In the first decade of the new millennium, Emerson Valley had quite the homeless problem. You couldn’t park your luxury vehicle anywhere in town without at least three of them approaching your window and pleading for a few bucks. Obviously, this was an untenable situation. They wore rags and had a displeasing odor. So what’s a town to do? The City Council had the perfect solution: send them somewhere else and let someone else deal with them!

Following the Great Homeless Migration of 2012, the City Council has boasted year after year about how our town doesn’t have a single homeless person. But here’s the thing: it’s a lie! A darned, dirty lie!

“How do you know?” asks the voice in my head.

“If you’d shut up for a second, I’ll tell you,” another voice replies.

While I was on an excursion to Blackwood Forest earlier this month, I suddenly felt the call of nature. Retiring behind a nice thick oak tree, I unzipped my trousers to take care of business.

“Do you mind not peeing on me?” said a new voice in my head.

But when I looked down, I was shocked to find the voice actually belonged to a real human being. He was decked out in several layers of filth and an old EVHS Martians sweatshirt with a questionable brown stain across the front. A pair of algae green eyes gazed at me, waiting with bated breath to find out whether or not he would be getting urinated on. I tucked my bait and tackle away and sat down beside him.

“I’m Ash,” I said, extending my hand to greet him.

“I’m Ezra,” he replied. “Ezra Dollar.”

“Interesting name,” I remarked.

“Yeah, well…Ezra Dollar counts!”

Mr. Dollar flashed me a toothless grin as I laughed heartily at his joke. I got a good feeling about him. He lacked the usual aura of smugness and idiocy that normally bedecks the citizens of our lovely town.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? I’m a reported for the Emerson Valley Gazette,” I said, hoping to allay any fears that I was simply a Nosy Nellie trying to dig up some juicy gossip.

“Uh…sure, I guess?” he replied with absolute certainty.

Since I was conducting an official interview, I’ll format it like the other interviews in the Gazette.

Me: What’re you doing out here?

He gestured toward the river, where a tent with a collection of odds and ends was perched.

Him: I live here.

Me: Really? I thought there were laws against that.

I tried as hard as I could to recall what the park rangers used to tell me when they found me passed out along the trails back in high school. Unfortunately, I was usually returning to consciousness after a night of hard partying with the Reckon Crew.

Me: Trespassing maybe? I know they kick you out if they find you here without registering at the ranger station first. How have you avoided getting caught?

Him: (Shrugging) They never bothered me. I see them come past sometimes, but they never said I needed to leave or anything.

Me: That’s weird. The rangers are annoyingly vigilant about enforcing the rules. How exactly did you end up here?

Him: City Council sent us here.

That caught my attention.

Me: Wait—what do you mean? Who’s “us?”

Him: The others like me. You know…people without homes.

I was stunned. The implications of what he was saying were immense. While my natural instinct is to keep any contact between myself and other people as brief as possible, I knew I needed to investigate this further.

Me: Are you saying the town sent you into the forest?

Him: (Nodding) Yeah. Long while back. It was about…uh…what year is it right now?

Me: 2019. November 3rd to be exact.

(In the interest of total transparency, it was actually November 2nd. I’d gotten the days mixed up because I was still using a calendar from 2018, so it said Saturday was the 3rd.)

Him: Wow…seven years ago. Feels like I’ve been here forever though.

Me: You said the City Council sent “us” here. Where are the rest of the people they sent?

Him: Gone.

He dropped his head and began to wring his hands.

Him: I didn’t mean to leave them. I wasn’t trying to be bad…but I saw a campsite by the river. The people weren’t there, but all their stuff was. I snuck off and grabbed their wallets and jewelry. I figured I could go get something nice to eat, and maybe see a movie.

Me: Don’t worry about it man. It’s not like taking stuff from other people without their permission is a crime.

Turns out it is a crime, but that’s not relevant to the story.

Me: Did you go back into town?

Him: No, I couldn’t. It was too late.

Me: Too late for what?

Him: To leave.

Me: You mean it had gotten too dark?

Him: No. It was just too late. At least that’s what they told me.

Me: Who? The people who brought you here?

