THE LEAF

She’d never say this out loud, but it had become a problem. For months they’ve seemingly been after her, finding inventive and invasive ways to fuck with her and get closer: Waiting outside her apartment door in numbers too large to count, an unexpected crunch and crinkle when she knew she was alone, and perhaps most dastardly, causing snarls and tears in her hair as they burrowed even deeper and completely without consent.

Still, she never assumed the leaves would stoop this low. 

It is mid-shower when she notices the first leaf of that day. It had been at least a week since she saw the last one (stubbornly stuck in her shoe, itching at her ankle until it crumbled at the touch) and she held a misguided belief that that was the end of it all. She could not point to what had guided her to this belief–her father’s ghost in a dream, her horoscope for her rising sign, etc.–but she held firm until her gaze landed on leaf #1. An expected wave of grief and loss-of-self descended but then the soap started to burn in her eyes.

The burning subsided and the shower back on track, she attempted to throw this leaf #1 to its rightful exterior world from the narrow bathroom window, but it clung desperately to her dripping fingertips. Every effort to remove it, simply migrated it from one finger to the next, just as wet as the first. When she finally scraped the leaf (now on her pointer finger) against the metal window frame, she didn’t look back, only assuming that once dry, the wind would surely take it. This she firmly believed.

Working her shampoo into a lather some deceptively long minutes later, she noticed leaf #1 once more. Or rather, perhaps, she noticed a leaf, a leaf #2 per se. Thinking back to the concrete truths of the world that she learned as a child, she reminded herself that leaves did and have always come from trees. In that, there would be many similar leaves in the same vicinity all from one tree, in this case, the one looming in the courtyard between the aging buildings. This fact grounds her in reality once more. 

This particular leaf, leaf #2 (or #1), was even further out on the tiled ledge than before. Its edges curled up just slightly, commingling confidently among her toiletries yet weighed down by the small pool of water. Promptly she turned the shower off and the stream of water shuddered to a stop except for the drip that will last until her next one and she dried her hands. After rubbing each of her fingers against her towel, thoroughly, she reached over to grasp the leaf, then dropped it into the small aluminum trash can between the sink and toilet. With the release of her foot, the lid clamped shut and she left the bathroom.

In her bedroom, amongst the things she is either completely or not one bit attached to, the vibrations of her phone reverberated against the hardwood floor, slapping her with the reminder that there’s a handsome idiot coming over. She padded over softly, scrunching her wet hair into the towel. I’ll be there soon, he had texted at some point, shortly followed by,  Do I bring anything? She explored alternate responses before settling on the tried and true “beer” and then threw some clothes on. After twenty minutes, enough of them actually stick to make a socially-accepted outfit.

Returning to the bathroom, she pulled the medicine cabinet open, taking out the various bottles that promise her perfectly dewy skin. Using cotton pads she adds one after another in meticulous layers. When her well-worn routine is completed, she then used the alternate side of the cotton pads to apply make-up layer after layer, knowingly negating any progress in her potentially dewy skin. She dropped the collected cotton pads into the trash.

Strange, she thought when the small aluminum trash can opened. It was now noticeably fuller, beyond what she can rationalize. A substantial pile of leaves (approximately between 30-60) threatened to escape its prison, and it should be mentioned that whether 30 or 60, this pile was noticeably more than the single one she had just deposited only twenty-two minutes ago. She released her foot, closing the can, and the swinging lid caused some leaves to gently float out, tumbling down near her feet, landing delicately, innocently on the stained bath mat. She’s not naive though, they’ve played this trick before.  

She stepped out into the hall, turned the light on, and knocked on her roommate’s door. This roommate, she very well knows, is out snowboarding in Denver thinking he’s someone far cooler than he is, but she also made the mistake of telling him about the leaves when high on shrooms right after she gave birth to a concept for his next play. It’s been his favorite joke for the best five months and he’s been known to collect a leaf or two for nefarious purposes. 

As she suspected, the knock lingers unanswered, without even a ghost to humor her, and, peering in, she confirmed the room is very much empty and still absolutely disgusting. But that’s not the point. She swore to herself once, “fuck”. She swore to herself twice, “fuck”. Then reminded herself: ‘They are just leaves.”

Yes, just leaves. She gazed into a mirror repeating this as a sort-of reverse Bloody Mary, hoping that after saying it enough times there won’t be a single leaf on her entire block. This doesn’t work, of course, just like the past four times.

