Free Arjun by Fionn Jameson

I needed a Christmas tree.
    I had to get one.
    Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I can’t live without them. In fact, I’ve lived through quite a few of my “Bohemian” holiday seasons without one of those prickly things, and it didn’t make much of a difference if +m mzI had one or didn’t.
    Unfortunately, my mother was the type of woman who subscribed to all the different McCall home-making periodicals, and for her, a home without a Christmas tree, was not a home at all. I saw several things wrong with the way she thought, but she had tunnel vision; it was impossible to get her to concentrate or think about anything else.
    It wouldn’t have been so bad if she wanted an ordinary tree, the sort of tree that you can get, already cut and trimmed, at the empty lot next to the supermarkets. But no, she had to be different.
    Which would explain why I was standing in front of a tree, in the middle of nowhere, with a chainsaw in the trunk of my car, because Victoria Kent had to have a real tree. But since she was stuck in a wheelchair, due to a skiing accident a few weeks back, guess who had to do the deed? If the police caught me, she was going to have to pay for my bail, because I wasn’t going to waste my money on her foolishness.
    I had to admit, though, there was something oddly beautiful about a perfectly formed fir tree. Maybe it was the way the branches reached up, almost as if the wooden fingers tried to touch the moon, but as I stood there, snow melting in my sneakers, I sort of saw why Mom was so asinine about getting the perfect tree.
    The tree stood alone in a clearing, lit only by the light of the full moon. It had snowed a few hours ago, and with the snow clumped on the branches, the entire scene looked like something off of a Christmas card. I half expected to see a deer stepping out from the underbrush, her doe tagging along.
    But no deer came, and the wind picked up. I shivered in my heavy parka.
    “No time like the present,” I muttered and hefted the surprisingly heavy chainsaw. For such a small thing, it weighed quite a bit. It seemed like such a shame, though. To bring down something so beautiful seemed positively sacrilegious.
    It was a good thing I wasn’t religious.
    “Right,” I said. “Next Christmas, I don’t care if she’s in a full-body cast. She’s fetching her own tree. No more acting like the perfect little daughter anymore.”
    Why did this feel so dirty?
    Finger on the safety throttle, I was ready to disable it and then flick on the power button. I’d push through the trunk of the fir tree, and that would be that.
    So what was stopping me?
    I had the feeling something was fundamentally wrong, but I couldn’t seem to figure out as to why I was feeling this way. Just a feeling….
    “And the day when I let my feelings rule my head will be the day I dig a grave and knock myself in.” I’d always thought I was a very level-headed woman, not the sort given to flightiness or flippancy.
    Taking a deep breath, I pulled down the safety throttle and clicked on the power button of the electric chainsaw.
    The shrill metallic cry of the saw cut through the air, piercing and so out of place, I almost turned it off. But I didn’t. I’d come this far and I was going to do the deed.
    Holding the chainsaw steady, I braced myself against the initial resistance of metal meeting wood.
    Don’t.
    The chainsaw stopped a few inches away from the bark, and I very nearly dropped the saw in shock. What the hell was that ?
    Stop.
    Oh. Wonderful. Now I was hearing voices in my head.
    Please don’t do that. Please stop.
    But the voice was not in my head. I didn’t know how I could possibly have heard it over the deafening whirl of the saw, but I’d heard it, almost as if someone had whispered right into my ear.
    A film of cold sweat formed on my brow, and I turned off the saw. I was going to be sick, I knew it. My stomach rolled, and the acidic taste of bile rose in the back of my throat,