Leaves of Absence
When he woke that morning, something had changed.
He lay still for a moment, eyes closed, aware of a pressure at the crown of his skull. Not painful. Just present. A weight that hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep.
He reached up.
His fingers found bark.
It was rough. Textured. Perhaps two inches in diameter, protruding from the top of his head at a slight angle, as if it had grown in overnight while he slept on his side. Which, of course, it had.
He sat up slowly. Something rustled above him.
Leaves.
He got out of bed with the careful movements of a man who suspects he might still be dreaming and walked to the bathroom. The mirror confirmed what his fingers already knew: a small oak tree was growing from the centre of his head.
The trunk emerged from his scalp without wound or blood; simply emergence, as if it had always been there and had only now decided to make itself visible. The bark was grey-brown. The leaves were green. There were seven of them.
He counted them twice, to be sure.
Seven.
“Yep,” he muttered to himself.
He brushed his teeth, because he didn’t know what else to do. The tree watched him in the mirror. Its leaves trembled slightly whenever he moved, responding to vibrations he couldn’t feel.
When he spat, a leaf fell into the sink.
He picked it up and examined it. It was, in every respect, an ordinary oak leaf. He set it on the edge of the basin, where it sat with the toothpaste and the razor, suddenly domestic.
The HR number was on the company intranet.
He had called it twice before. Once for a payroll discrepancy that took six weeks to resolve. Once to enquire about the cycle-to-work scheme, though he didn’t cycle. He had just wanted options.
He dialled and waited.
“Welcome to Nexus Solutions HR Support Line. Your call is important to us.”
A pause.
“Please listen carefully, as our options have recently changed.”
The options had not changed. They had been the same since 2019, when he had joined the company with a belief that spreadsheets might lead somewhere.
He pressed 5 for “all other enquiries.”
The hold music began.
It was “Here Comes the Sun,” arranged for what sounded like a xylophone and a recorder, possibly both played by the same person, possibly neither played with any conviction. The notes drifted slightly sharp, then flat, never quite settling.
He waited.
The song ended. It began again.
The tree, he noticed, had grown. Perhaps another inch. The leaves were brushing the bathroom ceiling now, making a soft shushing sound against the plaster.
He moved to the hallway, trailing the phone cord behind him.
The song ended. It began again.
“HR Support, this is Amanda. How can I help you today?”
Amanda’s voice was pleasant in the way that recorded announcements are pleasant—a trained neutrality, scrubbed of anything that might be mistaken for actual feeling.
He gave his employee ID, his date of birth, his postcode. The ritual confirmations. Proof that he was who he said he was; a number.
Who had become, since this morning, was a more complicated question.
“I won’t be able to come into the office today,” he said.
“Okay. Is this a sickness absence?”
“Sort of.” He paused. “Something has happened. To my head.”
A silence. The particular silence of someone typing while pretending to listen.
“To your head?”
“Yes. Something is growing from it.”
“Growing?”
“A tree.”
Another silence. Longer this time.
“A tree,” Amanda repeated, not as a question but as a notation. He imagined her typing it into a field somewhere. Nature of enquiry: tree.
“An oak, I think. Small. About eight inches. Though it’s been growing.”
“And this is preventing you from attending the office?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Let me just check our remote working policy.”
More typing. The tree rustled above him. It had definitely grown again; the topmost branches were pressing against the hallway ceiling now, bending slightly, seeking a way around the obstacle. That was what trees did. They adapted. They found the light.
“It looks like you’ve already used your two allocated work-from-home days this week,” Amanda said. “Monday and Tuesday.”
“Yes.”
“The policy allows for two remote days per week, Monday through Thursday. Friday is a core collaboration day.”
“I understand. But I have a tree growing from my head.”
“I appreciate that. However, the policy is quite clear.”
He waited for her to continue. She didn’t. The policy, apparently, had said everything that needed saying.
“Is there an exemption?” he asked. “For medical situations? Unusual circumstances?”
“Do you have documentation?”
“Documentation?”
“A GP note. Or a fit note, if you expect to be absent for more than seven days.”
He shuffled in his chair and an acorn fell. Plop! onto the desk and bounced up before falling into his lap like an excited child or needy kitten.
“I haven’t seen a doctor. I only discovered the tree this morning. I have an acorn?”
“An acorn is not listed as an accepted form of proof. Without documentation, I’m afraid I can only log this as unauthorised absence. Which would be unpaid, and would need to be discussed with your line manager.”
The tree grew. He felt it this time—a subtle shifting of weight, a redistribution of pressure across his skull. The leaves multiplied above him, their rustling now constant, a sound like quiet applause or distant rain.
“Is there anything else?” he asked. “Any other process?”
“I can escalate this to Occupational Health. They handle workplace adjustments for employees with ongoing conditions.”
“How long would that take?”
“Four to six weeks for an initial assessment. Possibly longer, depending on the complexity of the case.”
Four to six weeks. He looked up. The tree had reached perhaps two feet now, its branches spreading horizontally where they met the ceiling, leaves pressing flat against the plaster like hands against glass.
“In the meantime,” Amanda continued, “you would need to either attend the office as normal, or record the absence as unauthorised. I can log this conversation as a formal enquiry, if that would be helpful. For the records.”
“Yes,” he said. “Log it.”
“Lovely. Is there anything else I can help with today?”
He considered the question.
“No,” he said. “That’s everything.”
“Thank you for calling HR Support. Have a lovely day.”
The line went dead. “Here Comes the Sun,” which had been playing faintly beneath Amanda’s voice throughout, cut off mid-phrase.
He stood in the hallway, phone in hand, tree overhead.
Somewhere in a database, his enquiry was being assigned a ticket number. Somewhere, a field had been filled in. Nature of enquiry: tree. Status: pending.
The system had received his input. The system would process it in due course.
The shirt did not fit.
He knew it wouldn’t, standing before the wardrobe, holding the blue Oxford he wore to client meetings and quarterly reviews. But the ritual demanded completion. You woke, you showered, you dressed. These were the steps. The tree was not in the steps, so the steps continued around it.
He put his arms through the sleeves. Buttoned it to the collar, where the trunk began.
Then he attempted to pull the shirt up over his head, toward the branches.
It caught almost immediately. The fabric snagged on a lower branch, stretched, tore slightly at the shoulder seam. He pulled again, gently. The shirt rose another few inches, then stopped, caught in the canopy like a plastic bag in a hedge.
He let go.
The shirt hung there, halfway up the trunk, a small blue flag. It fluttered slightly in the breeze from the window, which he ceased to open because the leaves were blocking the light, casting the hallway into a green and shifting dimness.
Although, perhaps, they did deserve their chance to photosynthesise.
He looked at himself in the mirror by the front door.
The tree had reached maybe four feet now. It bent where it met the ceiling, the trunk curving, the branches spreading outward along the plaster. A crack had appeared above him, a thin dark line where the pressure was beginning to tell.
He picked up his bag. Keys. Wallet. Laptop.
He opened the front door.
The tree scraped against the frame. He turned sideways, ducked, tried to angle himself through. Leaves caught and tore. Small branches snapped. Bark scraped against wood, leaving pale marks on the paint.
He stepped through.
Outside, the morning was dead grey and ordinary. A woman across the street was loading shopping into her car. A man walked past with a small dog that stopped to sniff a lamppost.
Neither of them looked at him.
He closed the door behind him, carefully, and began walking toward the station.
The tree swayed above him as he walked. The leaves caught the wind, rustling, a sound that followed him down the street and around the corner and out of sight.
It was 9:47 in the morning.
If he hurried, he would only be slightly late for the 10am sync.