One More time

With a sigh she eased back in her chair and put her feet up on her desk. She kicked folders of contracts off her desk without too much concern. She looked out the window and could see the faces of the people below. She closed her eyes and was quickly at that special place ...as long as her eyes stayed closed.

She was there for quite a while when she saw a filthy man sitting on a concrete block. He had his legs crossed. He rested his arms on his thighs looking very comfortable. She was too excited to be comfortable. She became more excited from the distraction and wondered ---is this place where I’m supposed to be?

She didn’t want to get disorientated. She was in the mountains, in a foreign land, and knew it could become …quickly bizarre. These mountains splintered in all different directions. Cuts seemed hacked out of the land with trees living on the edges, over a hundred feet high. It was, indeed, the place she dreamed of.

The mountains and the foreign land were like a drug to her. She was happily smashed. It was hard for her not to be inappropriate and suddenly laugh. But now, her third day in the mountains, completely alone, she finally had an obstacle: The filthy comfortable man.

She had to be sure this was the place where she was supposed to be, she approached her impasse and spoke, “Hi,” the man just waved and smiled. The names are unimportant if not irretrievable.

“Hi,” she says again. The man smiles, again. So now she really needs to know ---“Is this the place where the bus stops?” -She asks. She needs to get out of here, now! She sees huge rain clouds climbing the mountain behind her. “Is this the place where the bus stops? Please Sir!” The man just smiled. Now she’s irritated. “Sir? Sir?”

The man stood up, and bowed. He cleared his throat, “you shouldn’t worry about the rain. This happens. It visits me here in these mountains, this time of year almost every day.” He opened his arms wide and took a deep breath---collected himself, “The bus comes here, yes, but maybe not today.” He sat back down.

Of course now she’s worried. The filthy comfortable man took notice ---stood up and started talking:

Today Miss, thousands of feet above the sea, the clouds collect greedily in the east waiting to do their life’s work. This is what they do Miss. They wait until conditions are perfect and start their way to the sea, west, with understood purpose. They coax and then overrun the weak to form a strong unified front. They’ll need indescribable strength, because they’re artists, starving, for one last chance to display their talents. Growing, their form turns almost orb-like. With incredible power they change moods and the topography below. And then the light show follows with thundering lyrics. The plants all stand erect wanting more.

She stood erect, her back stiffened, “You recite a poem you wrote to me? It's because you care. Don’t you?” The man smiled again. Just then a “Roar” was heard. She jerked. It wasn’t a bus, but a passenger van roared into view. Their world darkened too as the rain came pouring down. The man bent over to shield the young traveler.

She and the filthy comfortable man jumped aboard. The passenger van roared off amongst the rain, the other people inside, the filthy comfortable man, and the woman that needed to leave ---right now! The man turned to the woman, and smiled, as the rest of the travelers stared at the driver.

The driver of the passenger van quickly turned away from the road to a person on his right, “now it’s all by memory. Now with this rain,” he said with a slight shrug, “it’s all by memory!” Spoken while reaching for a Coca-Cola bottle without any breaks in his words. But still, he reassured everybody ---somehow?

All the people in the passenger van, on the margins traveling fast, were thankful that man had his hands on the steering wheel. This is what he did. He brought people where they had to be, safely. He could prove it 'one more time', he thought, and just smiled.

The End

Building Mountains Inc.

James Redburn made it to work at the usual time, one hour late, which for him was ---right on time. Unfortunately the need for punctuality was no longer needed. His business had slowly slipped into total obscurity, almost completely forgotten now. The skyscrapers kept going up around his once very popular and successful business, The Station, making it more and more difficult to even …see.

It was time to move to plan B, before it was too late. The dust from the construction of the skyscrapers transformed The Station into the perfect environment just ripe for a fatal attack of tuberculosis. The coughing inside The Station was almost nonstop, with their mucus being thrown around, making all their thoughts ---stuck …as if in concrete. James grabbed the phone. It was time to put plan B into action:

“Hello, can I please speak with the engineer, John Brickhouse?”

“I’ll connect you, one moment please.” .

“This is John Brickhouse.”

“John Brickhouse the engineer?”

