Listen to the Trees and Other Curious Tales

Young Carol has had a very busy morning.

The office in which she works has been in the throws of typing up, correcting and then typing up again all the words of the Boss’ specification and contract documents. The accepted final sheets of typing had then been compiled into the correct order and into neat piles for binding together in book form.

Carol is one of several typists that work for a local building company of some substance and reputation that is currently in the process of putting together a financial bid for a great deal of new work. The documents will form the basis of a tender submission to an important client. He is looking for a proficient builder to take on a proposed, new development of some considerable size. This is keeping all the office staff very busy especially as a deadline is fast approaching.

She is often to be found typing up reams and reams of contract documents that seem to go on for ever; today is no exception. If anything, it becomes far worse when deadlines are involved. Lunchtime has come around at last and instead of being required to keep on working regardless when very important matters are being attended to, as is often the case, the boss has decided to let everyone have a break. This is more than likely because he has not yet put together the next lot of information himself to give to the girls for typing up. He’s also a little worn out and in need of a break.

Carol is so pleased for a ‘real’ lunchtime. She can get out of the office and take in some fresh air or go shopping perhaps; anything to break the pressure of the current workload and the stuffiness of the office.

Today, she decides to head for the nearby large shopping mall. She has an idea about what she wants to buy and without hurrying, can be at the ‘right’ shop, wherever that is, buy something and still have time for window shopping while she heads back in the direction of the office; all in her one hour lunch break. Off she goes at a steady walking pace, no need to hurry, and entering the mall goes straight up the escalator to the first floor.

Having been attracted to the local health and beauty store, now the focus of her attention, she browses and then purchases a couple of items. Satisfied, she then heads back in the direction of the same escalators she came by to go back down to the ground floor exits. Carol is clutching tightly the carrier bag containing some beauty products that had caught her attention and she believes will be useful for an evening out with some of her friends.

She’s no longer in any great hurry and is well on schedule to be back at the office and without rushing by the time her lunch hour is over. Strolling along the first floor past the many shops, she is having a little retail therapy, window shopping.

She did not do this coming the other way, being in a rush to make sure she reached the beauty shop, could be served and leave with time to spare.

Carol passes several major retail outlets casually admiring the clothes in one, then shoes in another but without taking that much notice of the displays. She was relaxed and strolling along easily hoping perhaps that something else might catch her eye and be worthy of a prolonged inspection.

Passing a side corridor that she hadn’t noticed during her last visit, she is surprised at how it contrasts with the rest of the brightly lit displays. It looks rather odd and her attention is truly caught. This side corridor seems particularly and very strangely, gloomy. It may be the lack of any bright lighting but her attention being caught, she stops to take a closer look.

Still on the first floor of the main mall, it is clear to Carol that there are no new retail outlets here or any signs announcing that a new one will be opening shortly. She was here a few days ago and there was no sign of an impending new retailer. She wonders if perhaps, builders are likely to start work here very shortly. There again, it looks even too dark for them and there is none of the hoardings to the frontage that would conceal what is going on behind them. Carol finds it an odd sensation looking into the gloom because it seems not to end properly. In fact no matter how hard she strained to see what was going on, she simply could not see the far end or any site people in their usual ‘high-vis’ clothing waiting to start work.

Comparing this oddity against the retail shops on either side, Carol notices that this large ‘gap’ has its own side walls but they cannot be seen properly; they don’t seem solid as they should be, just sort of smoky, grey, wispy sort of things. Carol cannot understand what she is looking at, but her mind is captivated.

Other shoppers walking along the concourse barely give Carol a glance; they have seen many odd balls here. It seems to be a magnet for them, providing a sort of cost free entertainment. Strangely none of other shoppers seem to notice what Carol is looking at, none of them turn their heads as they pass her, and she is bewildered by this.

“Look,” she shouts at the next stranger to pass her. “Look there is nothing there, can you not see?”

That particular stranger just looks at her rather oddly, as though she were speaking in another language. She attempts to grab at the shoulder of the next lady coming past to draw her attention to what she can see.

“You stupid girl,” the lady shouts out. “Leave me alone or I will call the police, just what do you think you are doing?”

Carol relaxes her grip immediately to let the lady pull away.

“But can you not see this; look, look,” she shouts at the departing woman while pointing towards the big grey void.

“Leave me alone, you stupid girl,” the woman repeats that phrase again. “You should leave the drugs alone. You young people are all the same.” And with that she hurries on her way as fast as her elderly legs can carry her.

Carol turns once more to look at the strange empty greyness where surely another shop should be. She is unable to turn her gaze away.

Then in the depth of the gloom she notices there is a sudden distinct small darkness, a large growing oval darkness that seems to take up most of where Carol assumes an end wall should be

This looks as though a tunnel has just appeared where before there was none.

“A tunnel in the middle of the shopping mall,” Carol thinks to herself. “And at the first floor level, this is nonsense, what a stupid thing to think of,” she tells herself in her confused head.

In the middle of the still growing darkness there appears, slowly at first, a face, an old haggard face of an aged woman with a large mole on her chin, a pronounced beaky nose and deep sunken eyes.

