The Black Gasping Tree

1.

I take a blowtorch to the tundra, make a tiny puddle in the ice under a black, frail tree. I have no other equipment, no gloves, no protective mask. There are two large-eared foxes; one of them finds my unpreparedness incredibly brazen, while the other dives headfirst and repeatedly into the snow after mice. I reach a hand toward the tree. My fingers come away bleeding. I clean them in the puddle, which has become a lake. The tree has fallen into the lake, and is at its pure white lake bottom, its image shimmering, like there are several miles of desert heat between us. In the bubbles that break on the surface of the water, I hear its jagged branches gasping: Don't die. It sounds like Chopin.


2.

There is now an ecosystem in the lake, but it is invisible, or the creatures that inhabit it are not the type to reflect light. Against the backdrop of the white lake bottom and the black gasping tree, there are clouds of jellyfish; there is a galaxy of plankton; there is a new breed of fish without spines or eyes; there are humans without skin or skeletons or muscles and their brains are rice noodles; there is a black hole in the shape of a black gasping tree directly under the black gasping tree. When the ecosystem disappears like phlegm into a drain, no one realizes that anything has been birthed or destroyed.


3.

I am thirsty. I get on my hands and knees and drink all of the lake. As the shore recedes, I expand, and my skin begins to doubt its own competence. Now my existence depends upon my skills at remaining perfectly motionless and touching nothing in the white crater. Epiphanies that come in the stillness of the crater: 1. Soap bubbles are round. 2. Stars feel like burping just before they supernova. The world is all smooth and silky and snowy tundra before it comes to a point, hovers inches away from my protruding navel.


4.

I wake up standing in the crater, just after drinking all of the lake. I think it was a dream. I move, and my skin pops, and a red mist silently settles over the crater. The large-eared foxes find the little pop sound cute.


5.

I wake up standing in the crater, just after drinking all of the lake. I think it was a dream. I climb out of the crater and build a fire on the ex-shore. A new lake is born.


6.

I throw a party on the shore of the new lake. All my friends come to it. I don't have any friends.


7.

A frog hops into the punch bowl. A flock of crows lands in the chip bowl. The frog is hungry, and the crows are thirsty. Neither will give ground.


8.

The crows are rallying in the tundra. They are warrior crows. Their faces are smeared with blood that looks like war paint that looks like blood. They are lined up to my left and my right. We are all facing forward. Their beaks jut out fiercely from under their iron helmets. They are staring something down. They are staring something down. They are staring something down.

The crows are giant. They are the same height as me. I feel so large and powerful next to the giant crows.

The thing they are staring down is a frog. It is not invisible. It thinks it is invisible because the crows are all blind. It is a new kind of frog—white and phlegmy—from a lake that was created with fire. But the lake has burned down, so now the frog is homeless. The frog is growing a scraggly beard.

The crows have a gene that says crow and so they crow. They all crow at once in a singular, resounding crow. The sound is deafening. The sound is glorious. These crows are so good: they should have played one of the hordes in Lord of the Rings.

In the world of the frog, the entire world is crows.

The crows have a gene that says blame the frog for being what it is so they blame the frog for being what it is.


9.

The crows demand the head of the frog. They tell me that I am the king of the crows, and it must be me who does the chopping. They want to hand me the sacred crow sword that has been passed down through generations of crow kings. The hand-off proves tricky. The steel keeps slipping through their feathers and thunking into the snow. They do not have opposable feathers. They become frustrated, but hide this from me, their king. Finally, one of the crows slides a beak under the blade carefully, slides its head through the snow beneath it like a dog slides its head into blankets on a warm bed. The blade is now balanced across the crow's shoulder blades. Slowly, the crow takes a step toward me, head bowed, back taut. Another step, and another, until the crow is kneeling by my feet, sword perpendicular to me and gleaming. I grab the hilt. I lift it. I turn to the frog.


10.

The frog looks at me. I look at the frog. Most of the frog's phlegmy whiteness is over one of the black branches of the fallen gasping tree. The frog does not look afraid. The frog does not look ashamed. It does not look sneaky. It does not look smug. In the frog's eyes, I see my childhood: My younger brother trespassing into my room, climbing the ladder to my top bunk, hoping to join in the fun and sophisticated tea party I am having with an invisible person that I call my twin sister. A six-year-old rage fills me as I see his head peek over the edge of the bed, and a six-year-old arm smacks a six-year-old hand into his forehead. He falls back, his head hits a rung of the ladder, his legs fall up over his head, and he somersaults, and then he is lying on his back on the floor. He isn't hurt. He stares at me. His mouth is slightly open. He says nothing. He rarely says anything. He stares at me. I stare at him. I climb down the ladder.

I lay down my sword, and pat the frog across its phlegmy white shoulders.

The crows are silent.