SO, when i was younger, maaaaybe back in 2001, I wanna say, there was a tree that grew between our home and a neighbor's home. (intensely middle class suburbs, so, ample room for such a thing to occur between houses, but close enough for the problems to follow)

I don't remember what kind of tree it was, only that it was fast growing and liked to spread its branches out a whole lot. This was a problem, as it threatened both houses which surrounded it, and would either need to be removed outright or constantly trimmed back. My family chose the former, though I remember exactly none of the process leading up to doing so.

So, the professionals come, they cut the tree down to its stump, bore down into it, pour some kinda tree poison into the holes, and that's that.

ONLY NAH, TREE DIDN'T DIE.

Nothing else grew from that stump except, occasionally, little fungal/lichen colonies taking advantage of the "dead" tree.

But the roots. The roots, they went on. The roots GO on.

So that's where we're at. Almost 20 years ago, my family tried to kill a tree next to our house. Since then, the Roots With No Tree have continued to grow, spread, and twist around us. It's encircled our home. It cannot die, and if it has any memories of the surface they are of man's attempt to murder it.

It cannot die. And so I ask but one question:

*what does it want with us?*