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The Tidings of the Trees

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Wolfgang Hilbig

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“It wasn’t the first time Alabama had overdosed, but it had been the scariest. Though she would never tell Richie this, there had been a moment during the experience—impossible to say for how long; could have been a minute, could have been an hour—when she had died. At least, that’s how it had felt after she had clawed her way back from it. Death didn’t scare Alabama; in fact, sometimes, part of her yearned for it. What terrified her was how lonely she had felt, lost in oblivion. No one had greeted her at the borders of another realm, because that other realm was just another lie in a world full of them. Instead, there had been nothing at all in every direction, forever. Perfect darkness. The absence of everything.”

“In Los Angeles everybody wears a mask, telling stories that aren't quite the truth but aren't quite a lie. The warm weather makes it easy to stay. The strange thing is: you can feel your soul being bought and sold, little by little, piece by piece. You feel it dying, being taken away from you, dripping out of you. Especially at night, when it's a dark, starless sky. Night as you know it, and night as we know it...here...are two different things.”

“Los Angeles was black, full dark no stars, hills everywhere. There were long stretches of road and sidewalks, on either side neon signs, overhead street-lamps, standing in protest to the overwhelming blackness of the night. The town's lighting seemed powerless against it. Houses were darkened, some hidden on back roads, behind gates and walled gardens. No one seemed to walk anywhere at night. And yet, the city seemed alive. Not like New York, not like a live wire, a town hopped up on electricity. Los Angeles was different, like a cobra in the grass, creeping, coiling onto itself in the night...”

“How many diners should a man rob before he turns the gun on himself? The question whispered in Richie’s ear as he swallowed the last bite of pancake. He and Alabama had gotten the idea of stealing from diners when they caught Pulp Fiction at a four-year anniversary screening in the New Beverly Cinema in LA last year where they’d gone to shoot dope and drift among the neon haze of Hollywood glitz, thinking Shit, look how in love they are holding up that diner, that could be us. But a dozen diners later the charm had worn off and they’d returned to being just a couple junkie losers stuck in the small-time.”

“The needle plunged into Richie’s skin like a lover. “I’ll be right behind you,” he heard Alabama say, but his blood was cold now and his eyes were open but unseeing and a warmth was spreading up his bones from his toes as all tension in his body melted and seeped out his pores, all worries and fears and failures, and he knew that everything would be fine, perfectly, wonderfully fine, and that it had been silly to have ever worried at all. I’ll be right behind you. The words repeating in his mind like an echo as he zoomed far away from this dirty motel room, from this dirty life. See you soon.”