​My Red House On A Tree

In a red house on a tree I found my home.

It was the perfect home. The autumn leaves pirouetted and twirled with effortless beauty on their way to the ground. The breeze collecting them in all the corners and low places.

But my new home was up high. Much higher than the low places of the earth and dirt which I was born.

It took many months of crawling. Deliberately crawling up, up, and up the tree. So many blistering days and shivering nights of rain were spent traversing my ascent, unbothered by the deluge and scorch.

I was set upon by hairy beasts with twitchy movements and tails that seem to go on forever behind them. They ran up and down the tree, haplessly grabbing all they could, unaware or unconcerned when they would nearly trample me, bounding at speeds have only dreamed of. No. My journey is a deliberate one. I am a pilgrim traveling to a new land but I know this home will be familiar, with how long I’ve held this fantasy. It’s a vision I can touch. And I can see it. just another 10 feet. The houses supple curves and red blush tantalize me as the settling dew makes it appear to be glowing.

It’s just 10 feet away now. My shining red house on a tree.

I should be there in 2 days.

When I arrived to my red house in the great tree, my ecstasy overflowed and I could have wept. My belly was churning, and the eggs would soon be ready. I just needed to make a door.

I’m salivating already. I push my head forward and begin scraping the outer wall with my teeth. Like everything else in my life it’s a slow process, but I have no where else to be. I’m already home. I bit into the wall again and again wrenching my body to find any purchase on its smooth waxy exterior. With a sudden jolt, and a snapping release of tension, the outer wall ruptures suddenly, spraying me its vital juices and they are sweeter than honey.

days and days, or was it months? It could have been years. How long was I climbing the tree? My life was a blur. Somewhere between impulse and instinct, I found motion and purpose. I had been climbing so long toward the red house in the sky, I never thought to even wonder why I was doing it. Yet I crawled anyway, to that perfect jewel which stayed red forever. When I first saw it something rose in me, a ravenous sort of emptiness. God I was so empty. Were my babies even there anymore? I felt hollow and frantic. I needed to eat, and I needed to get inside, before the hairy beasts came again.

My red house is delectable and with each bite I clear a little more space. I can fit an appendage. With a few more bites I can almost get my head inside, and I feel as if I’m in heaven.

Eventually I made enough room to burrow myself inside, tight and secure. Surrounded in my own little chamber. But the babies, they’d need more room.

And A pregnant mother must eat.

So I set about expanding my tiny claustrophobic chamber and took more bites out of the house. It tasted like a warm memory of when I was young and enveloped in a soft leathery blanket with my siblings. The room was larger now but lopsided, I had eaten so much and had grown rather large now. I rationalized I’d need to even it out to make more room for myself and the babies.

I ate a new pathway, then another, and slowly I noticed the crisp white walls of house flesh behind me would turn brown and soft. This would not do, how could the children live like this? I can already see their eyes starting to develop, looking at the house with its sad brown walls. Their unborn faces ridicule me.

I’m a bad mother.

I set about eating the new brown walls, nearly drinking the gushing sludge in large mouthfuls, it isn’t sweet anymore. This isn’t the house I dreamt of, suffered for and climbed to for all those moons. No, no, no, this would not do!

With increased revelry I set upon the walls again, ignoring the rotting taste and to my delight, I find that under the decay is a fresh white wall with the flavor and texture I loved.

as I ate the rooms and tunnels began to expand ever larger, but by the time I had finished in one spot, another would begin to go rancid and spoil. If I left it too long it would spread everywhere over night. So I didn’t rest. I never stopped eating, never stopped working to make it perfect. I never even stopped to realize the hole I had originally made inside was far too small now for my bloated body. I didn’t care anyway. I never wanted to leave. I was home.

I ate and ate until the rooms overlapped and the tunnels walls were eaten as well.

All that was left was the floor, my eggs and the large hollow room before me that now seemed papery and soft around the edges. Hadn’t I done all I could? I had made so much open space for my children to play and prosper. Isn’t that what they needed?

The eggs started to rumble and shake, one after another in turn, like some unseen network, all the eggs set upon hatching. I could almost hear the unborn crying for me and I was crying for them to join me. I was ready to show them what I had done for them. I had done everything right.

Just as my first child breached their way into their new home, a sudden gust jostled the great tree, and the small support that connected our home to it, was severed. we fell for what seemed like miles. Falling from heaven, and returning to the earth.

I lay there, a crumpled wreck, too large and injured to move in the broken remains of my home. The roof and walls lay over us like a rippling sheet collapsed in tight concentric rings. From my vantage point I can see the children are being born now, and something, maybe instinct, tells me they need something to eat. Maybe it’s not instinct though. Maybe it’s a warm memory in the dirt. I hear the first bite, and close my eyes.