2

There were no pines to view near the Pine View funeral home showroom. By the home's third year the sturdy trees had long been uprooted, torn apart, skinned, and sent away to their various destinies: a turpentine plant in Oklahoma City, organic number two pencils in Burlington, a peculiar style of Venetian blinds popular in the suburbs of Lakeland, Florida, and a small amount of finely minced wood chips, found and sold as Andean magic dust to an unassuming but deserving classmate outside of Philadelphia.