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Today the Wrong Station is proud to present Autumn

1:01

Trees by Alexander Saxton.

1:13

From early on in its use, greenhouse 12

1:16

had been nicknamed the Brown House

1:19

because all the so-called plants inside were

1:22

espaliered homo sapiens, each

1:24

one bound and pruned from a fetus into

1:27

the desired shape. You

1:29

could stand at the raised catwalk along

1:31

the south wall and look out upon

1:33

row upon row upon row

1:35

of them,

1:36

like a dead orchard stretching into a vague distance

1:39

underneath the arching roof of grey translucent

1:42

plastic. Jack

1:44

worked there as a sort of arborist.

1:47

After shifts, he and his co-workers would sit outside

1:50

on old wooden pallets stacked up on the grass,

1:52

drinking lukewarm bottles of 3-F-G

1:55

and talking about how they got there. The

1:57

story always seemed to be the same.

1:59

went to school for restorative agriculture

2:02

or zoology or veterinary medicine,

2:05

and graduated to find the market wasn't kind

2:07

in the types of world-saving jobs you wanted

2:09

to do. But hostorium

2:12

was always hiring. Here's

2:15

how you made an espalier. Start

2:18

with a sperm and egg cell, usually cloned,

2:21

allow fertilization to happen in a neutral, gel-like

2:24

medium, allow cells to divide solely

2:26

along preordained channels, surgically

2:29

redistribute cardiac, neural, skeletal,

2:32

and aviolar tissue while still preformed

2:34

and plastic. Saturate

2:37

with nutrient until it achieves a weight of roughly seven

2:39

pounds and then deliver into incubation

2:41

tent. Surgically incubate

2:43

and infestulate, then feed and

2:46

water until grows large enough to provide

2:48

useful organs and tissue, usually

2:50

about eighteen months. Why,

2:54

grow organs this way instead of in a lab?

2:57

Quite simple. They were being sold to restaurants,

3:00

not hospitals. You

3:03

know something I realized? Jack

3:05

said once after a shift, a fourth bottle

3:08

deep and feeling free. It

3:10

was autumn, jean-jacket weather, a

3:13

bright, clear sky turning to sunset

3:15

behind the brown house. None

3:17

of us went to school for this, right? Except

3:20

that we did. We all just thought

3:22

we were going to school to learn biology or whatever.

3:25

The reason the program even existed in the first place

3:27

was so that there'd be people with the skills to work here,

3:30

right?

3:31

Like who funded the department? He

3:34

drained his beer,

3:36

a historian, and places like it.

3:39

We weren't the school's customers.

3:41

We were its products.

3:43

Yeah, man, said Granolabev,

3:45

cracking a fresh one. Wouldn't you like think

3:48

about it? Or just like them? She

3:50

jerked her head back at the brown house behind them.

3:53

Or just... shaped.

