The Speaker for the Trees (4 page)

Toasting
bread
? the reporter suggested.

John's eyes
fell to the toaster, then returned sheepishly to the camera.

Yes
.

Hedge released
a long breath of air, not realizing he'd been holding it.

Without another
word, John Elm hurried away. The reporter appeared confused by his sudden
departure and looked as though she would make a grab at him before collecting
herself and turning back to the camera, bright teeth exposed.

There you
have it, folks. From east to west, north to south, America loves toast!

The view
returned to the newsroom where two anchors laughed at the observation with
practiced mirth.

Nation wide!
This was more serious than Hedge thought.

"Isn't
that strange?" asked Anna. "Like there was some sort of subliminal
message that made everyone run off to get toasters. It makes me uncomfortable.
Like there is something dreadful going on in plain sight, but I can only see
the shadows."

She tapped her
fingernails against her teeth. Hedge knew this meant she was nervous. At the
same time he knew how to calm her.

"Do not be
fearful, earth wife," said Hedge. Anna looked up at him, waiting for him
to continue. "No harm will come to you."

She gave him a
half smile.

"You're
always so weirdly sincere," she said. "I guess I love you for
that."

The half smile
found its other half and became full, but she was staring at him in the
intense, patient way that told him she was waiting for something. Not just
something, an equal acknowledgement of the love which she had just expressed.

Hedge thought a
moment, then smiled in return.

"I find
you highly symmetrical."

* * *

It was late in
the evening already and it would be later still before Hedge would complete
reconfiguring the toaster. Anna sat in the seat across from him, head cradled
in her hands, watching as he screwed a part in here, broke a piece off there
and tossed it aside. She tried to help as best she could, handing over
instruments as he called for them like a nurse passing clamps and scalpels to a
surgeon, without the least idea of what he was doing.

“I could toast
bread on the stove for you,” said Anna. “Why do you need a toaster?”

“I don’t want
toast,” said Hedge.

Anna considered
this, but didn’t ask the obvious question. Not that she would have believed the
answer. She picked up two pieces of the toaster, a small spring and a dark
plastic part and attempted to join them. After passing several minutes without
success she set them down and looked across the table as though scanning for
parts that looked like they would fit with one another.

"Why don't
you just take it back to the store?" she asked.

Hedge didn't
look up. Almost finished.

"I can fix
it," he answered.

"For what?
It's past bed time. We need to be up early. Tomorrow is morning service. Look
at the mess you've made."

It was true.
The table, and much of the floor around the table, was covered with scraps
Hedge deemed useless and pushed away. Bits of black plastic, cardboard
packaging, instructions, warranty details, the crumb tray. Even his hands were
slick with the grease from the moving parts.

"It
doesn't matter," Hedge replied.

Anna stiffened.
Her face bent into a scowl. Hedge couldn't see it, since he was concentrating
on the toaster, but after a moment of silence he could feel the animosity. When
he looked up she was standing, face red, fists balled at her sides.

Hedge blinked.

Were he a
mammal his heart would surely be pounding in his chest, various glands shooting
adrenaline to his muscles should he need to flee or defend himself. But he was
a plant, and a plant's response to danger was to stay in one spot, remain
perfectly still, and hope to be overlooked. So Hedge stayed put.

"You are
not
going to leave this mess for me!" growled his trembling earth wife.
"Not after I cleaned this house and yard all day long while you've
dickered around with that… that…” She floundered, searching for a terrible
curse, but couldn’t think of one. “Toaster! It's not right! It's not fair!
Oh!" She stomped a foot, unable to express her rage in words. Her eyes
darted about as though searching for something to tear in half, but knew it
would just contribute to the mess. "Oh! You've gotten me so upset! I don't
like being upset! It makes me think awful, frightening things."

