The End of Some Things

He sat in the truck, engine idling enough to keep a steady steam of gray to mix in the cool air, no radio to dull the slight rumble of the Ford, the streets fairly deserted except for a lone pair of headlights now and again.  He was at the intersection of Pace Park Rd and Main Street, where the only Christmas tree lot still blinked with a scattering of lights...a few desolate trees remaining even though it was two days after the holiday. He had asked the man what would happen to them.

Those? the man had said, pointing a gloved hand to the edge where the trees lay silent...I will pack them up for recycling I guess.

He then asked if he could still buy them.  He got a weird look but he also got a fair price.  So they trundled the four trees into the back of the truck.  And he sat there in the truck, not cold because the heat was on and he now looked at the empty Christmas tree lot and felt that by being empty it was a much prettier picture.

And he remembered...from a time ago, when they had been talking about Christmas...and holidays...they were in the middle of a summer heat, with no hint of snow.  No hint of the ice that would form between them either, no distant dark stain on the horizon, portending danger.  Not even a whiff of a breeze.

What kind of tree do you usually put up? He asked casually, and though he hadn't mentioned what type of tree he knew she knew what he meant.  It had sort of matured in that way between them where context wasn't a necessity.  They could hold multiple threads of a conversation and weave in and out intermittently.  It was one of the unique things that he always imagined about them...these tiny tendrils that they could pick up and leave, left dangling they could be picked up somewhere later in time.

I never really get the one I want.  Honestly, if I could I'd do like three or four.

3 or 4 trees?  Kinda defeats the purpose.

Really?  I think it scales it even that much greater...I could have a tree with all my childhood ornaments, a retro tree.  And then I could have another with my grown up ornaments.  And a tree just with lights, because at night you don't really see the ornaments...and then another one just for presents.

3 or 4...okay.  That's a lot of needles to deal with.

I like to vacuum.

Well there you go.

And so here he was, four trees in the bed of his truck.  But no tinsel, no lights, no ornaments either from childhood or adulthood.  

He started driving, wondering if she might even still be up.