She opened the small trash can, muttered impolite things under her breath, and dropped her dirty cotton pads in along with the fallen soldiers on the bath mat and then pulls the bag out, promptly tying it shut and leaving it out in the hall. Something for tomorrow or perhaps an overly generous neighbor. Simultaneously, she locked the deadbolt and her phone vibrated aggressively on the wood floor once again.

I’m walking over from the station, he texts. Or texted. It’s now been over twenty minutes since “beer” and five since she received this latest text. She scowled at the leaves through the door, punishing them for stealing her time, her precious fucking time, leaving her fingers to trip over themselves as she rushes to place an ill-thought-out pizza order that will take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get here. To bridge the gap, she opted to make a charcuterie board, but admittedly her heart wasn’t in it. A knock interrupts her just as she’s just gotten out the cutting board. He’s there.

She swung the door open, already walking back to the counter before he had dropped the beer on the floor. “Do you want me to bring that down?” He shouted from around the corner. “The bag...oh yeah, if you don’t mind,” He handed her the six-pack in exchange. “I’ll leave the door unlocked for you,” she promises him.

After placing the beer in the fridge, she pulled the crisper drawer open to survey her cheese and meat options. Squinting in the toxic yellow fridge light, she found cheddar, prosciutto, some gross cheese her friend brought...pepper jack, more cheddar– reaching further back her fingers are pricked by something. Her eyes widen. Her chest heaves. She scuttled back until her own back is against the wall. The door to the fridge slowly eeks closed but the open drawer stops it midway, the yellow light leaks out.

Focusing her gaze on the darkest corner of her ceiling she began to list out the facts. Her therapist routinely pressures her to do this but she hardly has the patience. But she’s desperate. 

Fact #1: There is a branch in my refrigerator drawer.

Fact #2: It is a smallish branch.

Fact #3: My roommate has been out of town for 5 days. 

Fact #4: There aren’t any useful herbs on this branch.

Fact #5: This branch is clearly from the tree outside.

Okay, so there is an explanation. She’s sure of it. It just doesn’t come to her right away. But there is one. There’s a rational reason as to why there’s a 6-inch branch from the tree in her courtyard in the refrigerator drawer of her fourth-floor walk-up.

With surprising gumption, she pulled it out and dropped it on her counter. The branch looks so pathetic on the counter, a stick with only a few leaves to its name, the same as the mother tree in the courtyard. It’s deep winter, so the tree can’t be blamed but neither can she for throwing the encroaching branch frantically out the window. The apartment door opened, and he turns the corner just in time to catch her swearing into the wind.

“There was a branch in my fridge.” “A branch?” “Yeah, so I threw it outside.” “And verbally assaulted it?” “Yes.”

“I’m making a charcuterie board since the pizza is going to take a bit to get here.” The meats and cheeses are scattered on the floor and counter. She thinks one cheese fell under the counter but she can’t be bothered to address that right now. She’s got branches on the mind. 

He locked into her gaze and ‘playfully’ shakes her shoulder,“ Let me take over. You just find us something to watch on TV.” He slid in to replace her before she’s even moved and started slicing the oxidized cheeses. Clearly unneeded (unwanted? unqualified?), she transitioned to the couch and pops a beer can open, and foam fell over her fingers. She licks it off and grabs the remote. Her fingers go through the motions but she keeps catching herself gazing past him and at the tree in the courtyard instead. It kinda looks bigger than she remembers. 

When the delivery guy finally buzzes the apartment, the supposedly expertly prepared charcuterie board had been reduced to crumbs. She leaped up to buzz him in with her second beer in hand. “Do you have cash for tip?” he handed her some crumpled singles from his pocket, and with her slippers hastily thrown on, she ran out the door to meet the delivery person in the lobby. It’s a quick succession of events when she returns: slippers off, table cleared, shitty movie resumed. When she finally sat, he shared his nuanced observation that the pizza is cold.  She had started to get up but he’s “got it” and takes the box over to the kitchen to reheat and she chugs the rest of her second beer. She hates sour beer. 

While he’s out of sight, her thoughts returned to the same topic that’s been on loop for the past few hours..weeks? She heard him drop something in the kitchen. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” While the rational part of her that’s left, informs her that she’d be playing a convincing fool if she were to tell him, the inebriated side of her just needs someone, anyone else to know, and maybe even validate what she suspects is now a conspiracy.

His massive man body sank back into the couch and he hands her a fresh bottle of beer. She’s itching to tell him at this point.“I dropped it and it foamed a bit, but it’s still pretty much all there.” His hand rubbed her thighs. “Thanks.” He kissed her cheek, scraping some skin cells with his grizzled face.

