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Alright. I was born about century ago, far away from here, but I spent the first half listening to a tree grow. Trees have a language of sorts, very slow and very quiet, easily drowned out. You have to let yourself slow down, to listen without thinking. I can't do it anymore. I've filled my head with the fast, flickering thoughts of creatures with heartbeats, and there's no going back. I tried once. I settled into the ground beneath a pine sapling and slowed my thoughts. Three days passed and I didn't hear anything and it felt like an eternity. I had to give up. It was hard to keep from crying, then. I worry, sometimes, that I'm losing even the memories of the things the tree and I talked about. The fast thoughts jostle and crowd out the slow ones.
One day men came with their logging equipment and chopped down my tree. I almost cried and I wanted to tear them to shreds or swallow them whole or something but my tree said something like, it's alright. I've been a tree for a while and now I'm going to be something else. That's alright. Don't hurt the heartbeat-creatures.
So I didn't, but I followed my tree and things happened incredibly quickly for a little while. It got turned into planks and the biggest part of it was made into a big, ornate cabinet and it was proud to be that. It ended up in a big house not too far from here and I watched it there for a while. I watched the heartbeat-creatures flickering around it a little too but I was so used to thinking slow, they were still too fast for me to follow.
I listened to my tree for another twenty years or so, maybe less, in that house. I slowly got better at keeping track of the other creatures. There was a boy who lived there for a while who sat still a lot and had a slow, quietness about his thoughts. I liked him best. Once he crawled right inside my tree and fell asleep and I tried to say hello to him in his dreams, but I appeared as a tree and trees can't talk to heartbeat-creatures, of course. He climbed me and played in my branches.
Eventually there was a fire and my tree burned to ashes along with some of the house, and that time I did cry, and my tears stained the ashes and the whole house and made strange things happen, like sometimes you could see my tree or the fire in reflections, and for a few years I haunted the spot and howled. The next owners made up some story about someone's lover being tragically murdered while waiting for him to pick her up and haunting the place forever, but really it was just me crying because my tree was gone.
After that I went halfway across the continent so that place couldn't remind me of my tree any more and I learned to speak to creatures with heartbeats and to walk the way they do, and a whole bunch of stuff happened that I'd really rather not talk about right now, but eventually the grief sort of faded and I made my way back here. And then ...
One day men came with their logging equipment and chopped down my tree. I almost cried and I wanted to tear them to shreds or swallow them whole or something but my tree said something like, it's alright. I've been a tree for a while and now I'm going to be something else. That's alright. Don't hurt the heartbeat-creatures.
So I didn't, but I followed my tree and things happened incredibly quickly for a little while. It got turned into planks and the biggest part of it was made into a big, ornate cabinet and it was proud to be that. It ended up in a big house not too far from here and I watched it there for a while. I watched the heartbeat-creatures flickering around it a little too but I was so used to thinking slow, they were still too fast for me to follow.
I listened to my tree for another twenty years or so, maybe less, in that house. I slowly got better at keeping track of the other creatures. There was a boy who lived there for a while who sat still a lot and had a slow, quietness about his thoughts. I liked him best. Once he crawled right inside my tree and fell asleep and I tried to say hello to him in his dreams, but I appeared as a tree and trees can't talk to heartbeat-creatures, of course. He climbed me and played in my branches.
Eventually there was a fire and my tree burned to ashes along with some of the house, and that time I did cry, and my tears stained the ashes and the whole house and made strange things happen, like sometimes you could see my tree or the fire in reflections, and for a few years I haunted the spot and howled. The next owners made up some story about someone's lover being tragically murdered while waiting for him to pick her up and haunting the place forever, but really it was just me crying because my tree was gone.
After that I went halfway across the continent so that place couldn't remind me of my tree any more and I learned to speak to creatures with heartbeats and to walk the way they do, and a whole bunch of stuff happened that I'd really rather not talk about right now, but eventually the grief sort of faded and I made my way back here. And then ...
