Arborescent - a novel

Arborescent, the title of Marc Herman Lynch's novel, means tree-like but one does not need to know this to enjoy or be confounded by the twists and turns that the story takes. Although, Arborescent is labelled as a novel it's truly three interlinked stories that follow three residents of Cambrian Court, an apartment building in Moh'kins'tsis which is the Blackfoot name for the area where Calgary is located. The name of the court is perhaps a reference to The Cambrian Explosion a time over 500 million years ago when single-cell life evolved into multi-cell and complex animals. Multi-cell and complex, maybe a good description of the story told in Arborescent.

We first meet Nohlan, who has recently witnessed his father explode or more accurately the light of the universe explodes from him, out on a wintery Albertan field. Nohlan who appears to be a slacker type runs an internet cafe that has outlived its need in the community and is now mostly visited by pervs and the elderly. Other than taking care of his pet fish and longing for the attention of a local psychic, he is fairly unencumbered. Until one day he notices a tree growing from his belly button.

Then we meet Hachiko who seems to spend quite a bit of time resisting and avoiding the unwanted attention from a man at her church who feels he is the key to her salvation and becoming heterosexual. She would leave the church if it were not for the free space she uses in the church basement to practice her true passion. She is set on staging the play, Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, one of the most famous Japanese plays ever produced. Hachiko plays Oiwa who is disfigured with poisoned face cream given to her by her husband's lover.

Then there is Zadie who feels to be the heart-wood of the story. She is stuck between her mother and beloved Gong Gong as peacekeeper and unsure of what she herself wants or needs.

"She learned in school that when Ernest Rutherford found that matter was mostly empty space—that the distance between atoms far exceeded their size—he woke up hesitant to set foot on the floor, lest he fall straight through. But how is this wrong? Zadie has always been suspicious of terra firma, so she floats without truly touching down."

When Zadie is struck by a car and killed in an attempt to evade her pistachio munching landlord who may or may not be turning into a bear, the entire world seems to turn inside out. Zadie comes to life in zombie fashion and runs into Hachiko who takes her as the ghost Oiwa. Zadie is determined to find her mother but discovers that her mother has been consumed by tree roots that have threaded themselves through plumbing, floors, and walls of Cambrian Court. Zadie and Hachiko hunt the source of the roots and find Nohlan, shrivelled and consumed by the tree growing from his body.

"Nohlan raises a hand in a shrug, as if to say, I can't explain what you can't see. 'Sometimes goodness is paradoxical. I've been struggling with a similar issue, trying to determine whether I am a beginning or an end. But it's all proliferation. Extinction is part and parcel of flourishing. I am a special part of that.'"

Zadie knows she must destroy the tree to stop it from consuming them all, and for her to be fully actualized and awake in the world. She chops at the trunk until the tree is severed from it roots. We are all at times victims of circumstance and sometimes we cannot get out of the way when our worlds explode and drown us in the cosmic dust of life. As Nohlan says, "Stability is the illusion."