We moved on Tuesday but didn’t unpack right away. Mom said the boxes made it look like we had more furniture so we left them taped up and I went for a walk. I announced my departure and I’m sure she responded but I had no way of knowing what she said. Reading lips only works if you can see them.
I made my way out the building and merged onto a crowded sidewalk, but it wasn’t crowded with people. The transformation had begun, as it happens when I’m lonely, and turned everyone into trees. I found myself in the woods, the only boy around except I wasn’t a boy, I was a tree, just like everyone else.
I ducked into a bodega to buy some gum, my limbs less leafy, my fingers again fingers, and grabbed the first pack I saw. I paid and put the change in my pocket, left and let the transformation continue until an intersection forced me to stop, me and some others, and I could feel myself feeling less like a tree. We were on our way to grapes, all of us, and grapes are much better than trees. When the light changed, I crossed with the bunch.
Dusk became dark and traffic jammed the streets. Headlights shot the car in front and I imagined the beams were a single beam, like long light-skewers piercing g through a car-kebob. I chewed gum and popped it rapid-fire, an annoying habit according to my mom, but I can’t comprehend sound being bothersome. A man collecting money shook a shiny bell, throwing rings at people who passed, an invasive tactic but no one seemed to mind, so I concluded no one minded my gum, either, and gave him the coins from my pocket.
Back in my building, my mom asked how I found the city. “Loud,” I joked. The boxes were gone and our apartment looked empty. “Does the bell matter?” I watched her mouth. Reading lips was easy; minds were a bit more difficult.
“Bell?”
“A man collecting money rang a bell.”
She asked if I gave him anything and I nodded, then realized that by answering her question, I’d also answered mine.
She suggested tea. “Sounds good,” I said, and we both laughed. She returned with two mugs and we blew ripples on the surface.
“I felt like a grape.”
“When?”
“When I crossed the street.”
She smiled because she knew what I knew, that grapes are better than trees. The tea was hot and we blew more ripples.