Him: No, they didn’t come with us into the forest. They just gave us a map and said they’d set up a campsite for us.

Me: Well then who told you it was too late?

Mr. Dollar reached out and laid a hand on the trunk of the tree beside us.

Him: They told me.

Me: The trees?

Him: (Nodding) You can hear them if you listen. They sound like children.

Me: If you didn’t leave, what’d you do instead?

Him: I tried to catch up to the others. My memory was better back then, so I remembered the trail the map said to take. I walked along it for about thirty minutes, but the trees told me to stop, so I did.

Me: That’s odd. Why would the trees want to keep you from the others?

Him: It was too late for them. They didn’t listen. They were gone. The trees told me a secret. Do you want to know what they said?

Me: More than anything.

Him: They said my friends were eaten by the Beast. It’s always hungry. People who don’t listen to the trees always get eaten.

Me: Are you saying the City Council sent you here on purpose to get eaten?

Him: I think so. They wanted to get rid of us. And they did. I didn’t want to get eaten too, so I made my way back to the camp by the river. Those people never came back either.

He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the tent.

Him: That’s their tent. I mean, it’s my tent now, but it was their tent. I think they got eaten too.

If what Mr. Dollar told me was true, it would be earth-shattering news. The City Council didn’t ship the homeless people to another town—they were sent into the forest to get rid of them permanently.

Me: Do you have any proof they sent you here? Any chance you’ve got that map?

Him: (Shaking his head) The others had the map with them when they got eaten. It’s probably in the belly of the Beast with them.

Me: Darn. People need to know about this, but it’s gonna be hard to convince them it’s true without any proof. I need to find something concrete.

Him: Nothing gets found in the forest. Anything that comes here gets lost.

Me: I once found a penny here.

Him: (Smiling) Then they must like you.

Me: I doubt it. Nobody likes me.

Mr. Dollar pressed an ear against the oak tree. I could almost make out the faintest intonations of a lilting voice drifting through on the wind.

Him: They like you. But they said you’re broken. Their voices can’t reach you. You hear a different voice, don’t you?

Voice in My Head: How does he know that?

Me: How do you know that?

Him: Like I said…the trees.

I looked up at the oak tree and wondered what else it knew. However, as I was gazing at its magnificent branches, I noticed the sky growing dark.

Me: It’s getting late. I should go. I don’t wanna be here at night.

Him: I understand. Bad things happen in the forest at night.

Me: Not to you though…that’s curious.

Him: But I can’t leave. I’m part of the forest now. Someday, I’ll become one of the trees, and I’ll speak to those who come here.

Me: I’m gonna talk to my editor about this. We can’t publish accusations that the City Council sent the homeless people here to die without any proof. But I’ve got a bit of a reputation for writing ridiculous articles that people dismiss as the mad ramblings of a diseased mind. If I write the story, the truth will be out there for anyone willing to see it.

Him: I don’t want to get you into trouble. What if they feed you to the Beast?

Me: Don’t worry—I wouldn’t taste very good. There’s so much poison in my veins, I think even the Beast would know better than to eat me.

I got up to leave and saw that Mr. Dollar’s feet were bare. They were covered in cuts, blisters, and callous calluses.

Me: What happened to your shoes?

Him: I wore them out a long time ago.

I knelt down and untied my sneakers. After slipping them off my feet, I handed them to him.

Me: Take mine. Sorry if they smell. I have Pedifetoritis.

Him: That’s okay. I have ringworm.

Me: Thanks for talking to me. I’ll come back in a few weeks to let you know how the article goes.

Him: Good luck. And be careful.

He pressed his ear to the tree again and nodded.

Him: The trees want you to know that you’ll be welcome here when you die. Once you shed your broken body, you can become a tree too.

Me; Tell them thanks. I think that’d be a pretty good way to spend my afterlife.

I left the forest and returned home, cursing my generous nature every time I stepped on a sharp twig or a jagged rock. My house sits right on the edge of the woods. I can see the trees through my window from my desk. As I sit here writing this article, I glance at them. They nod in approval, and I hit “Publish.”

-Ashton Rook, Lifestyle, Emerson Valley Gazette