“What on earth is this?” she talks to herself in her thoughts again. “This is from some old cartoon, but which, and what on earth is going on?” She really is talking to herself mentally and worse, asking herself questions.

Carol stands rooted to the spot, transfixed by what is before her and the questions going round her head.

Still more shoppers on this busy day walking straight past her just don’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. Carol, however, remains stationary, rooted to the spot and with a very odd look on her face; a face that is looking odder and is becoming paler by the second.

Carol interrupts one of the shoppers going past as she hesitates to look in the same direction as herself. It appears that this person sees nothing unusual and turns to look at Carol who is now transfixed. The lady shrugs her shoulders and wanders off mumbling something also about young people and drugs.

The full extent of this ‘apparition’ becomes clear to Carol as the dark ‘opening’ expands from the floor to what might be a ceiling, it’s hard to tell.

There stood centrally to the darkness amongst the wispy grey, is still the cloaked and bent figure of an old hag.

She is carrying a wicker basket filled with bright, shiny apples on her left arm and in her right hand, a dreadfully gnarled and crooked hand, a single apple, a bright, rosy red apple.

Her head is covered by the hood of some sort of large black cloak. This conceals all her body and comes right down to the ground, hiding her feet from view. Her face seems somehow to project from the depth of the hood where a few wisps of lank, black hair hanging either side of her ugly face

“I’m looking at a fairy tale character,” thinks Carol, “but I cannot think which one.”

“This is crazy,” Carol finally speaks, but while out loud it is most unsteady as her voice no longer wishes to work properly.

At that the old hag’s face smiles as though she can read Carol’s mind and stares straight at her with bulging bloodshot eyes. Two broken teeth can be seen between her purple lips. She reaches out with her gnarled hand, the one holding the single apple, and appears to offer it to Carol.

 Among the grey fuzziness, the now sharp, clear figure of the old hag and her collection of apples seem to be very real even in the depth of this strange greyness. Carol can only conclude that this apparition must be standing close, so close, that the presence of her eyes and hand offering the apple is somehow immediate and compelling. But she has not left the greyness.

Carol is unable to look away and finds her feet, very slowly at first, stepping forward automatically towards the dreadful apparition.

She has barely moved a foot or two when, “Hi Carol, are you OK my love?”

The spell that Carol seemed to be under is momentarily broken and she turns to face a voice that she recognises.

It is one of the senior ladies, Anne, from the office. Carol knows her only on a nodding basis and with the occasional word at the drinks machine in the break out area. Anne has popped out to a bookshop and is taking a stroll through the mall in her grey-check, two-piece suit and white crisp blouse, and is also viewing the window displays on her way back to the office.

Carol can’t answer though she wants to; she is transfixed and cannot get her lips to move

“Are you OK Carol?” asks Anne, concerned at the lack of response and the greyness that has crept over Carol’s face.

Anne who is between Carol and the dreadful vision turns to look in the same direction as Carol had been staring before their encounter.

“My goodness, what on earth is that?” Anne asks rhetorically.

That perks Carol up. At last someone else can see what she can.

“Is this some new display for Halloween or something; any ideas Carol?” Anne puts the question.

Carol still cannot answer and Anne notices that there are tears now coming down her cheeks. Carol has gone from trepidation into being terrified although nothing further has happened except for Anne seemingly breaking the spell, albeit temporarily.

Anne looks at Carol again then back to the vision and cannot see what it is that has captured Carols rigid attention; she is clearly upset, perhaps even frightened.

Anne, being the senior person that she is, is determined to find out what it is that is upsetting Carol so.

She pulls herself up to her maximum height and with a, “humph,” walks towards this strange spectral scene, her low heel shoes clicking on the tiled floor surface.

Carol wants to stop her; she tries to shout out but now cannot get a word out. Her mouth is seemingly frozen shut and her feet have once again started her automatic walking in the same direction as Anne. She wants to leap forward but the small steps, apparently under someone else’s control, not Carol’s, are still all that she can manage.

Anne walks straight up to the apparition and with her voice of authority demands, “What on earth is going on here?”

“You are frightening my friend with your silly antics, sort yourself out, you cannot put on a public display like this. Who’s in charge here?”

Without raising her head, the old hag swivels it slightly to look up at Anne who towers above her. As their eyes meet, the old hag produces a broad, sort of inquisitive and toothless smile.

“And you can get rid of those stupid apples,” Anne says, reaching for the one in the grip of the gnarled hand.

Anne grips the apple firmly but is unable to dislodge it. She pulls hard but the grip is not released nor does the old hag’s hand or arm alter their position; she shows strength that does not make sense of her elderly disposition.

Anne now tries to pull her hand away, but is unable to; it feels as though her hand has become glued to the apple.

The old hag, slowly but surely, starts to shuffle backwards into what might be, for all intents and purposes, a darkened tunnel. If that is what it is, she pulling Anne with her into the darkness of a tunnel.

Anne instantly panics and desperately tries to free herself from the strange hold, pulling hard against whatever it is that is keeping her hand firmly fixed to the apple.

