I often wonder what it would be like to return to the house that had contained us all for those sordid and slowly passing years. I wonder what my mind would do if I came to directly face what had once been my prison. Often, when I think of it, I consider the conifer trees. In truth, those trees, are the first thing that springs to my mind; accompanied by an initial image of the exterior of the house from a certain angle. Always initially the same angle. But its always those trees.

Perhaps they hold such significance because they grew as I did, alongside me, on the outside. I remember them at a few different stages, but the variations are spread over time that cannot be accurately gauged or entirely trusted. Tiny saplings standing to attention like weak inexperienced infantry; on basic training, deployed to their fated service; committed but not yet sure of what they have been strategically deployed to defend, not yet knowing their purpose and ignorant to the politics that bubble away underneath the surface of their service.

They were so scrawny. so short and feeble; innocent and fresh. Perfectly aligned along the perimeter, the majority of them in 2 rows, one shorter than the other, linked by those that arced around the curve of green to make more pronounced the shape of the hellish corner plot on which the semi-detached stood. I wonder how strong they are now, and whether they know their purpose. I wonder how tall they stand and whether the man of the house enjoys neatening them, takes pride in the neatness of their formation, whether he considers them as a line of defence for his family or whether he allows them to become wayward until his wife’s nagging becomes too incessant to bear and so he spends the best part of a day snipping and chopping in the sunlight while contemplating the miseries of his life. I wonder if  their purpose has changed from what it once was; whether they now serve to keep the outside world out, or to keep the secrets inside the brick hidden. I wonder if they have been murdered, if they no longer served a purpose, and so, were wrenched from life to know only death and dryness.

I remember how odd they appeared when they were first planted against the backdrop of a well-established and giant patriarchal conifer that took pride of place in the middle of the front garden, shielding the lounge window from the outside world of the cul-de-sac. It stood like a promise, a foreshadowing of their fate: that once bound to the earth there is a sense of the inescapable, some doomed inevitability that the weak will become strong, one way or another, and that any growth is bound by servitude from the conditions chosen for us by others.

I often tell myself that I will return to the house, that I will face it head on as though it were a living, breathing enemy. My reasonable mind sometimes kicks in: it isn’t the house, or the conifers. They aren’t to blame. They cannot be. Yet among the confusion of symbols, and layers of possible meaning that makes all of this exactly what it is, those trees, and that house, are all there is left. There is no paper. There is no man, or woman. Just me, and that house, whose walls formed my prison, doubly guarded by those trees, know the whole truth. Only myself and them remain. We are the residue. The remnants of the aftermath. Those that continue to serve and keep secrets.

A few months ago, whist sitting in a coffee shop, I sprang to my feet, closed my laptop, and set off to see the trees.

The drive was excruciating. I did not know if they would greet me. I did not know if they still lived. I hoped, despite all that they represent, that they would still be there. I wanted them to hide the house from me. I realised, as I drove through winding country roads, that I was relying on them to protect me from the house. They once served a purpose to keep passing eyes from looking past the plot’s perimeter and into the secret space dominated by the depravity beyond the glass of the wide bay window. Now, I hoped that the purpose they once served for another’s desires would serve to protect me. I turned the corner into the cul-de-sac to find myself sufficiently greeted, but unprotected.