Outside AgainI must have fallen asleep because the inside of the tree was cool when I awoke. The opening was wide open again. My insides felt weird inside has if I had been cleaned out. I didn’t need a bathroom anymore. I could smell charred wood but didn’t see any embers or flames, only a warm glow over everything. “Thanks,” I said to the tree.
Again, slowly the tree spoke. So slowly it reminded me of that comic LP track, The Slow Talkers of America.
“Thank you for nourishing me.” His speech was slowing. He almost took a full minute to finish with, “You... are... important.”
I crawled outside into an orange glow and realized I was surrounded by stumps of smoldering trees. But the occasional majestic trees was untouched. They all looked like the one that had protected me. “Are you all
