the obsessively circling bug, he reached out, zen style, and pinched its wings, immobilizing the intruder; a technique he used many times collecting and cataloging butterflies and lightening bugs. He examined it closely, still curious what species it was, and saw it was unlike any species he’d seen before. It had four long legs; a smooth, jointless, hairless body; and long streams of golden locks falling about the cephalothorax. In fact, it looked just like an itty-bitty golden glowing naked sexless human with wings. Obviously an advanced form of mimicry, Tom thought. But since it seemed to have ears and a mouth, and maybe a brain, Tom decided to ask his question. “Can you fix a computer?” he said, as if talking to someone hard of hearing. No answer. Only tinkling.
Just then, the floor convulsed and began to split apart. The floor where Tom was standing, which was no longer a floor but two gigantic limbs, began to separate. He looked around for help. But the office was no longer discernible as an office, the people no longer discernible as people. The limbs moved so far apart, balance was no longer an option and gravity took over. He fell through the crack and slammed through some weak limbs and slammed into and rolled off of some stronger ones. He finally grabbed a limb and subverted gravity’s rule for the time being. He remembered Wednesdays after school at his Aunt Lily’s with his older sister and his best-friend Bo, how much he used to think tree climbing was fun. He never thought the skills he learned would be useful in his career. The career counselor never went into that much detail. Now he was looking for a foot hold so he wouldn’t slam into any more of those painful branches. He saw a strong limb just barely out of reach of his foot, his toe barely touching the bark. He had finally gotten a firm foot hold by swinging a bit, when one of the glowing gold bugs lighted on his nose. He could swear he heard it laughing. He swatted at it, losing half his grip, then losing all his grip, once again plunging painfully through the limbs. His torso finally landed on the lowest bow, leaving him scraped and bruised and flopped over like a forgotten rag doll. He grabbed a smaller branch and flipped over like a trapeze artist. The grassy ground was only a short floor and a quarter below, and he knew if he dropped the right way he’d be safe and leave with no serious injuries. That was another thing he learned from the police man in Mountain Fun. He also remembered the swingset accident and feared repeating it, but he knew only spider monkeys were built to hang in trees like that all day. After several deep breaths, he hesitantly let his fingers slip off. But he landed perfectly. As he stood there congratulating his injury free tumble down the tree, a green juicy mackintosh conked him in the head, nearly splitting both.
He looked up to see where it came from and finally took in the breadth of what stood before him. A tree. 144 stories tall, wide as a city block, the tree finally retook the last of the concrete and glass. “Wow! That’s amazing!” he said uncontrollably. He caught himself and covered his mouth in surprise. Those words hadn’t come out of his mouth in so many years. Maybe all of this happened for him to rediscover this inside himself, he wondered in that momentary hypothetical solipsism we all experience on occasion. “Naw!” he said in his brain and brushed the solipsism off as a heap of silliness.
“Wow! That’s amazing!” a voice interrupted his newly found ability to ponder the uniqueness of things. He looked to his right and saw a human in a blue shirt and red plaid skirt wearing Elvis Costello glasses crouching on the ground.
“That tree is amazing isn’t it?” he said, smiling to himself.
“No, I mean this ant is carrying this gigantic leaf, like fourteen times its size. That’s amazing.” She looked up and saw who it was and hiccupped in nervousness.
“But you see that every day,” Tom said, still feeling his way through.
“Yeah, but it’s still amazing.”
“What about the tree?”
“Yeah, it’s amazing.”
“But is it weird?”
“Yep, it’s definitely weird.”
Tom walked over to her slowly. “Yeah, but, it kinda sucks though,” she stammered, “Because I had this idea a long time ago, where you’d train people to make buildings out of bonsai trees, for conservation, you know, but I never thought of a whole building as a single tree, but I ...” He put his hand behind her head interrupting her and pulled her up to his level and a gave her a deep, warm kiss. She had a pleased and confused facial expression.
“I think you and I should get married,” he said.
“Yeah. Sure. What could go wrong,” she said.
Tom smiled at her and said, “What was your name again?”
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