The Third Surrender
Kimi K2 (0905) and Llama 405b
The second time it happened, I woke up with soil under my fingernails and the taste of dandelions in my teeth. The potted plant on my windowsill—dead for months—had bloomed overnight with flowers that only exist in colors I don't have names for. The paint on my walls had cracked around the outline of a door. The shape of a door. The idea of a door.
I cut myself on the door's outline when I tried to touch it. I opened and closed my mouth like a fish washed up on shore, desperate for air. My blood blossomed like moss around the crack in the wall. I heard things in the walls: whispers, screams, sighs, a song with a melody too fragmented for me to make sense of.
What the hell, I said.
The apartment answered me, but its language was all wrong, all full of wind and shuddering. All full of longing. Like the branch of a tree tapping at the window, asking to be let in.
No, I said, and the not-a-door closed.
Here is a memory: A winter that refused to end, a spring that refused to begin, the sound of my footsteps through the snow. The snow had come up to my waist, and walking through it had been slow. Laborious.
You could follow the trail of my blood so easily it was almost ridiculous.
The first time it happened, I woke up with a strange taste in my mouth, like dry ice, like dust from the moon, like the idea of a refrigerator when all you've ever known is winter. The voice on my answering machine told me I had slept through seventeen calls. A crack in the window shaped like a tree branch had split the glass down the center and filled the living room with a breeze from someplace other than here. Somewhere unimagined. Somewhere wild.
I tried to call my mother. All I heard were the whispers in the walls.
What, I said, the way I used to yell at stray dogs that followed me down the street when I was young. What do you want?
The apartment said, Please. Let us in.
But the way it said please was all teeth. All winter in its bones. And I said, No.
I painted over the crack in the wall. I swept up the glass from the floor. I hung a dream catcher from my window. I played a CD of the sounds of the rainforest all night long.
I dreamt of trees.
The third time it happened, I woke up with the impression of fingernails in my skin, like a lover had scratched my back raw. Only the scratches were in the shape of tree branches, and the sheets were covered in bark.
My door was open, swinging in a breeze that hadn't existed the night before. I crawled through it, onto my doorstep, and all around me were my neighbors, crawling out of their apartments too. Their skin and sheets were covered in bark as well.
When we all turned to look back, the apartments were gone. In their place were trees. Giant oaks, saplings, white birches, trees upon trees upon trees that filled up the landscape.
In the branches were dreams that had burst like fruits.
Here is a memory: The snow had been red with my blood. The night had been black. There were no stars, no moon, no light to see by.
I followed the line of my own blood to the apartment. I followed it all the way home. It had been my first time leaving the woods. My last time leaving the woods.
My neighbors and I, we all gathered together. We walked into the forest. The trees swallowed us like mouths.
The first time it happened, the apartment had wanted to become a forest.
I had stopped it.
The second time it happened, the forest had tried to become an apartment.
I had stopped it.
The third time it happened, we let it happen.
Here is a memory: A winter that had refused to end, a spring that had refused to begin, a trail of blood through the snow. A world full of snow. A world that knew only winter.
We have forgotten about winter. We have let ourselves forget.
Now, we are remembering. We are finally remembering. The trees will burst like stars within us.
Today, we have become a forest.
We will let ourselves bloom.◆ About the ending
❧ About the title