This is the seventh part of A Story in Several Parts, by Matthew de Kersaint Giradeau, the previous parts can be further down the page. (The painting is by George Shaw and is taken from here;http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/online_shop/ikon_catalogues/artists_monographs/… )
It rains for the whole evening, into the night and while Alex goes to sleep. If Alex were awake he would know that it rains for a few hours after he falls asleep, and then peters out, an exhausted vapour. He wakes up to the first warm day for a long time. It is warm and drying. An early sun making the pavement give up its water. There are puddles, and the trees glisten and the birds sing. Though birds always sing, they just get heard more when it is sunny. Alex wakes up and does not know all this straight away, though once he opens his curtains he knows. He goes and eats cereal and it reminds him to throw the cocktail stick left in his pocket into the bin. His parents are gone already and he watches television while standing up, eating a second bowl of cereal. He turns the television off and for a moment can hear his house whistling to him before he picks up his bag and leaves.
He walks straight into the woods, eager to see the trees, to see if the rain has washed them away, or perhaps they are standing straight back up, no longer one resting upon the other. The trees are still laying on each other, and they are wet, like the rest of the woods, but they are covered in human shit. Alex's shit has gone, washed away by the rain, but other shits have appeared, bigger and fuller than Alex's. Alex stops when he sees them. At first he thinks they must all be his, or that his has multiplied. But then his mind catches up to his eyes and he is scared. No one is there, but he is still scared. He counts the shits. There are at least fifteen separate shits. There might be more, or less, but from where he is standing, Alex counts fifteen shits. They are laid on the trees. None seem to be on the ground, only on the trees. They have not been washed away by the rain, by the looks of things they weren't there before the rain. They aren't necessarily recent, but they aren't old enough to have been affected by the rain. They are not runny or mushy or flattened. They all sit on the trees with fresh posture.
Alex doesn't want to go closer. If he doesn't go closer he won't know for sure how many there are, or if they were done before or after the rain, or if they smell bad. He treads slowly and carefully towards the trees. No one is around, and after a few sneaking steps his curiosity overcomes his fear and he walks faster. He looks at the ground while he walks, just in case there is a shit on the floor. As he gets closer he counts a few more shits. He walks up to the tree and peers over into what was the old den. There are no shits inside the den, and none on the other side of the trees, only on the side of the tree that Alex is on. Around seventeen distinct shits. They cannot have been done by the same person, Alex is sure of that. But seventeen people squatting at the same time seems absurd. Some of the shits are so close together that the people would have to be very close to each other. Also, seventeen people wouldn't fit on the tree, even if it is more stable than when Alex fell off it. Alex thinks that it must be six or seven people, doing two or three shits each.
Alex can't touch the tree, and now it is covered in shit. He doesn't know why he is here. He wants to climb back on the trees, but he can't. He pulls his trousers down, and careful not to position himself too near one of the shits already on the tree, pulls back his arse cheeks. This time he needs a shit and it comes out in three big chunks. He takes a tissue from his pocket and wipes. There isn't much to wipe. It was a clean poo. Quick and large, like a living thing that wants no business with your bowel. He pulls his trousers up and turns round. There are eighteen shits on the trees now. One of them is his, but he couldn't tell which one if he didn't already know. His sits as solidly as the others, pointing at the sky.
Alex is glad he has joined the people who took a proper shit on the trees. His first shit wasn't proper like the one he has just done. Maybe the people saw his shit and thought they should show him what to do. Normally he would mind being told what to do, but this time he is glad. He knows now, you can't just force a little slimy poo out, it has to be a big solid shit, like you would do in the toilet at home, or sometimes at school, but only after school when it is quiet and no one will come and bang on the door, or jump up and look over into the cubicle. Alex suddenly hopes he doesn't have to talk to the people who did the shits. This makes him feel fear in his stomach and takes away the good feeling of having done the shit. What would they talk about? They would have to talk about the shit. Alex feels certain that the people who did the shits did not do them at the same time, or watch each other shit and take turns. They would have waited until no one was there, and then gone to shit on the trees. Or, if they knew each other already, organised so as not to be there at the same time. Alex feels certain of this.
Alex goes back the next morning. He waits until his parents leave and then jogs to the trees. When he gets there, the shits from yesterday are all gone, but Alex knows that this will be the case. He does his shit and wipes his arse with toilet paper he brings in his bag. Then, careful as not to disturb the shit, he climbs up on to the bottom tree. He tests the top tree by jumping up and down with his hands on it, but he knows that it is stable now. He clambers up on to the top tree and looks around at the sky, which is clear but has two planes flying close to each other, their jet noise phasing and bouncing around the woods. He looks down into the old den and this is when he sees the body.
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