Hedge hefted
himself from the chair and stood before Anna, whose beet red face was full of
distress. He put a hand on her cheek and she leaned into it, believing it was
an expression of affection, and her heavy breathing began to slow from the
angry puffs that gusted from her nostrils. This was a potentially dangerous
situation for her, as undue stress could burst the stitching that held back her
old memories just as surely as sutures on a fresh wound could pop free and
allow blood to seep through. If that happened, the entire illusion would fall
apart, which wouldn't be so much a danger to Hedge since no one would believe
her memory had been created by plant aliens. But Anna would be shattered
psychologically and shunned socially because she would know a truth no one
could ever believe and no one could ever make her deny because denying truth
meant one could not believe in anything. And belief and hope were, aside from
water, oxygen molecules, and key nutrients, what kept people alive. Her life
would be a ruin, and Hedge could not find it in himself to be so cruel to a
creature to which he had become so… attached.

Long ago, when
they had rewritten her past, they had also inserted a safety valve to allow
Hedge to depart if needed without alarming her. It was like a reset button on a
stopwatch that returned everything to zero so it could start over again. They
did the same for all agents to prevent the sort of pandemonium and suspicion
that might result if he just went missing. Placing a hand on her face was just
the triggering process. He'd never expected to use it. Now he just needed to
speak the words.

"I'm going
to visit my brother Edwin in New Jersey," he said. "I'll be back in a
week."

Her eyes lazed
and her face slackened in his hand.

"... back
in a week," she repeated airily.

"Yes,"
said Hedge. "Why don't you go to bed. You look tired. I'll clean this
mess."

"Tired,"
agreed Anna, turning away. She entered the living room where the stairs led to
the second floor and their bedroom. Then stopped. Turned back, her expression
perplexed. "You don't have a brother Edwin."

Hedge met her
gaze, which bored into him with perfect clarity. He scratched his head.

"Yes I
do."

"No,"
said Anna, walking back toward him. "You don't." She stepped on a
scrap of metal and her eyes fell to the kitchen floor. "Oh! Look at the
mess!"

As she passed
him to survey the debris, Hedge reached out a hand and touched her face.

"I'm going
to visit my brother Edwin in New Jersey," he repeated, a bit more sternly.
"I'll be back in a week."

Again her eyes
clouded and her body slouched.

"Back in a
week," she agreed.

She left the
kitchen groggily and approached the stairs.

Hedge sat down
again, picked up a screwdriver and was about to pry open a small gear box to
expose the wiring when she came back.

"Oh!"
she exclaimed. "Would you look at this kitchen!"

Hedge stood,
turned, and reached a hand out to her face, but she caught it.

"Look at
your hands. They're filthy. And don't you wipe them on the dishtowels. This is
horrible! I worked for hours to tidy up that linoleum, and now look at it. All
covered in bits of metal and plastic."

"I'll get
it!" Hedge snapped, jabbed a hand back toward the stairs. "Go to
sleep!"

"No need
to be snippy," said Anna. She gave him a long look, then went upstairs.
"Maybe it's you who needs to get some sleep."

No, thought
Hedge. No sleep tonight. Tonight he would be going home.

* * *

Hedge stood at
the foot of the bed, the toaster cradled under one arm. It didn't look any
different, still silver and toaster-shaped, though it was certainly changed. He
wasn't wearing shoes since he wouldn't need them. He didn't really require
clothing either, but for some reason he didn't feel comfortable without it.
Strutting amongst the bees and standing before Anna was different from being
amidst so many plants with whom he hadn't had contact in twenty years.

Anna lay still,
her mouth partly open, facing his side of the bed, the pages of a book splayed
out in her hand. It was the same book she was always reading, a dog-eared copy
with a woman wilting in the arms of a massive, bare-chested man on the cover.
The couple was indoors but their hair swirled about them. Hedge assumed there
must be a problem with the heating and air-conditioning system, which no doubt
served as the mechanism that drove the plot forward.
Oh, Susanna!
it was
called, and for some reason the title made Hedge's nose wrinkle in revulsion.
But her place in the book was the same as it had been for quite some time, as
though she hadn't been reading it. Why not? Why else would she lie awake with
him?

