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The Maw Tree

from That Towering Blue by James Wylder

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From "The Dark and Splendid Diary of Danielle Simpson and Other Tales".

lyrics

The Maw-Tree


“My cat’s in that tree!”
The fireman lit a cigarette and shrugged.
“Not our business anymore.”
“But it’s my cat.”
“Not my problem.”
“I’m not going to sit here and wait for– for—just get it down now!”
The fireman tapped the ashes off his cancer inhaler.
“Then you get it down.”
The man just stood there, and lowered his head slowly.
“That’s what I thought.”
The man, whose head was shaven, per fashion, didn’t move in the darkness.
“He shouldn’t have let his cat out, he’s just asking for it.”
Another woman nodded, but the third shook her head.
“You can’t blame him. No one wanted this.”
....
As the word spread, lines of pairs of headlights streamed down the concrete like mechanical salmon. Spawning out the doors, gathering around the yard as the cops struggled to hold them back, some threw their own cats across the fence hoping to increase the spectacle. None of the cats climbed the tree though, and they started running around the yard, rubbing upon pleasant objects.
....
The man just stood there, head down.
....
Soon the TV news crews were there, the crowd chanting at the top of their lungs, an anchorman cutting through their lines trying to shout questions to the man in the center of the yard. The cat meowed, covered up by the cacophony around it.
“Why’d you let the cat out Mr. Hendricks?”
“Did you get it to climb the tree Mr. Hendricks?”
“How does your family feel about this?”
They were inside; his wife was hugging their children. Behind a pane of glass they cried into their mother’s bosom.
....
The cacophony continued, a man passed out small bells, another tried to hawk stuffed cat in tree toys, the chant continued. One man made it through the barrier, and was promptly tackled.
....
Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering,
Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering,
Chanting, hawking, tearing, leering!
....
A vast gap opened up in the night sky darker then black and a disembodied mouth like a thousand mechanical spiders reached out with tendrils of arms of teeth of tongues and as the cat’s pupils widened it froze. Only too late did it think to leap from the tree as it was enclosed in the unimaginable.
As it swallowed, the crowd cheered as the sacrifice was complete.
....
The man bowed his head in deference to the darkness.
....
Two blocks away, a pair of men were walking when they saw the brilliant flash of shadow.
“Cat got ate again”
The other shrugged.
“That’s why I keep dogs.”

credits

from That Towering Blue, released May 1, 2016

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James Wylder Elkhart, Indiana

Author of "An Eloquence of Time and Space", "10,000 Dawns", and "Cryptos."

Learn more at jameswylder.com

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