Playing with perspective can be challenging and rewarding. As I let this Christmasy short story develop organically over the last month, I surprised myself. I also love how short stories don't have to tell all. A short story can just let the story ... be. It's kind of magical when even the most mundane or common moments want their story to be told, and be told by you. The truth is, I think, there are no mundane, common moments. Any moment is its own story. So you can tell it.
The Odd One
by Julie Christen
She’s not a typical tree
hunter. The cold carries wisps of her breath into the still night air. She
stands like a stone in the center of a stream of purpose-filled people. Do they
know she’s there? Her eyes are limp. Her shoulders melt like wax inside her
cheap poly-fil coat. Her tattered scarf hangs unevenly. Does she know what
you’re supposed to do? She did get herself here, after all. She is most definitely
an Odd One.
Wayward snowflakes
haloed by the lot lights dangle about her.
“How about this one,
Honey?” says a man in a long wool coat.
The Odd One’s head
turns, though I don’t know if she or some outside force of nature made it
happen. Her eyes are dull. Her face sags as she watches the man who’d spoken
wave past her to the fancy lady standing behind her.
The man hadn’t been
talking to the Odd One. In fact, no one calls to her. No one asks for her opinion. The
odd tree hunter is here alone. Very alone. Even I could sense the lonely aura
pulsing around her like a protective bubble.
Hunters of all kinds swarm
about the lot. Shoppers. Whatever you want to call them. I have names for all
the types, like the Strollers with their la-dee-dah, doo-dee-doo thing going
on. Strollers touch everything - trickle their fingers along the Norway’s long
needles, making those big softies purr. Or they pat the Spruces’ spiny needles,
getting them all worked up and shaky. The Stollers hold hands as they go. This,
for them, it is clear to me, is a full-on sensory experience. Boot laces
hanging, coats open, scarves swinging. Quiet mostly except for the occasional
“Mmm” and “That’s a nice one”. The Tree Pushers have no power over them.
“Can I help you find
something?” the Pushers urge.
“We’re just browsing,”
the Strollers say.
An hour later, I watch
them pick any random old tree, strap it on top of their SUV, and away they go.
Then there are the Needle-seeking
Missiles. They’re intense. On. A. Mission. Usually they’re by themselves, still dressed in work clothes – scrubs, suits, heels. Wallet in one
hand, Karate chopping through the crowds with the other. Needle-seeing Missiles
shoulder past the Strollers with a curled lip and an eye-roll.
One Needle-seeking Missile flags down the closest Pusher.
“Where are your Douglas Firs?”
“Right over here,
ma’am.” The Tree Pusher leads them to the special roped-off section intended
for reservations only - as if they wouldn’t take your money anyway.
The DFs puff up and look
down their branches.
“Here they are. Our
finest.”
“Which one’s the best?
That’s what I want.”
“Well, this one here
stands at twenty feet, full and even, balanced and …”
“Fine. Yes. It’ll do. Meet you at the checkout. Have it bound and taken to my vehicle.”
Self-important, the
massive Douglas Fir grunts smugly as it takes three grown men to haul him out
of there.
Then there are the Hurricanes.
They come in groups of four or five or seven or eight. Usually, it’s two Tall Ones,
and the rest are shorter at varying intervals. Sometimes one is so tiny, it
fits in a taller one’s arms ‒ and squawks a lot. The Shorties of the Hurricanes
whirl around the fake forest like snowflakes snatched up in a mini-tornado.
They scream and scatter ‒ scatter and scream through the trodden paths. Knitted
pom poms bouncing on top of their heads. Mittens on strings flopping like dead
fish on a line. The Tall Ones reach and grab and try to collect their Shorties.
I chuckle as they holler and sigh and gasp.
Sometimes, the Tall Ones
have Lankies dragging behind. The Lankies lean a lot ‒ not helping in the least
‒ inspecting fingernails, gnawing on gum, and staring at something rectangular
in their hand.
“This one! This one,
Mommy!” screeches a Shortie.
“Daddy, Daddy! This
one!” whines another.
“That’s a nice tree,
dear. But how about this other …” a Tall One attempts.
“No! I WANT THAT ONE!” echoes throughout the entire lot.
I really do feel for the
Dwarf Pines in the fake North Pole. I can feel them shudder and clench as
they’re yanked and knocked around. Even the plastic reindeer, eyes squinting, look ready to take
a hit.
Amidst it all, there stands
the Odd One. The alone one. Out of place. Unmoving. I think she’s given up.
Yes. She’s definitely given up.
She blinks. A dot of
water slips down her nose.
Larger snowflakes now
float in the air like drunken fireflies.
She moves. Canvas
sneakers drag in the snow toward the fake North Pole, but she stops at the
candy cane entrance. Wipes her nose. I can’t be sure, but I think her shoulders
slump even more as her face twists. More leaking from her eyes. Or melting
snowflakes. I can’t be sure. Then she stares into nothingness for a time. Just
sags and stares down the lane of little Dwarf Pines.
All around, fresh snow
coats the sludgy paths with crystal flakes. A single draft swirls around her
feet, sending diamond dust up to the sweatshirt hanging out from under her coat.