He would miss
figuring these puzzles. In fact, there were a great deal of things he would miss.
Watching soapy shower water spiral down the drain; feeling the prickle of bees
crawling over his face in search of pollen; Anna gripping his arm when she was
alarmed. The things which fascinated him and made him feel needed.

Hedge leaned
over, shut the book and set it on the nightstand. Then he returned to the foot
of the bed, held out the toaster and pressed the lever down. The toaster made
no sound, giving no indication that it was connecting two places separated by
vast reaches of empty space. It simply rested in his hands while Hedge stared
intently at Anna, wondering what she might be doing if not reading a book. It
occurred to him that maybe reading a book was just another excuse to spend a
few more waking moments with him in contemplative silence. It was nice not
having to fill every instant with her in meaningless dialogue and pleasant to
know that she could be comfortable and happy without having to do anything at
all. Funny it took so long, and the prospect of being parted, to recognize details
he had overlooked before.

Hedge began to
smile when the lever popped up with a snap, the air turned electric, causing a
few errant hairs to stand up on his head, then there was a quick sucking pop
and Hedge disappeared in a soft flash as though he had quietly imploded.

All that
remained as evidence he had been there were two indentations in the carpet
where he stood, the shoes he had left at the foot of the bed, and a faint,
lingering aroma of burnt bread.

Hedge stood
barefoot in the dirt, sopping wet and elbow to elbow with other agents who
waited in silence for their turn to speak with the Council of Plants, facing
the doors that led into the great chamber in orderly rows like stalks of corn.
No one spoke, nor offered any chit chat, nor regaled one another with tales of
their time amongst the humans because banter was tedious and served no purpose
other than to waste time.

Hedge's teeth
chattered in the quiet.

There were no
tiled floors or soft carpeting in the waiting area outside the chamber. No
comfortable chairs. No soothing music. No tedious magazines. Not a single
triviality to pass the time. Strange how he had never truly understood the
notion of Wasted Time until he stood here, dripping, with absolutely no means
of wasting it.

He thought he'd
wasted time with Anna, watching the glamorized violence on the television;
wasted time sitting on the porch as he waited for the magical moment when the
sunlight fell behind the willow and exploded it with radiant orange; wasted
time gazing at Anna while the toaster buzzed in his hand before slinging him
across the cosmos to end up standing here—in the mud, dripping wet, waiting
indefinitely. The only wasted time, he decided, was not the moments idled away
in pursuit of foolish pleasure, but that period of empty time where you did
absolutely nothing and the next foreseeable event loomed somewhere beyond the
horizon.

This, Hedge
felt, was an unprecedented waste of time.

The great
Chamber of the Council of Plants resembled a greenhouse, albeit on a colossal
scale—a glassy pyramid that appeared dark because it absorbed light, broke it
into its most beneficial parts, and showered them upon those within. It was
here where the Council of Plants passed their legislature over the universe,
determining what planets were ready to be welcomed into the Federation, which
planets needed environmental tweaking to foster the growth of plants, and where
strategies were chosen for striking underdeveloped planets where plants were
oppressed by the dominant species.

It was this
planet, named planet Plant, where plants first achieved cognizance and became
rulers of their world. From here they branched into the cosmos to observe and
guide the development of other worlds. So it had been for eons and eons, and
there was no reason to think it would not continue for eons more.

Hedge touched
the shoulder of the agent in front of him. She turned, blank faced.

“Excuse me,”
Hedge whispered. “Do you know why we’re here?”

Several agents
turned toward him, their expressions awestruck. Not all were human in
appearance. Some were dogs, cats, or monkeys, while a great majority were
plants.

The other agent
stared at him a moment, then raised a finger to her mouth.

“Shhhhh.”

Slowly, the
other agents turned away.