My important weekly meeting with the Tree

I went out to the woods to see the Tree.

The Tree said, “What do you want?”

I said, “I’m sorry, I thought we had a two o’clock appointment.”

The Tree said, “Oh, yeah. Right.”

I said, “I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

The Tree said, “No, it’s…I forgot.”

I said, “I can come another time.”

The Tree said, “No, you came all the way out here. Go ahead.”

I took out my notepad and said, “Here’s my list of all the weird things that happened this week. 1. I saw an elderly man cross the street. Halfway across he began to sink into the asphalt. When he realized what was happening, he raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged, and sank the rest of the way under. 2. I was woken three nights ago by a mouse. The mouse was straddled on my nose. The mouse said, “Oh, I’m sorry to have awaken you. It’s just that I find this warm and comfortable.” I said, “I was startled at first because a mouse had never done that on me before. But now I’m finding it warm and comfortable too.” And I fell quickly asleep. 3. I took yesterday off and flew my rocket ship to the Moon. I went because I needed to do some writing on my novel and it was the only way I could get the peace and quiet I needed. But when I got there I was distracted by the noise of my thoughts, so I came back home, and didn’t do any writing that day…How about you?”

The Tree said, “I didn’t write anything down.”

I said, “Well, was there anything you remembered that was out of the ordinary?”

The Tree thought about it. Then it said, “Yes, actually. This morning an ant was climbing up my bark. I normally never notice because it happens a lot, and I never feel it. But this morning it tickled. I couldn’t stand it and I began to shake and laugh. I couldn’t stop laughing, and it got so bad that I thought I was going to pass out. The ant said, “What’s so funny?” This made me laugh even harder. That’s when the ant started laughing.”