She is annoyed, that’s true, but there are bigger things on her mind and she likes the smell of his musk. She sidled up close to him and receded to the puzzle in her mind. At some point, her mind drifted even further to childhood autumns in the midwest. Raking up the carpet of maple leaves and pine needles into ever-impressive mounds. A hill of her own creation only to be burnt down to the ground sometime later. Each leaf curling and lighting up in neon before crumbling to ash.

“Do you smell smoke?” “Fuck,” she leaped up and strode to the oven, her eyes tingling just a bit. She yanked open the window and dropped the oven door open with a thud. Looking inside she pukes up her third bottle of beer, just a little bit, but swallowed it.

“Are those fucking leaves? In your oven?” “Yeah” He tries to salvage the pizza, buried under the crackling foliage. “When’s the last time you used this? I mean I’m assuming this is some stupid ass prank from your roommate.” “I used it yesterday. To make toast.” “God he really is an idiot. When are you going to kick him out? Jesus.” The pizza smoldered black on the stovetop. 

Ten minutes pass, he’s sitting with his elbows on his knees and she’s been perched in front of the window this whole time. The winter chill bites her back but it kept her in the present. He looked over at her, sipping his beer. “Are you going to come over here any time soon?”

“It is odd isn’t it?” “The leaves?...Yeah. It’s odd, but, I mean, it’s just your roommate.” He swigs. His lips pursed tight around the neck of the bottle. 

“There was also a branch in my fridge, earlier, when I was making the charcuterie.” “He does realize he isn’t funny, like at all right?” “And there was a bunch in the trash can too. Like way too many, especially considering it was empty literally seconds before. It’s not even fall, like I’ve seen more leaves in my apartment today than I’ve seen on the fucking sidewalk. That’s weird right?”

“Yeah. That’s weird…”

“But like, weird or weird weird.” She knew he won’t but she hopes he will.

“It’s weird. It’s just leaves in your apartment. Do you think there’s something going on?” He doesn’t. And thusly, doesn’t surprise her in the slightest. She turned around and latches the window closed. The air immediately felt stuffy and still tinged with smoke. “Listen, you have to realize there isn’t some weird kind of…I don’t know…plot going on with the leaves. Just, bring yourself back down to reality.”

Back on the couch, she can’t concentrate on anything. She draped her body across his lap so she could gaze at the ceiling. He gently rubs her thighs, inching higher and higher. He lifted her shirt to kiss her stomach. “What if… What if reality doesn’t feel real?” 

“Well, that’s on you.” He climbed on top of her. 

It’s 1:37. She’s in bed, rolled over onto her side. His hand absent-mindedly rubs her back, but it’s more like a dull slap followed by a quick cascade to the comforter. Slap, slide. Slap, slide. Slap, slide. He’ll fall asleep soon enough and it’ll stop unless he’s already asleep and this is a strange zombification of his body in deep sleep. Maybe it’ll never stop. 

She considered masturbating, to get something from the night but is too tired. And the fancy pizza isn’t sitting well. She rolled over to the other side, and his arm falls and stops its rhythmic dance. He’s even less attractive in the moonlight. She hadn’t realized that was possible, but it’s something about the way it highlighted the coarse hair in his mustache and unibrow. She rolled back over and faces the window. Through her window, she can see a tree silhouetted by a streetlight as if it were coming to exorcise a child and save it from damnation. She didn’t remember it being there, but who remembers trees? She does, however, remember that this tree is the same kind as the one in the courtyard. It’s a ‘stink’ tree. When you cut it open or rip the branch off a young one it releases a pungent, sour smell that clings to your nose in retaliation. The leaves of this particular stink tree begin to lull her into sleep and she’s grateful.

When he coughed, it jerks her awake. For a moment, when she first sprung her eyes open, it looked like the stink tree was impossibly close, threatening to burst through the fire escape and close the gap. But she blinked and it's back by the streetlamp. He coughed again. “Do you need water or something?” Her lids had already started to sink and the last thing she wanted to do is get him water, but she will if needed. Her heavy eyelids bursted open once again when he slaps his hand to her back. SLAP slide. 

“What the fuck!” When she sat up she sees he’s clutching his throat and gasping for air. “What’s going on? Can you breathe? Do I do the Heimlich? I don’t know how to do that…I shouldn’t have offered. 911? Right, yeah, 911.” He nodded aggressively and winced. She fumbles for her phone, and dials 911. Leaving it on speaker, she pulled him into her lap and tried to give the Heimlich, but fears she was making the whole situation worse. Thrusting her fists, over and over again, into the cavity. The coughs start to become weaker, lacking the passion and phelm of the first ones. Tears streamed her cheeks, rich with anxiety. By the time they make it to the hospital her face is caked in her own salt.

