him and his heavy eyes became light as he took in the situation. The window was intact. The door was open. The Boy was gone.  

The Father scrambled out to The Boy’s room. The window was broken and bloodstained, a direct path through the recently-disturbed leaves was clear. Squinting, past where the Willow Tree stood tall only that morning, he could see The Boy running deep into the forest. The Father called his name, but The Boy did not turn his head. The Father climbed out the window, bare feet landing on splintered glass. He pushed through the pain and ran to the forest. 

He called The Boy’s name again, spotting the child turning a corner in the mazy and winding path through the trees. Each step he took, another dagger-like branch sliced into him. His shoulders, wrists, and thighs all bled, even the skin beneath clothes wept. The drips from each cut left a fractal-like stain upon the wilderness, blood spreading from his feet like wild shoots. 

The Father ran for what felt like an eternity of breaths, catching only glimpses of The Boy and desperately calling out to him. The Boy never looked back. He never showed his face, his shadow growing longer with each heavy step. The light of dawn refused to fight through the thickets of the broad and hateful forest. 

Gasping and fading, The Father finally blasted through to a clearing. He found himself at the base of a small knoll, the new day’s glow glancing over its peak. He clambered to its summit and lost his footing, rolling down the other side. He propped himself up on his forearms and raised his head. 

No more than ten metres from him was the bungalow. And in front of it, with their backs turned, were The Boy and The Boy’s Mother, hand in hand. He could not see their faces, nor feel their warmth. The Father tried to bend his neck and could not. He tried to push himself up off his knees and could not, his limbs were invisibly shackled to the ground and stiff. He tried to scream but his mouth would not open. With his breath lengthening and coldness overcoming him, The Father’s vision grew hazy and he began to sway. He became acutely aware of his motionlessness. 

The Boy asked if he would be mad. The Boy’s Mother said trees don’t get mad. The Boy asked if trees could really walk. The Boy’s Mother laughed and said of course they don’t walk. Or talk. Or keep promises. All they do is watch. Trees have been there forever and will be there long after we’re gone. We exist for only a fraction of their time on this planet. They spend eternity silently watching us living our lives, and isn’t it a comfort? 

The Father blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the seasons had changed. He blinked again, and the house was no longer there. He blinked once more, and an old man with a cane stood in front of him, his back turned. The next time he closed his eyes, they would not open any more. All he could do was feel the whisper of the wind in his hair, a dull weight at his feet, and a hollowness within him that grew and grew and grew. 

Rúairí Hickson is a writer from Wicklow who, unfortunately, has to work full-time in other industries to support his crippling money addiction. He has a terrific wife, Maeve, whose tolerance of his nonsense never ceases to inspire him. He has two wonderful daughters, Saskia and Síofra, whose capacity to love is eclipsed only by their capacity to break wind. He also has a prima donna computer that has reset three times while trying to craft this bio.