When A Tree Falls

When a tree falls in a wood, whether anyone is there to hear it or not, it lands on its branches and not all of them snap. It comes to a halt, quietens in the soft earth while leaning on a dozen broken sticks, their lengths shortened to fingers which hold up the trunk that had once held them out to the wind. These branches, now fingers, were never designed to support the mass of the tree on its side. They were supposed to hold leaves and birds. They were supposed to be horizontal, jut sideways, take no more weight than a nest or a hawk or a buzzard, even.

These were Richard’s thoughts as he craned his head backwards to see what was left of his life. The tree that had shifted, the branches which had snapped just at the moment he was bending under the fallen larch, still had two or three stubby wooden sticks keeping it from snapping his ribs or what was left of them.

When a man falls in a wood, does anyone care? That had been his wife’s joke. The one she told every time someone brought up the other version. No one seemed to find it as funny as she did. He hadn’t anyway, not ever, and he’d loved her once. He moved his legs; he could still do that as long as he peddled as if he was on a bicycle. She’d taken the piss out of that too. Don’t tell me you’re becoming a fucking MAMIL. What was he supposed to do? Go to pieces like her? Get fat and dry, sag and become strange? Earth and leaves moved beneath him getting into his socks and down his boots. It crossed his mind that it was him who’d have to wash them. Three cracked ribs definitely, a broken pelvis probably and certainly a shattered heart. He couldn’t decide which pain was worse.

When he’d looked at the tree that had fallen across the path, he’d been thinking about the dog. When he’d put his hand on the trunk, he hadn’t thought about the frailty of the fingers which held it at an angle from the ground, he’d been thinking about how the dog was his, that she’d had no right to take him, that it had been her taking the dog that had hurt him the most. He’d been thinking how the dog had loved him more than she ever had. The path he’d been on zig-zagged up the hill behind his house; he’d walked it a million times, tramping up the slope through mud and rain in winter, kicking up stones in summer, sweating and effing and blinding at some latest annoyance, some irritation that had got him out of the house while the dog had bounded ahead of him, panting and barking and returning to his side with love no matter how loud he’d shouted. The tree had fallen across the track with its thin crown on the rising bank, its broken fingers resting in the earth of the path. Richard had calculated, as he’d put his hand on the trunk, that he could easily ease himself through the lattice of branches and duck under. He’d just duck under, his brain had said, while he thought about the dog who wasn’t with him.

He’d got as far as sticking his neck out, lacing his arm around the trunk in close embrace and easing his shoulder in when gravity won over the balance of earth and branches and the weight became too much. The crown had snapped, and the trunk had crashed with as much force as if it had fallen from its original height - that’s how it had felt - a final hurrah that had smashed him with it and now a few last shattered fingers were all that stood between him and certain death; a death certain to be long and miserable and cold. It had happened so suddenly it had knocked the sense out of him. For a moment he’d wondered what was going on and then he’d realised and then it was too late. He couldn’t move his arms. If he’d had the dog with him - a trickle of something came out of his mouth. He hoped it wasn’t blood.

If he’d had the dog with him at least he’d have had company. It wouldn’t have been able to do much - it wasn’t Lassie for Christ’s sake, but at least he wouldn’t have been alone. He’d have had eyes to look in and breathing to listen to; a breathing apart from his own which was shallow. That’s what his wife called him. You’re so shallow you wouldn’t notice if I was gone, except you’d have no one to stare at. She used to be quite something to stare at. Not anymore though. She’d become as ragged as the leaves that flew in swift flurries about his feet.

If Richard could have reached his phone, he would have known that it was just past three in the afternoon. He could have tried the emergency services with one hand, he could have lain the phone on the earth by his mouth and screamed and lain back exhausted and knowing the time, he might have thought it’s going to be okay, someone will be come along to wait with me, to comfort me, to keep me company. There’ll be others out walking, struggling along the interrupted path, clambering over and under the felled trunks like me. Someone will hear me. But he couldn’t look at anything except the slanting rays of the sinking sun and all he could hear was the incessant sighing of the wood and he’d forgotten that no one came this way anymore because of the diseased larches, the mass felling, the paths that were impossible to walk without clambering, ducking, risking your life.

Far above him, a bird began to sing notes as sweet as a sonata. His wife used to play music like that on the piano after each time he’d fallen like a tree upon her, pressed his trunk against her, forced his branches into her. Beautiful strung out notes in the front room while he made supper. It was a pity she’d lost the art of it, a pity he’d snapped the lid down on her fingers one too many times. He could do with that music now.

When a man falls in a wood, does anyone care? It came back to him in fits and starts, her anger and pleading, his violence and grace. She’d had such bottle and such pity; she’d fought back - but what had it come to? Her making jokes at his expense, leaving him and taking the dog and him, pinned under a tree. It was blood coming out of his mouth - he could taste it. That’ll be supper tonight he thought, and the thought made him smile until he heard his wife’s voice saying you deserved it.

When a man falls in a wood, if there’s no one there to hear him does he make a sound? Richard contemplated this as the final branches snapped, his punctured lung failed, his kidney bled, and his heart gave way while in a cafe on a high street not far away his wife held her broken hands around her broken heart and fed biscuits to the dog who lay quietly at her feet under the table.