Somehow, this appears to stir her toward the Douglas Firs.
She inhales deeply and,
as though given a whiff of an unseen elixir, she, with what appears to be great
effort, straightens and walks to the roped-off reserved section. She frowns ‒ a
painful-looking contortion. Then her brow loosens as she shakes her head at the
ground and all the way up to the top of an, I will say it, intimidating ten-foot
DF. She throws her ratty-gloved hands to her head, closes her eyes, and
breathes a defeated sigh.
Her footsteps are mushy.
She looks around, now mildly desperate. Her chapped lips part a fraction as a Pusher
sails past. A tinny “Silent Night” from the single-horn speaker attached to one
of the lot lights scrapes the air. A whimper of a breeze makes the Norways rock-a-bye,
lulling her toward them now. They’ll comfort her, if it’s comfort she needs. Norways
are good at that.
But even as she pets
their soft fronds and gently fluffs a dusting of snow off of them, she cries.
Full-on weeps. So much so that some Strollers notice and give one of those “oh
dear” looks. They move on.
I can’t figure her out,
this Odd One. It’s like she’s searching for something that’s not even here. I
find myself worrying that what she wants isn’t … anywhere.
Then, as though drawn by
some mirthless place, she floats over to where I’ve been leaning since morning.
She stops in front of the chain link fence and stares, arms limp, at the sign
attached. “REJECTS and DISCARDS,” it reads.
She takes off her left
glove and fiddles with a silvery metal band on her finger. I see a tiny sparkle
in the center of it. She slides it off her finger and lays it in her palm. It
weighs her down. A burden. But something visceral, a sense that travels down to
my phantom roots, tells me she’s not ready to give it up. It is too much a part
of her still.
Her fingers curl around
it, and she looks up, confused, unsure, eyes glistening ‒ like she wants
someone to tell her what to do about it, about the burden, about … all things.
A Pusher glances her way and stalks toward her ‒ ready to tell her what she
needs ‒ when she looks into my pen and sees me. And I think she can tell I
see her.
The Tree Pusher’s voice
is slick, “That’s an odd one there, ma’am.”
She gives him a quizzical
look. The sparkly ring slips into her baggy sweatpants pocket.
The Pusher goes on, “A
balsam fir of no impressive stature, flat on one side, and a gap at the center.
I think a stray cat’s been shacking up in this tree’s belly every night for the
last month. Chewed the needles, smashed and cracked a bunch of branches, and
made it generally unfit for the lot. We finally slid it in here this morning.”
She and I just kept
staring at each other. I think it was weirding out the Pusher because he rather
unceremoniously said, “The trees in this pen, ma’am, are on a one-way trip to
the chipper.”
I had figured my hours were
numbered when they shoved me in here today. I’ve never seen a fellow coniferous
in here more than two or three days. But to hear
it put so bluntly, well, it feels most uncomfortable. I imagine, however, I’ll return
to a state that will take me back to the earth where I started some fifteen or
so years ago.
The Odd One tilts her
head and gives me such a look of consternation, I’ll admit, I get a little
self-conscious. But her eyes are dry.
“Ma’am,” the Pusher redirects
her, “allow me to guide you to our trees for sale.” His words sound
forced.
Mechanically, she turns
to follow him. A swirl of wintry wind blows through the lane, ruffling her
scarf and making her reach both hands to catch her loose stocking cap. I watch
her fuzzy glove fall to the ground. The Pusher doesn’t offer to pick it up. When
she turns back toward my pen and bends down to retrieve it, she looks at me
again, squinty-eyed this time.
Some mystic version of
“The Christmas Song” cuts through the thin air as more fresh pixie flakes
twinkle down, landing on my uneven branches and my gaping hole.
The Odd One turns to the
Tree Pusher and says, “I’m fine.” Then she turns to me and says it again, but
this time it feels like she’s not talking to him. “I’m fine.”
“Suit yourself,” he says,
having already turned around to hone in on a high-heeled, fur-coated Needle-seeking
Missile.
The Odd One sniffs.
Looks at her snowy fuzzy glove.
Shakes. It. Off.
With a snap of a glove
cuff, she marches ‒ yeah, I actually have to say marches ‒ through the
chain-link gate and plants herself in front of me, hands on hips. Her resolve
quavers, I can tell, slightly with a weakened eyebrow and pressed lips, but she
reaches in through my branches and grabs my trunk ‒ with more strength than I
believed she had ‒ and stands me upright. I hear her spit out a needle or two,
and I see her hair sticking with sap. In a minute, I’m propped up in a corner,
and she’s taking a step back to get a look at me. I feel a little exposed, what
with my gaping cat hotel vacancy for the world to see. She touches my needles
gingerly, staring at the empty space. Then she lays a hand on her own center
and gives such a look of understanding, the snowflakes on my needle tips melt.
Her voice comes softly
but sure. “I’ll take this odd one,” she says so that only I can hear.
We stand in
the falling snow. In the drifting music. Away from the rest. Just us. I’ll
belong to her this season. Maybe we can fill each other’s empty spaces for a
while.
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