“DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!!” I felt it in my roots. It happened once before, maybe more than once before, but I felt it then, I feel it now. “DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!!”
I should have known better but what could I do? I’m not like the flitty ones who perch in my branches. I cannot flit away. I’m not like the scampering ones that scurry on the ground. I cannot scamper away. I am most definitely not like the forked-trunk ones, the ones who trim my branches. The ones who cut through our trunks and fell us.
“DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!!”
A group of forked-trunk ones approach me. Make comments about me, my branches, my height, my symmetry. They ask if this is the one. They move on to another. They come back. It’s decided. I’m chosen.
The searing pain. “DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!!” I scream through my roots. “DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!! DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!! DANGER! dangerdangerdanger!!!”
I am done, I am felled.
Note: I’d probably get an artificial tree, or no tree at Christmas time since I feel bad that we chop down trees to put in our houses for a few weeks a year, but my family likes a real tree.
After I read A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker while sitting in the living room near our undecorated tree I wondered what its internal dialog would be. I figured since it was dead now its last internal dialog would have been just before we cut it down.
Also The Fir Tree.
Also The Hidden Life of Trees which I have not read except for a few pages.
Cedar Waxwing's 365 