janie hofmann : “sanctuary of the elm”

The veterans' hospital stood under gigantic elms that decorated the usually blue horizon with swaying branches of rustling green. At the left corner of the hospital one of the larger elms hid a third story window. Sgt. Clem would stare out this window, pleading for his fingers.

 

"They were mine first," he cried at the tree.

 

"They ran away from you," the tree would answer in a soothing but condescending tone.

 

Clem would then try a different approach:

 

"You see, they were there for me. They got me into the lifeboat."

 

"But it was on fire," the tree argued.

 

"Only the bow," Clem said. "I put it out."

 

"So you went and burned your fingers off, after they had saved you. At least, that is what they told me," the tree said.

 

"No, nooo," Clem said. "This guy, a private, he tried to get in when I was putting out the fire. He was big, but I shoved him back and tore his ration pack off. When the strap of the rat pack broke, I feel backwards and my hands went into the fire."

 

"You don't take very good care of your things," the tree said.

 

Clem tried not to weep, lit the cigarette he held between his two good thumbs from a candle he always kept burning.

 

"Look, it's not just my fingers, it's my goddamn toes."

 

"Yes," the tree agreed. "They told me you didn't want them, either. The special doctor came all those miles, grafted your toes to your fingers, and you refused to use them."

 

"They were all wrong," Clem cried. "They were short, stubby and gnarled. And they didn't work."

 

"Your toes told me that all you cared about was not being able to feel the women up like you used to," the tree said flatly. "You hated them, just as you hated your fingers, so they came to me."

 

"It wasn't me," Clem argued. "My body rejected them."

 

"That's the same thing," the tree said.

 

"They just didn't feel like they were mine," Clem said.

 

"But now they do, now that they are gone?" the tree said.

 

"Yes."

 

"Well, I do have so many already," the tree said.

 

Clem brightened, lit another cigarette, though he still had the first one hanging from his mouth.

 

"I'll talk to them, try to get them to come see you for a little while," the tree said.

 

Clem was disappointed but did not wish to provoke.

 

"Thanks buddy," he said. "You're a real pal."

 

"Think nothing of it," the tree said.

 

Clem clumsily put out both cigarettes and got in bed. He slept and his dreams were vivid sequences of dancing orange and red flames.

 

At dawn he woke in a panic, soaked with sweat. From his bed he peered out the window at the tree.

 

He jumped out of bed and his left leg buckled, another left over from his having to push the private from the boat. He tried rubbing his thigh but it remained stubbornly rubbery and lax.

 

A golden ray of twilight entered the room and again he looked out the window. He began to shake as the leafy arms of the tree, bathed in misty dawn light, shook like dancing bejewelled arms.

 

"My god," he cried, grasping his leg.

 

"You're not leaving me, too?"

 

Janie Hofmann loves coffee, her cat, & old horror movies.  She spends many rainy West Coast afternoons reading & writing poetry & loves to travel.  Her work has been featured in over thirty zines including Aoife's Kiss, Chantarelle's Notebook & Sein und Werden.

 

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