The axe dragged through the fallen pine needles, carving an apathetic path in its wake. Xavier had the strength to lift it, but currently he didn’t feel like supporting anything except his own weight. Not this evening.

The fingers of his free hand twiddled nervously within his thick coat pocket, toasty in its furry interior despite the chill December air. Xavier was at home in the forest more so than in most situations, and this evening was no different. His foul mood had nothing to do with his surroundings and everything to do with the holidays.

The holidays had truly crept up on Xavier this year, and he knew everyone always said that, and thus he’d become even more angry upon thinking it. But despite his pompous petulance, he couldn’t shake it. The image of the holidays slowly draining him like a winter cold, leaving him congested and irritable until it eventually moved on seemed too spot on to be cast aside because of cliché.

He was three years removed from college, and therefore, one year removed from a time when living at home was easily explained away. For the first two years, coming back home after his ivy league education had been satisfying. Yes, most of his friends from school were off working big-time jobs, in big-time cities with long, big-time titles like “Administrative Finance Executive” and “Director of Business Acquisition and Sustainability” but at first that hadn’t mattered to Xavier. Not at first. He’d been fine working in the local law-firm with his elderly father who could not have been happier to have his only son working with him in the mundane litigation that came with small towns. Mostly the two worked on paperwork for divorcee’s and business settlements. Nothing to inspire the mind, but it was work that needed doing, so Xavier showed up in suit and tie every morning to do it.

Xavier’s friends, who still gave him shit for insisting his nickname, which was pronounced “Zay”, be spelled with an X, had been so excited the first year to have their “cultured, intellect” of a friend once again gracing their presence. They loved telling him as much, simultaneously talking up his accomplishments and sarcastically belittling them all in the same breath. It came from somewhere insecure Xavier reasoned but it still sometimes hurt. On especially drunken nights they still called him Professor X, and Xavier had learned to begrudgingly laugh off the name. He knew it was meant as a loving jab, but like his namesake, it only seemed to make him feel separate from the group.

He had been out with them the previous night. They’d stayed at the local bar into the early morning, and he’d stumbled into the kitchen as his father and step-mother had been making eggs. He’d tried to escape to his bedroom in the fewest words possible, but his step-mother had still insisted on telling him that such antics were losing their endearing quality with every passing month. He had never tried to endear himself to anyone, so he didn’t mind this. What he did mind though was the headache that persisted, a reminder of his overindulgence. This dulled pang was simply the icing on the shit cake that was this walk that he now found himself on.

Normally, Xavier would have been happy for an excuse to leave the annual Christmas party, but with the wind chill that the weatherman was fond of referring to as “biting like a polar bear” this escape was not so enviable. But the party had run out of fire wood, and Xavier had volunteered, if only to stop talking with his Aunt Irene, who insisted on whispering so close that he could feel the flecks of spit hit his ear as she gabbed. He’d jumped at the opportunity at escape, but now he thought maybe Irene was the better option.

“Damn it,” cursed Xavier, into the evening air.

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t notice the rotting stump protruding from beneath the rotting leaves and sprinkle of snow and therefore jabbed his foot hard into its wooden carcass.

He fought back the pain with a grimace and a few more choice words that sent a chipmunk scrambling for cover.

Eventually the pain dulled, his big toe only throbbing slightly within his boot. He tested it gingerly before reaching to pick up the axe he’d dropped. Xavier examined his surroundings.

The forest, if you could even call it a forest when there were clearly car headlights visible through the bare winter trees and the soft, distant thrum of fires and drunken frivolity, was oddly quiet. All the animals were nestled in the ground or the trees, and the people were in heated homes. The world was still.

Xavier picked up the axe, feeling the weight of its head hang powerfully. In the quiet, it felt strange to hold an instrument with such destructive potential.

He spotted the tree perfect for fire wood. It appeared alive, but barely. Like a lion surrounding an injured gazelle, Xavier approached it. It was old. Xavier knew this because of it’s size, but also the weathered bark that peeled from it’s side like a molting python. It was ready to move on, thought Xavier; it’s crooked positioning a clue that it might not make it through the winter with or without his axe.

Xavier swung the axe, hefting its weight up and letting gravity assist his muscles in bringing the mallet down hard upon the base of the tree.

Immediately upon contact Xavier’s headache intensified. He stumbled backwards. Was someone screaming? No, it wasn’t screaming. What was it? Whatever it was, it dug into his temples and rested in his body like someone drilling near the root of a tooth and the novacane hadn’t quite taken effect yet.

And just as quickly as it had come on, it was over. So quickly that Xavier sat for a moment wondering if it had even happened at all. Had he experienced a migraine? A brain aneurism? But how could it have been that sudden?

He pulled the axe from it’s wooden wound, careful in case the physical exertion was what had brought on the sudden episode. His mind remained clear, save the echoing of the “scream” (Xavier didn’t know what else to call it).

Xavier approached the tree, cautiously. Pulling out his phone he quickly swiped the flashlight mode on so he could examine further. For whatever reason, he thought maybe the axed area would shed some light on what had happened. It did nothing of the sort. Xavier only saw the usual damage of an axe; splintered wood, broken bark, and a rolly-polly scuttling from the debris.

Putting his hand into the carved section, he pulled some wood shavings.

The scream returned, but this time with a low intensity. The lesser pain gave Xavier a chance to reflect on the sensation, consider it for a moment. He realized it wasn’t a scream so much as it was like something invisible knocking upon his brain. His brain, not used to guests of any sort, didn’t know how to handle the pressure of the rapping, and began to pain him once again. He dropped the wood back into the depths of the tree.
The thought came to him too quickly for rationale thought to block it out.

Was it the tree that was screaming? No, it couldn’t be. That made no sense. Trees were living, but trees were not sentient. Trees did not feel, they didn’t scream, and they certainly didn’t tap on the minds of lumberjacks.

Xavier knew all this beyond any level of certainty. He knew this just as he knew his own name, his shoe size, and that his father would be drunk at any super bowl party he attended. It was fact; universally accepted knowledge.

And yet here he was, contemplating a screaming tree.

Before he knew it, Xavier had yanked himself to his full height, grabbed the axe and swung it at the tree again.

Why?

Upon contact the screaming returned, this time so manic that it caused Xavier to drop his axe and fall backwards to the ground. He barely caught himself as his hands reflexive shot to his temples. It was excruciating. The knocking and yelling persisted somewhere inside his head, demanding attention.

And then, silence.

Xavier pulled himself forward, through the pine needles and the snow. His whole body was shaking. He didn’t trust he had the strength to get to his feet. He placed a trembling hand into the wooden remains, churning into the guts. There was no push-back, no retaliation. Just silence. He swirled harder. Nothing.

He was crying as he took the axe to the tree. Chopping and chopping. It was quiet besides the chopping. Nothing but the occasional sniffle, the sound of metal against wood, and human exertion.

Xavier wasn’t sure what time it was when all the fire wood lay at his feet. The tears had long since frozen to his face.

There was a silence in the forest, so silent it was almost unbearable. The type of silence that made you want to scream.

So he did.