Sometime later, while sitting in a plastic chair, she is told he never made it. Hadn’t survived. Somehow, the doctor explained, his entire stomach and throat had been lined with leaves. This is what killed him. They showed her a Ziploc bag with a small harvest of the matted leaves, “I know this might sound strange, but do you know this leaf?”

Months have passed since she left the hospital with the stupid boy’s things and not the stupid boy. There’s a pick-up truck with her belongings parked out front and a man is strapping down her furniture with bungee cords he doesn’t quite trust. On the fourth floor, she’s stuffing toiletries into a box previously home to a dutch oven she bought on Black Friday. There’s a knock on the bathroom door–it’s her brother, “Hey we’re about full up for this load, do you want to stay back?”

“Erm, yeah...Yeah, I’m about done packing up this shit and I think (she steps out of the bathroom and surveys the rooms she used to live in), I think this is the last of it. Oh, and grab my plants! They’re…kinda everywhere. Don’t fuck them up.” A hair falls loose from the scrunchie, she tucks it back as she opens the door for him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll buckle them into a car seat,” he picks up one of the palms and drags his heavy feet down the hall. “I’ll text you when we get to the new place.”

Once back in the bathroom, she opens the window to let in a breeze, airing out the chemical smells from the cleaning supplies, and her gaze falls on the tree in the courtyard. The leaves are green now; the life and chlorophyll pulse through their tender veins. Each one of them. All the thousands of them.

Returning to the task at hand, she opens the sink cabinet, stacking the cleaning supplies around her neatly in an arch. Grasping for the Ajax in the back corner of the cabinet, a motorbike cuts into the silence–startling her and the powder streams out as the canister topples. Fuck, she thinks. “Fuck,” she says. She tears off a piece of paper towel and dips it into the still water that constantly surrounds her bathtub drain. The granules transform from the dry white powder to a pasty blue grit as she wipes at the very clean mess. Stroke after stroke, the indigo tye-dye streaks across the plastic wood with tenacity. Fuck, she thinks again. She repeats the process, tearing and dipping sheet after sheet of paper towel, until the blue is so diluted it’s almost gone. 

She looks beside her at the impressive mound of paper towels, all a varying shade of blue and instinctually plucks one from the bottom. Motivated, perhaps, by that queasy satisfaction of seeing how soiled the surface had been, the skeletons of inevitable bugs and pests, etc. Perhaps for no real reason at all. She uncrumples the towel and her heartbeat quickens.

She slams the bathroom door. Then the apartment door. Its heavy clang echoes in the tight tiled halls. Exhausted. Left to get a beer. Let me know when you’ve dropped the last load off. She texts her brother and venmos them fifty bucks. Her feet tangle the entire sprint down the three flights of stairs to the lobby, but she never falls.

Another couple of weeks pass when a phone call cuts interrupts her lunch. Seeing her new landlord’s name, and having internally confirmed to herself that she did indeed pay rent, she picks up.

“What the hell is this?” He grunts. “I’m sorry?” “Never have I had...I just, you gotta take care of this.” “What are you talking about?” “Oh well, your buddy just dropped off your-uh, package. Weren’t you expecting it?” “No… I mean I don’t think so.” “Well it’s got your name on it so it’s your problem and so help me if I get a fine for this bullshit.”

“Okay, okay, let me just go down and check it out.”

“You better and you better also be expecting a call from me if I still see this shit tomorrow.” Jesus. Worse than her father. 

Sliding into some sandals. She grabs her keys and starts walking down the stairs. Approaching the lobby, she reads all the boxes, none with her name or even unit number. Not even the one that was as tall as her chest. She checks her mailbox too just to be sure, but it’s empty too. 

A knock on the glass. Her landlord waves her outside into the courtyard. Poking her head through the door, “I didn’t find anything.”

“No shit. It wouldn’t fit.” He then gestures wildly to the tree sitting haphazardly in the middle of the street. Far from a sapling, the whole thing was wider than a car, before you even considered the branches and finer roots that tugged at their surroundings. “What the fuck.” 

“My thoughts exactly. Well, “ he claps her on the back, “Enjoy.”

Cars honk aggressively as she trips her way through the roots, trying to reach a note that’s tacked onto the trunk. Leaves weave their way into her hair as branches caress her cheek. Each step brings her an unsettling sense of familiarity and before she even opens the note she knows. But you always open the note.

Her fingers grasp at the crusted piece of paper towel and amid the blue stains, is one single dried-up leaf.