In this strange struggle, Anne drops the book she had only just purchased and becomes really upset and annoyed. She is unable to either reach down for the fallen book or resist her inexorable movement into the darkness. Anne uses her now free hand in an attempt to push against the one holding the apple but the moment it touches it this also becomes stuck as if some super strength glue was holding them both fast.

She tries to lean heavily backwards using her bodyweight to assist in the efforts to free herself, but that doesn’t work. In desperation Carol watches in desperation unable to make any movement away from this scene being played out before her. Anne is appearing to go the through the motions of some macabre dance, her legs pumping madly this way and that, her shoe heels clattering on the tiled floor as if tap-dancing, but all to no avail.

Carol watches as Anne is dragged further into the darkness, this odd darkness, this ‘tunnel’, the one no doubt intended originally for Carol. 

Anne starts to scream in absolute panic, unable to resist the fate awaiting her. She screams, more than shouts, to Carol begging her for help, any sort of help but it doesn’t come. Carol who is unable to respond, her mouth won’t work, her voice is stuck and her feet can only move one small six-inch step at a time.

Carol wants to scream but can’t.

“Why doesn’t anyone in the mall not hear the commotion, the noise and Anne’s panicked screaming?” Carol thinks desperately to herself. She tries to shout for help but her voice will not work and the words simply won’t come out.

Anne screams out loud again, but Carol hears only a muffled sound coming from some place a long way off. Anne can be only several feet in front of Carol but her cries for help and her screams seem to be a very long way off and very indistinct.

The hag has now pulled Anne a good distance into the darkness that remains hovering centrally within the wispy grey. The darkness then suddenly starts to shrink with Anne and the smiling hag still together in their deadly embrace.

Carol, still rooted to the spot watches in disbelief as the darkening ‘tunnel’ shrinks to no more than a dot taking Anne and the hag to goodness knows where.

Then there is only the grey gloom left.

Her feet suddenly become free and she turns to run away. After a couple of steps she hesitates, coming to a sliding halt and is unable to stop herself from turning back to see once again the gloom and where, whatever it was, took place.

Turning round and retracing her few steps back, she cannot find the side corridor where there were no shops only wispy greyness. The place where she watched the old hag drag her superior, Anne, away to goodness knows where.

The façade is continuous with shop window display after display, no gaps, no side corridor.

She walks up and down this section of the mall, a half dozen steps in one direction, back and then another half dozen in the opposite direction, but there is no side corridor, no missing section, no wispy greyness. It quite simply is no more.

Stunned and frightened Carol can only think of finding some sort of refuge with the people she knows best, back at the office. In a confused panic she hurries, walks, stumbles, runs, walks as fast as she can through the mall, down the escalators to outside and then along the paving to get back to her office. She returns in a lot less time than it took to get to the mall.

Entering the office, the receptionist enquires what the problem may have been because Carol looks truly dreadful. Her mascara is in streaks down her face from eyes that have most obviously been crying, her complexion is still pale, almost grey, despite the hurried return that has left her more than a little breathless.

She doesn’t answer but rushes through to the main office to remove her coat, throwing it at the coat stand, dropping the item she bought onto her desk and then hurrying away to the ladies toilet.

Here she does her best to gain her composure and sort out her make up. After some twenty minutes or so she re-emerges more or less now looking normal but still shaky and unsteady on her feet.

On the way back to her desk, walking down the aisle between the rows of typists’ desk, who should she encounter coming the other way, but Anne?

Carol freezes.

She is unable to comprehend what is occurring; her mind cannot take in the scene before her. Frightened once more, almost as she was a short while ago, she stands motionless, her legs turning to jelly, as there coming straight towards her is the same Anne that disappeared with the hag into the darkness.

“Hello Carol, is everything ok now; it is with me?” she addresses Carol with a sense of happiness and joy. “Cheer up, there’s still the rest of the day’s work to get through. Oh and by the way, if you are feeling peckish this afternoon ….”

With that she looked straight into Carol’s eyes that just for an instant, saw the same scary bulging eyes look that the old hag had displayed. They were there, yet they weren’t. Carol shivered with a new fright.

“…. I have an apple or two,” Anne continued, “if you would like one, they’re very fresh and juicy, just come over to my place and help yourself.”

With that she walked past Carol leaving her terrified once more and very, very, confused.

~ o ~

Author’s Note.  

This story has a basis in fact which relates to a work colleague who went shopping in a local mall complex and had an unusual experience.

She intended spending most of her lunch time looking for a particular item for a birthday present and was walking along window shopping at the first floor level when something caught her attention; a shop was missing. All that she could see, so she said, was a blackness where the shop should be but after turning away, rubbing her eyes and then looking again, all was as it should be.

Did she see an opening in space time, a look into ‘another place’ or some other dimension, who knows, she certainly didn’t. Or was it merely a trick of the mind, perhaps one of those things that fool the eye? Or perhaps, was it really something else?

The story I’ve written expands on the basic elements of what happened that eventful day and includes for some elaboration; what good story doesn’t?

~ o ~