The Kudzu Review
New England Grass
Fiction
André Mancebo Heizer
W
ren downs the tea and watches the shadows dance on the yellow wall of his neighbor’s house. It’s probably the most beautiful day of the year, a fitting adieu. He sits in his lawn chair admiring the cloudless sky, the summer sun shining through the branches of the big oak tree in his backyard, the source of the shadow show. He smells the cool air as a breeze passes by, and suddenly the aroma of Bia’s flowers permeates through his lungs; he feels it on his tongue. Wren is tempted to walk over, pick up her magnolias, and rub them on his nose, but he is distracted by the rest of the garden: the chubby roses, the tall looming sunflowers, the butterfly bush, how beautiful it all looks. Bia is a great gardener. Bia is the best gardener. Good for her, good for her. Wren wishes he cared about something as much as Bia cared about her plot. Wren starts thinking about the oak tree again; he finds himself suddenly taken by its magnificent size. A true goliath, this tree stands taller than his two-story home, its thick branches extending almost twenty yards to the balcony of his bedroom upstairs, its leaves a canopy hanging over the entire backyard. This tree is old. Maybe one hundred years old. Probably older than the house. Maybe older than the city. Definitely. Maybe older than America itself. Wren seriously considers researching the history of this tree online, maybe he can get information about its first appearance in the Burlington foliage scene. He starts giggling in his lawn chair as he realizes he’s been staring at the tree for an unusual amount of time, then notices his neighbor peeping at him from his window. Hi, Tony. Good stuff, man. Can’t wait to show everyone. Oh. He remembers his assigned tasks for tonight’s barbecue, the roommate huddle at the kitchen table during breakfast. The sweet smell of bacon had distracted Wren as Bia told him to mop the floors. The dirt on the checkered tiles was getting out of hand, even he could agree with this assessment. In his altered state, he tries to think of what else he had been tasked with be6
