“Pull!” he shouted, and the children pulled.
The boy began to emerge from the mud, but as his body inched out of the earth, birds rose from the bushes and the trees around them began to sway. A strange rushing noise filled the air, a noise that sounded like the night itself was whispering a warning. And yet the children kept pulling, their hearts full of bravery and the best of intentions.
“Pull!” he shouted again.
Now the ground began to shake, and the moon itself, so bright, so perfectly round, began to tremble in the sky. The children kept pulling. The boy’s knees could now be seen.
“Pull!”
It was then that the trees began to sink into the ground, their ancient, twisting trunks slipping lower and lower into the earth. Yet still the children pulled.
Finally the boy’s hands were visible, as were his calves, and around them were the fingers of the creature. Except what they had thought were fingers were in fact thick vines with tendrils protruding from their length, all firmly wrapped around the boy’s feet and hands. Roots, the boy realized. The children stared in wonder, little hands growing slack on the rope.
Then the trees began to pull back.
Again the ground and sky shook, again the air was filled with a strange whispering. But this time it wasn’t the trees that were sinking, it was the children. First the boy in the mud patch disappeared, his glossy black hair vanishing beneath the mud like an exotic plant subsumed into the soil. Then the next-strongest boy, tied to him on the rope, was drawn kicking and screaming into the earth. Then the next child, and the next. They tried to pull back but it was no use; the trees were stronger than them, of course they were.
Child after child disappeared into the ground, their wet, gurgling cries awakening the parents and drawing them out of their houses. When they saw what was happening, the parents tried to grab on to the children, but were also drawn inexorably into the earth. The trees kept pulling still; the rope of bedsheets and towels proved fatal.
Eventually the last child was sucked into the ground, and along with her, the last parent. Now the night was quiet. Only the wind in the trees and the dull crash of waves was to be heard. Until the stilts of the house to which the children had tied themselves began to creak, a high, keening noise like the cry of an injured bird. The creak ended in a snap that brought the house to its knees, pulling it, too, into the earth.
The trees didn’t stop until all the houses were gone, all the fences, all the wheelbarrows, all the clothes carefully strung out to dry earlier that day. When it was over, nothing remained to suggest that a village had ever been there at all, except for one mossy corner beneath an old tree, where, protruding from the earth, was a piece of muddy orange tape.
Carbon Footprint
SHELLY ORIA
Sometimes you gotta risk your life to survive, Jack says and shrugs. He means we need to keep taking the subway: hope for the best, take precautions. We’re no car owners, and with the market skyrocketing like it has, that’s not changing anytime soon. We can’t afford cabs, either, which have gotten much pricier these last few weeks. He’s not wrong, my husband. I touch the bone at the top of his shoulder, then slide my fingers halfway to his neck. It’s a beautiful manbone, one that exudes power. It’s got a name, that bone. I stayed in school long enough to know what I don’t know.
My husband flexes his muscles at the touch of my hand. It’s what men do: you touch their shoulder bone, they show you strength. There’s plenty of ways to manipulate the man you love, and most of them you learn by watching. Overall you could say watching is the sort of thing I’ve done too much of in my life. I started early, too. First time I saw a man’s chest harden at judgment I don’t think I was twelve, even. And then I saw that same man’s chest buckle at the soft sound of a compliment, and I learned that all can happen in the span of a moment if the woman’s a good twister of words, a good singer of their music. Jacks, I say, baby. I sigh, a whisper of air. I’m not brave like you.
My husband feels guilty when I say these words; I can see the color of blame in his eyes. He wishes his schedule allowed him to walk me to the subway whenever I left our apartment. And in his wishing he imagines me a more powerful woman than I am. Your spine is made of little eyes and ears, baby, he tells me. Whenever I open the fridge for a beer, you yell from the bedroom. “Easy on the fizz, Jacks.” A Pusher try to make a move on you on the platform? Next thing, we’re at his funeral, offering condolences to his mama.
I say this to Betty Boop the next day on the phone, I say maybe Jack’s right, maybe I’ve been more scared than I need to be. I say, It’s true that I got better instincts than most. Betty says it ain’t right.
Betty and I have been friends since the first nursing home we both worked at, and the thing about spending your days with old people is you get in the habit of saying exactly what you think. As your man he should make sure you buddy up when he’s not around, she says. Buddying up is what’s considered safe now, ever since Pushers started popping up, shoving or kicking people in