3:56

A couple people groaned. Even Jack

3:58

had to put up his hands with that one. one. Okay,

4:01

Bev," he told her. Let's

4:03

not take it too far. Greenhouse

4:06

Twelve was the furthest point of Sunny Ridge Nurseries,

4:09

Halton Region, a division of Hostarium

4:11

Technologies. It sat about fifty meters

4:13

north of Greenhouse Eleven and perpendicular

4:16

to it, with its north end overlooking the green

4:18

tangle of the Credit River Valley. The

4:21

valley, once a haven to local flora,

4:23

was now an overgrown tangle of invasive

4:26

species—Norway Maple, Buckthorn,

4:29

Garlic Mustard, Japanese Knotweed,

4:32

biting flies that hounded you well past the

4:34

first frost. Nobody

4:36

had used the old trails back there in years, and

4:38

even if they had, they would have stopped when Greenhouse

4:40

Twelve started keeping its huge, wreaking compost

4:43

bin out back. As

4:45

a result, the only time anyone ever set

4:48

foot behind Greenhouse Twelve was when they

4:50

had to wrestle the crackling, papery-old sticks

4:52

of a dead espalier out through the cloud

4:54

of stink and flies that surrounded the bin

4:57

there, to toss them wetly inside

4:59

and then make a hasty retreat. This

5:02

often ended up being Jack's job, because

5:04

he often ended up forgetting to chip in for beer,

5:07

which is how he happened to be behind Greenhouse

5:09

Twelve, that autumn twilight, with

5:12

the sky peach and dim and the chill

5:14

wind rustling through brown leaves all

5:17

the way along the Credit Valley. Jack,

5:20

slightly buzzed, was dragging a pair

5:22

of dying espalier out at the back dumpster,

5:25

which he had forgotten to do before clocking out and

5:27

cracking his first after-work beer. The

5:30

two old things left a thin trail of blood

5:33

and watery shit in the chalky dust. They

5:36

were awkward to drag, and he kept dropping

5:38

them. They made a clattering sound each time

5:40

they fell, and the sound put your teeth

5:42

on edge. He was already regretting

5:44

not taking two separate trips by the time he rounded

5:47

the back of the thing, and the whole force

5:49

of the stench hit him, and he wasn't able to cover

5:51

his nose. It had been a warm day

5:53

before the sun started to dip. The

5:55

smell was especially fecund, the

5:58

flies which patted against his skin. and denim

6:00

were especially thick. It was

6:02

all he could do to stop himself from swallowing any

6:04

as he heaved the first one, and

6:07

then the other old bag of espalier bones

6:09

up over the dumpster's edge to land with something

6:11

between a thud and a splash and a

6:14

metallic clunk on the other side. He wasn't

6:17

in the best of shape, and even in that

6:19

heavy buzzing air he had to stop to catch

6:21

his breath. Which

6:24

was when the wind came up. Normally

6:27

he would have already been scrambling back around the building

6:29

in search of cleaner-smelling air, but

6:31

tonight the breeze came and scattered the

6:33

flies, bringing a fresh smell

6:36

of autumnan trees, and he paused

6:38

for a moment. Looking down at the ravine,

6:41

watching pink twilight waft cotton-candy

6:43

clouds behind the shadowy claws of the woods,

6:46

watching the black silhouettes of final

6:48

leaves tremble and snap off in the wind.

6:52

Then the wind died. But

6:55

though the smell and flies returned,

6:59

the movement in the forest did not cease.

7:03

The whole edge of the woodland trembled and

7:05

moving on its own, though the evening

7:07

had gone still, and there was no breeze

7:09

in his ears to muffle the soft shiver

7:11

and moan of the discarded things in the dumpster

7:14

behind him. As

7:16

he looked on at that moving forest in disbelief,

7:20

they came out to feed. They

7:26

moved with a slow, lurching

7:28

smoothness, less like animals

7:31

or even plants than like the spoke

7:33

to kinetic statues he had once seen powered

7:35

by the blowing wind on a beach. Their

7:38

movements rolled. They

7:40

spiralled through the trees in shrubbery

7:42

with a whisper, touching the ground with

7:44

knotted pods or angular joints.

7:47

Some were covered in short, coarse

7:49

hair, some armed against attack

7:51

with knobs and spines and claws

7:54

of a sort of fingernail material.

7:57

He realised with horror that these wild,

8:00

Still-grown spalliers were cousins

8:02

and descendants to the ones inside his tent,

8:05

as feral pigs to tender pink swine.

8:09

He took a step back as they descended on the dumpster.

8:12

Some were small,

8:14

no higher than his knee. Some

8:16

were even larger than the ones they raised inside.

8:20

Amongst the moving thicket, towered one

8:22

higher than all the rest, almost

8:25

thirteen feet tall, a living

8:27

tree of human flesh. It

8:30

reached into the steel bin, withdrew

8:32

effortlessly the two bodies he had just

8:34

thrown in, and folded itself

8:37

around one of them, tossing the other to the

8:39

ground for its pack,

8:42

its kin, its people

8:45

to consume. They

8:47

began to feed, and as

8:49

the pack picked and plucked at its victim

8:51

with beak-like extrusions of

8:53

finger and tooth, he began

8:56

to step back. One of the smaller

8:58

spalliers turned to look at him. He

9:01

thought, looked, though

9:03

the smooth and bottle-shaped vestigial cranium

9:05

had no eyes or snout of any sort,

9:08

yet there must have been a mind inside, of

9:11

some sort.

9:12

He felt perceived,

9:15

and as he did, he felt afraid.

9:19

These things were dangerous by definition. Like

9:22

so few things in nature, they

9:24

only fed off human flesh. As

9:27

calmly as he could, he turned

9:30

and walked away. They

9:34

did not follow him.

9:37

This time,

9:38

when he arrived back at the parking spaces,

9:41

at his laughing co-workers with their bottles,

9:43

they asked what was wrong, when he couldn't bring

9:46

himself a drink from the smooth brown glass

9:48

they handed back to him.

9:51

Nothing, he said,

9:53

with a wince. Then

9:56

after that,

9:58

I . . .

10:00

Don't think we should go back there alone after

10:03

twilight. I

10:07

just think I might have seen something moving out there.

10:11

In the woods.