NEVER

AN OBJECT OF DESIRE AND CONFLICT

“I’m leaving and I’m taking my stuff with me!” John slammed the front door behind him and kicked it open before it latched shut.

“What are you doing!” Diane drew her hands to her face and slumped to the coffee table.

“Get up.”

“No, no, no. Don’t do this to me John, don’t leave like this.”

“I’m not, I’m taking that coffee table with me.”

“Please don’t.”

“Like you care.”

“I do care, it was the tree the children grew up with.”

“I made that table from scratch.”

“It made us, it was us.”

“Yeh, cut up bits and pieces of death.”

The table shuddered under Diane’s weight. It didn’t really want to leave. Not here, not now,  a new tree from it’s own seed now grew in the yard within view of the picture window. It was already over twenty feet tall and shaded the living room, keeping it cool in the summer heat of North Carolina.

“I don’t want you to go.” Diane was crying now, fingering the inlay on the sides of the rectangular table. Tracing each of the intricate small squares with her fingers. She counted softly to herself as she touched the smooth surface. The complexity of the design was unlike any she had ever seen. The wavy grain of the hardwood so subtle like a small breath of air in the turbulence of winter storm. Unnoticeable in the chaos that surrounded it, Johnnies voice, insistent, loud, cracks of thunder in the heat of a summer day.

“You should of thought of the consequences.” Crack, crack, one word after the other.

Diane’s arms spread over the table, like a bunched up blanket. The table sent it’s warmth to her. “Stay here,” it seemed to say. “I won’t let you go,” Diane whispered into the intricate patterns. The patterns seemed to reach up in response.

Outside the wind blew the leaves of the new walnut tree, spurts of wind, blew back and the leaves twisted so hard some of them fell off. A few blew into the window with a light scratching noise. Diane looked up. “Johnnie, please, I’m sorry, can’t we…”

“What, start over? If you could turn that table into a tree, bring walnuts back to our yard, unlock the prison you put my heart into?”

Just then there was a large thud on the window. They both looked out. A walnut hit the window, the first of the season. Then another, they seemed to be tapping out a message. They seemed to say, “stop.”

“No way,” said Johnnie, “never.” He stood hands on hips, proud.

A small fissure spread across the window, then another, all from the center, silver against the clear glass.