The Konbini and the Happy Tree | 1 - Éloïse

Fiction in three parts: the uncanny meeting of an immigrant, a cashier, and an old woman

1- Éloïse

The Happy Tree, as such it was translated on the website, comes wrapped in layers of cardboard and plastic, making it unrecognizable to us all. We release each twist of the banyan’s trunk from the bubble wrap and feel the oxygen rush out like a sigh of relief. We gingerly carry the pot to the balcony and ask each leaf if she enjoys her new home. They nod or shrug in the wind; democracy wins and she stays.

⬩

Fish jump from the river flowing by some ten meters away to catch a glimpse of her brilliance. Or is the tree watching them? It can be difficult to discern the origins of a gaze.

The wading fisherman, too, enters the three-way appreciation or knowingness. A suspension of movement or time creates this dynamic: fish — tree — fisherman, one that haunts the space within triangulation.

I am an outsider. Their peace is not my own.

Like the tiny crabs that hover on the edge of the stone wall at high tide, I retreat into my little home when seen.

⬩

From between the strips of blinds I open partway in the morning light, the many angles of rooftops and windows stare back at me like flattened shapes ready for a pencil to sketch. Each roof has unique tiling, flattened or wave-like patterns, and one holds a tarp and sandbags to ward off rain. Wires cross gingerly among the houses and flats. Why was it fun when the power went out as a kid — but not now? Perpendiculars are made from the blinds without the need for my hand’s right angles as art classes return to me, moments when I was lost in observation, in lines and textures and shading.

Scenes of my existence seem to transmit themselves like old fashioned television signals. The gray fuzz in-between scares me. Where did those moments go, those hours? I cannot recall the way they were filled. And now, when I try to remember days of my life as a child or teen or twenty-something, only brief slices of existence repeat back to me. The rest is gone.

⬩

The grocer comes to the door and bows with each bag he offers me. Bananas encased in bubble wrap and freezer compartments filled with dry ice feel like dystopia — a rich person’s way to access real food in a secret dark corner. He can see that I’ve been crying and pauses only a half second to wonder about this before returning to the systematic unboxing of goods to eat. He says something I understand to mean fragile as I am handed the bag with the eggs. I sign the delivery slip.

We bow again and he goes.

I have never been like this before. It is the wake of anxiety’s zenith. There is no other reason than that. An unraveling. The threads I held so tight out of fear have been released and so there is nothing left to hold me together even with so much beauty around.

⬩

A crane swoops dramatically into view as I water the tree diligently on the third day of her arrival. Less majestic but still beautiful in her stance, she searches in shallow waters for her breakfast of crabs and snails. The tree whispers to me: stay.

Photo by Julien on Unsplash

I wake at three o’clock, the witching hour. Moonlight squeezes through the blinds and dances on the branches of my Happy Tree. The monochrome view greets me from my perch. Brown water making random kerplunks against cement walls and rock with deep gray pavement surrounding, a dark sky, shades of gray mountain peaks reaching between the layers of abstractly geometric buildings, some perfect rectangular prisms and others with exaggerated roof angles. Patterns of stacked balconies and outdoor staircases in the shape of checkmarks flatten behind the triangular patterns over the small bridge. All is brown and gray and black, even in the light of day, save a few trees here and there or a a passing, rare colorful car. This ink painting has accompanied my moody observation like a scroll repeatedly unrolled as the blinds open.

And the konbini has always been there, though invisible. The convenience store’s white glow with neon blue lettering is more pronounced at this hour, always open, her presence feels like an alien being, something like myself. Both uncanny to the surroundings and not the other way around.

I find myself casting the inverse of a shadow — a soft glimmer — on the water’s edge while wearing German shoes, easily slipped on, that offer too much support. The foot is endangered to lose its strength, its arch.

I recognize that thing that I named as a strange entity but is it wrongly accused? Is it grief instead? It’s easier to understand a feeling for what is lost, how to tie my threads back together.

Outside, the mind is more tolerable. It lifts and spreads. I could be anywhere. The light beckons me to the end of the road and over the bridge.

The automatic doors open quietly and I cross the threshold.

➡️ Read Part 2