Dominick was always excited at the thought of springtime. He enjoyed being outside, and he especially loved the property around his home that he had customized over the decade he had been in the house. He had designed the landscaping so that the majority of his yard was thick, lush grass that was like a carpet when he mowed it, and there were shade trees in the front and back yards that were full and healthy. The front of his ranch-style home was adorned with flowering bushes that displayed vibrant color through September, and he planted rows of flowers along his driveway that gave nice color as well.
His yard came to life after the winter chill in early March. The trees that lined the land where his home nestled in the middle sprouted bright green leaves on brittle, brown branches, and even the evergreens seemed to perk up. Then the bushes pushed out their long leaves and the grass started to regain its vibrancy and fullness.
Dominick watched it patiently. He had spent much of the winter trimming trees and bushes to cut back the overgrowth from the previous season, and was eager to see it all full and then manicured after he spent hours mowing, chopping, and cutting. He waiting until the grass was about six inches and the weeds that managed to push through his lawn had plenty of time to take root and feed the pollinators that kept his flowers healthy. He only treated the front lawn with chemicals to rid it of weeds, and he pulled up weeds by hand in the backyard with the exception of one corner of the back closest to the woods and along the side of the house.
And the time finally came for him to charge up the batteries for his mower, and to sharpen his hedge clippers and the machete he used to hack away at the foliage that cropped up in the woods and spilled out beyond the parameters he’d set. He was up early on a Saturday morning and the smell of spring inundated his nose as he left the house. He was thankful that he had no allergies to pollen because he enjoyed being in that nature.
Dominick ran his mower first and he tamed the majority of grass into an even plane of green. Then he turned his attention to the trees in his backyard. The woods were full, but not so dense that it was uncomfortable to move through them, and Dominick liked to keep it that way. He sniped young saplings that he knew would grow to crowd the forest floor and he cleared overgrown branches of larger trees.
He waded into the woods with his machete, and though he thought about changing his clothes, but he wore the same short sleeved shirt and shorts that he’d worn to mow the grass. As he hacked at the overgrowth, he stuffed the majority of the clippings into a large paper bag that he dragged along the ground. He worked for hours, but the work was truly bliss to Dominick and he didn’t emerge from the woods until the sun started to set.
While he showered, basking in the spray of warm water that relaxed the tension in his muscles, his wife came home from work. She startled when she saw him in their bedroom with just a towel around his waist as he fished underwear out of the drawer.
“What happened to you?” she asked with concern and wonder. “How did you get those welts on your body?”
Dominick was startled when he looked at himself. He hadn’t noticed the thick lines of swollen skin on his arms, chest and back like tiger stripes. His brown skin was fine except for the large welts, there was no pain or discoloration, but at the center of each of them a thin line of white was carved into the swollen flesh.
“Do they hurt?” she asked and stood before him. She wanted to touch the welts on his arms, his face, but she was afraid.
“I didn’t even notice,” Dominick said, his face twisting into panic. “It wasn’t like this earlier today…there must’ve been something in the woods.”
“It looks painful, like something carved you up with a thin knife.”
“Must’ve been the branches scraping my arms. I had on short sleeves.”
“It’s on your back and your chest, though,” his wife puzzled. “Is your shirt cut up too?”
It wasn’t and though he was as concerned as his wife appeared to be, he wasn’t in any pain and convinced her that it was some sort of allergic reaction.
“I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow,” he assured her.
“And you’ll sleep on the couch tonight, just in case it’s contagious.”
Dominick agreed, but he was a little bitter that his wife avoided touching him for the rest of the evening. She even prepared the couch where he would sleep with a layer of plastic, and then sheets to cover the cushions. The welts had plumped even more by the time he was ready for sleep, and he noticed a thin liquid issuing from the slits in the center of the welts. It wasn’t blood, maybe it was puss, he reasoned by the yellowish color, but it wasn’t thick like he imagined puss to be. He pondered it until he dozed off on his back in the dark living room.
As he slept, Dominick dreamed of renewal. He was in a dark place that made him nervous, until the sun erased the blackness with bright colors, light blue and deep green, tans and browns, grays and red. He was in the woods of his backyard and the trees were full around him. The forest floor was clear, like he’d spent months clearing the leaves and underbrush there. He was naked, he realized, and he felt the wind on his skin, the moisture in the air. He felt the dirt on the bottom of his feet sink and anchor into the dirt, and he felt a tingle entering the soles of each foot, then rising up his legs, out to his arms and fingers. He relished the tingle that seemed to be feeding his body and changing it. He was happy in the wood. He felt better than he ever had and he wanted to embrace the light forever.
When Dominick’s wife came down for breakfast the next morning, she was talking to him before she laid eyes on him.
“Your doctor has an opening this morning,” she said as she decided the stairs, but she didn’t make it down to the bottom before she noticed the creeping vines all around the walls and branching out from a point on the couch.
“Dominick?” she asked shakily as she tiptoed over the leafy, green vines along the floor. “What happened in here?”
But Dominick couldn’t answer. There was a puddle of blood next to the couch and his wife screamed at the bits and pieces of his body that were still there, but mixed with plant material, like the plants had decomposed or ripped Dominick’s body apart. She couldn’t clearly make out any of his remains, but she found a mask of his face. The eyes were closed and there was a blissful smile on his lips. And there was a large mushroom that was the same brown of Dominick’s skin tone sprouting out from the forehead skin.
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