The Ignored

I had completed my first week of work since returning when I saw the mayor coming toward me across the first-floor lobby on my way out. I waved to him. “How’s the search going?” I asked. “Any leads?”

He said nothing, looked at me, past me, through me, and continued walking.

Eleven

When I awoke the next morning, there was a new tree outside our bedroom window.

I stood in front of the window, staring, a clenched, tight feeling in my chest. The tree was not a small sapling or a potted palm that someone had placed in our front yard. It was a full-sized sycamore, taller than our house, growing, deep-rooted, in the center of the lawn.

It had purple leaves.

I didn’t know what it was or what it meant, I only knew that it frightened me to the bone. I stood there, unable to take my eyes off the sight, and as I stared I saw the front door of the house open and Jane walk across the lawn to get the newspaper from the front sidewalk.

She walked through the tree, as if it weren’t there.

The clenched feeling grew, spreading within me, and I realized that I was holding my breath. I forced myself to breathe. Jane picked up the paper, walked back through the tree and into the house.

Was it an optical illusion? No, the tree was too clear and definite, too there, for it to be a mere image.

Was I crazy? Maybe. But I didn’t think so.

Oh, the things you’ll see….

I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and hurried outside. The tree was still there, big as life and twice as colorful, and I walked up to it, reached out to touch it.

And my hand passed through the bark.

I felt nothing, no warmness, no coldness, no displacement of air. It was as if the tree weren’t there at all. I gathered my courage, walked through it. It looked solid, not transparent or translucent, and while walking through I saw only blackness. Like I really was inside a tree. But I felt nothing.

What the hell was it?

I stood there, staring up at the purple leaves.

“What are you doing?” Jane called from the kitchen.

I looked back at her. She was watching me through the open window with a puzzled expression, as though I was behaving incredibly stupidly, which I suppose to her I was. I walked around the tree, then across the grass to the front door. I went into the kitchen, where she was mixing batter for blueberry muffins.

“What were you doing out there?”

“Looking at something.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

She stopped stirring, glanced at me. “You’ve been behaving strangely ever since that murder. Are you sure you’re all right?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“You know, a lot of people who witness violent acts, even policemen, go to counseling to work through what they’re feeling.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Don’t get so worked up. I’m just worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“I — ”

“I’m fine.”

She looked at me, looked away, went back to mixing the batter.

The tree was still there after breakfast, still there after I took my shower. Jane wanted to go to the store and pick up some groceries for dinner, and I happily volunteered to go for her. She said fine, she had a lot of work to do around the house anyway, and I took the list she gave me and drove off.

I’d been acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, but I saw other purple trees in the park, red and black bushes growing in the center of Main Street, a silver stream passing through the Montgomery Ward’s parking lot, and it was obvious that overnight something really bizarre had happened.

Had happened to me.

No one else in town seemed to see these manifestations.

Jane had asked me to go to the IGA — she liked their produce better than Von’s of Safeway — and while inside the supermarket I saw another tree, identical to the one in my yard, growing out of the meat counter, its branches passing through the ceiling.

I stood there staring at the tree as other shoppers passed around me. There was no way I could live with this day in and day out, no way I could pretend to live a normal life while fantasy forests were popping up around me in the midst of my ordinary surroundings.

Was this what had happened to the murderer?

I quickly got what I came for and hurried home. I found Jane mopping the kitchen floor, and I put the sack of groceries on the table and came right out and said it: “Something is wrong.”

She looked up, not surprised. “I was hoping you’d tell me what it was.”

I licked my lips. “I… see things,” I said. I looked into her eyes, hoping to see a hint of recognition, but there was nothing. “Do you know what I mean?”

She shook her head slowly.

“There. Outside.” I pointed through the window. “Do you see that tree? The one with the purple leaves?”

Again she shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”

Did she think I was crazy?

“Come here.” I led her into the front yard, stopped at the base of the tree. “You don’t see anything there?”

“No.”

I took her hand, pulled her through the tree. “Still nothing?”

She shook her head.

I took a deep breath. “I’m fading away,” I said.

I told her everything. About the clown, the police, Steve, Ralph, the people at work who no longer saw me. About the trees and bushes and streams I’d seen on my way to the store today. She was silent when I was through, and I saw tears in her eyes.

“I’m not going crazy,” I told her.

“I don’t think you are.”

“Then why —?”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

I put my arms around her and held her tightly, and she cried into my shoulder. My own eyes were overflowing. Oh, God. Was I going to be separated from her again? Was I destined to be parted from her once more?

I pulled back from her, tilted her chin up until she was looking in my eyes. “Do you still see me?” I asked.

“Yes.” Her nose was running, and she wiped it with the back of her hand.

“Am I… different at all? Do you think about me less often? Do you forget I live here?”

She shook her head, began to cry again.

I hugged her. That was something. But it was only a temporary respite, I knew. She loved me. I was important to her. No wonder I would linger longer in her consciousness. But eventually, inevitably, I would fade from