Persi Writes Weird

So this one is a dream I had a long time ago, though I only wrote the story last week. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but for now I shall just get on with the horror. Enjoy!

They say smoking kills.

You had never taken it literally of course, it might have robbed you of several relatives but at the end of the day it was just one of those things they put on adverts to try and make people quit. Wasn’t it?

You went with them when they smoked. You hated sitting in the pub on your own, missing out on conversations and being greeted upon their return with in jokes you didn’t understand. You hated the smell, tried to talk to them with your head turned away, pretending it was funny when they deliberately blew their smoke at you. You used to tell them it would give them cancer, but you gave that up a long time ago. You were wasting your breath, and with all the passive smoking you did you didn’t know how much of that you had left.

Beer gardens were the dream. They could poison themselves to their hearts’ content and no one had to be left behind. You still felt somewhat out of place, but when the drink flowed and the sun shone you could at least pretend you belonged for a while. And as far as you were aware, they accepted you. You were definitely the nerd of the group, they did love to mock you, but it was all in fun.

You had been drinking since lunchtime, and it was beginning to get dark. As the hours went on, the conversation rose in volume and fell in intelligence. You had been seated at first, but an influx of families that needed the tables more left you standing in an untidy circle on the edge of everything. You probably looked a bit creepy, a group of drunks in a garden full of children, but you had consumed far too much alcohol to notice. And besides, they were trickling away now, like water down a drain.

The more they drank, the more cigarettes they got through. You never quite understood that. Wasn’t one substance enough? It bothered you all the more that day, the grass was dry and their hands were unsteady. Even through your haze, you knew starting a fire wasn’t the best idea.

You pointed it out to them once, but your brother made a show of stumbling around and nearly dropping his cigarette, and you decided to keep your mouth shut. You kept an eye on them, though, leaning against a tree at the back of the group and watching them as intently as you could through your beer goggles. You went quiet because it took up all your concentration, but they didn’t seem to notice. They were your brothers mates, really. They just tolerated you because they liked him. You knew that at times like this, when you were all but invisible despite being in their eye line.

There was no wind. It was the kind of day where the afternoon had been stifling and the evening was just your standard hot. The trees were so still you could almost believe they were pictures. That was important, it was something you would keep going back to in the following moments. Because if there was no wind, and the foliage around it was so still, how did that branch move?

It was funny, really. It whipped past your face and knocked the cigarette out of your brother’s hand, almost as if it had meant to. You lunged forward to grab it, but you did not have the coordination and nearly fell flat on your face. It landed on a rock, flickering smugly as if it knew you were being laughed at. It didn’t even go out, and your brother picked it up and stuck it back in his mouth as if it hadn’t just been on the ground.

“Don’t think that tree wants you to smoke,” you said, nudging him playfully.

Why did you say that? You knew comments like that only led to trouble.

The others taunted you, both for your words themselves and the implication that trees wanted things. You laughed along, making some sarcastic comment about how you were one with nature and could speak to the forest. Wasn’t that ironic?

He looked from you to the tree and back again, eyebrows raised, before stubbing out his cigarette on the bark. There was the tiniest sizzling noise, and when you looked down you saw a black mark. Given the chance, you would have told him that he was being a dick, that even though we don’t know if plants feel pain nearly setting them on fire is a dick move. You would have taken the laughter and the comments, because that was just how this friendship worked. Maybe you’d end up with a new nickname, “Lorax” or something. That would have been nice, in a weird sort of way.

You did not say anything. It took you long enough to work out what had happened that you were beyond speech by the time you did. People jumped away from you as if you’d farted, and the air filled with a strange cracking, swishing sound. Someone yelled in pain and you saw blood, a hand pressed to a slashed cheek, but you stayed where you were.

You did not feel pain until you saw what was causing it. Strange how the brain can do that. You caught movement out of the corner of your eye, a thousand tiny spears that flung themselves at you as if shot from a gun. You ducked instinctively, but something held you in place.

If you had not looked down, you might have remained blissfully unaware. Not for long, of course, but you would have been grateful of that small mercy. You just had to see what was wrong, didn’t you?

You were twitching. You had not realised, but as you stared down at yourself you saw your hands clench and your body arch convulsively. Even then, it took you far too long to realise.

It happened agonisingly slowly. It must have been tiny when it entered your back, as narrow as the needles that now surrounded you. What emerged from your chest brought to mind a spindly hand, fingers splayed, sprouting even more fingers as it stretched forward. You reached out to touch it with a quivering hand, finding it warm and wet. Something stuck to your finger, something you were pretty sure should not have been on your outside.

You knew at that moment that you were dead. You just hadn’t quite got there yet. You were no doctor, but you knew nothing in that region could take being pierced. By all logic you should have been gone already.

You looked up, using whatever strength you had left. They had left you. Not just the strangers, the last dregs of the daylight customers, but your friends too. They had begun to scatter when the tiny projectiles had flown, and now there was no one in sight. Not even your brother. You would have expected it from the others, you’d always known they were his friends not yours, but you had thought family might mean something. He didn’t have to try and save you, you didn’t want him to get hurt, but leaving you to die alone was even more of a dick move than burning a tree.

Your head flopped forward in despair, just in time to give you a good view of the sharp, wooden fingers as they clenched. You did not see it jerk violently back. You did not feel your ribs crack, and you did not hear the awful, wet tearing sound. As the vast majority of you fell to the ground, leaving an unidentifiable mass clutched in the now unmoving hand, you thought, with lingering indignation:

“It wasn’t even my fag!”

Except of course that it wasn’t a hand. It was just a branch, attached to a perfectly ordinary tree. What happened to you was a tragic accident. Somehow, in your drunken stupor, you managed to impale yourself. It was perfectly understandable that people should run, panic was the most rational response to such a thing. They really were going to get help, it was just that everything was so confused and stressful and… Well obviously they had to stop for a smoke on the way.

Afterthoughts

Like I said, this one makes me think things. There’s a lot of cancer in my family, so I don’t think the metaphor is hard to spot. Heart ripped out because your misguided relatives refused to stop smoking? It’s hardly rocket science! I won’t psychoanalyse myself with every story, I promise, I just thought this one was interesting. I think my choice to write it in the second person, apart from being an experiment to see if I could, was a way for me to distance myself from it a little. I’m all for putting a bit of myself in to my writing, but there are limits. Anyway, if nothing else I hope the general grimness of this one was pleasing to someone!