June 2018

Author: Michael James
A 43 year old bank employee who describes himself as doing “Weird banking stuff where if you understood what I did for a living,
you’d be like ‘wait, we pay people for that?’ and then you’d question everything and get depressed.”
The Tree and the Monster
Genre: Fantasy
Here. Listen.
If you ever find yourself on Digby Street, keep walking to where the road ends at a wide-open field. In
the center of that field is a tree. You will know it when you see it. It sticks out because it’s the only thing in
the field, and it’s offensively large. Even the field (which is no slouch in the immensity department) seems less
by comparison. The grass is well maintained, although no lawnmower has ever touched a blade. They bend
and point inward. As you enter the field and get closer to the middle, you will feel a physical pull, and you will
notice the ground slopes downward, almost as if the weight of the tree is a burden.
To be clear, the weight of the tree is a burden.
In as much as trees can be evil (they cannot), this tree is evil. More accurately, it’s the thing that lives
inside it that is evil.
The tree is pretty unhappy with this arrangement but lacks the reasoning capability to do anything
about it.
It is, after all, just a tree.
Every two weeks, Sean comes to this field. Sean clearly dislikes his name. His name is ridiculous, and
he knows it. People don’t “yean” or eat “prean” or go jogging at the break of “dean”. Sean is the dumbest
name ever! It’s giving the English language a candy before molesting it. It’s not the only reason Sean’s life is a
mess, but he thinks it’s the catalyst. He has had a long-harbored suspicion that his life would be only medium
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