Our Friend
The forest swallows the town, invades the trailer park, small trees sprout randomly in people’s
backyards, front yards, side yards, driveways, living rooms, bedrooms, taking over, growing larger by
the hour. The trees appear in this way: one day you are gazing through the windows of another
trailer home trying to see naked people daydreaming about River Phoenix, and the next day a
canopy of bright yellow leaves so thick invades your view, as if you have died and gone to heaven, as
if the streets of gold.