“Well, I do write plans, produce schematics of all sorts, if you will, add and subtract, multiply divide and get down to the bottom line, that, when all combined are under the umbrella of what people call engineering work.”

“Great! Yes, so, um … are you also a person who can push and pull ingredients into what we’re going to build? ---A person that's looked into the molecular world? ---A person that can produce gasoline at any given time, and burn down those bridges that try to stop us?!?"

“This sounds very ambitious.”

“I know that. Nonetheless, my ideas are expansive, all encompassing, amazingly powerful, but so visionary! I believe this Mr. Brickhouse, I really do. I’ve called you today because you come highly recommended in your profession.”

“What? I see. Thank you ---I believe is obligatory. I do know a person that can help me in that microscopic world like you’ve described.”

“Excellent! I’ll also need a botanist, geologist, I mean, people who understand plants and rocks, and many other professionals, like you Mr. Brickhouse.”

“Okay, what is it you’d like me to help you build?”

Inside James’s home he stood up and stretched out his arms as far as he could, “A Mountain, a mountain Mr. Brickhouse.”

“Wow! Okay. But, who are you …really?” With both elbows on his desk, Mr. Brickhouse asks.

“Let’s just say I’m a person who cares.”

“Okay …what would this mountain be for?”

“I want to grow all different types of plants, which could possibly help discover cures for viruses, diseases, and also fungi where it’ll grow. Who wants to feel horrible? ---when you don’t have to? And, of course we’ll grow marijuana ---that helps too! After every day we'll have an evaluation on what else to grow. Huh? What a world we can create. This mountain will be for a place for the people.”

“Yes, Mr. Redburn. I know what you mean, but …unsavory.”

“When it’s for the people, is unsavory the word you really want to use? No ---So ...Mr. Brickhouse, let’s call our new business, ‘Building Mountains Inc.’. What do you say?!”

The End

Talking with Trees

... James drove to a park to watch kids play baseball, just to dream and watch on the park’s thick green grass.

But at the park, instead, he struck-up a conversation with one of the locals:

He sat down next to a huge Sequoia Tree, “you guys don’t like to go anywhere? Do you?”

“What?” The Sequoia Tree just laughed. “Can’t you see how big we are, we’re everywhere. We’re beacons helping people find their way.”

“Yes, of course, but …wish? You must! ---wish! How about a dream? You must have had the dream to travel?!”

“No ---no way. When we’re here, when we go anywhere, we stay there! That’s how we’re made. I don’t take the fog’s crap, the wind’s crap, nobody’s!” A plume of fog hit the huge Sequoia...Smack! The tree just sighed. “Ah …”

The grass where James was laying on sloped, to eventually level off to a baseball field. His line of sight was straight towards home plate. He saw the catcher crouching there, and behind him, the umpire, calling balls and strikes. Some kid hit a baseball so far James had to get up and throw it back. James was back on the thick grass …

“But …we put smiles on faces.” The tree continued proudly.

“Yes. Yes you do.”

James started to drift off to sleep. He was almost asleep, but suddenly awakened. He turned to the Sequoia Tree. “You’re made how you’re made. Isn’t that right?” He sat up this time, at full attention, hoping the tree could answer all his questions.

“You see, we’re part of something, all of us, together. You must understand. Traveling would be such a travesty of disloyalty to my friends, unthinkable. To leave them would be so cruel. Sometimes they need to talk too. But you guys, um, are different. I don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re just here. It’s okay. We’re always here.”

“Yes you are.”

“Yup, we’re just here ---the ultimate life-artists. We don’t feel a need for approval.”

The fog was completely gone. The winds too, for a moment, gone. The sun hit James’s eyes. He felt a little too warm. His emotions juggled. “But you guys compete! I’ve seen it!”

“I don’t understand?”

James was quite not James. He was almost asleep. But he kept speaking, “The ground underneath you; I sometimes see it rise from your roots. You guys need a lot of space. Are you fighting?”

“Liberalism, conservatism, socialism, capitalism, communism, and sometimes with a little fascism mixed in, we’re all these things, plus more. We live with our brothers and sisters in acres, and they’re never straight. Only you guys draw straight lines. You’ll never find a straight line in nature.”

“Ya, we like neat and tight ---a box?”

“We don’t like to be boxed in, and then we do. We’re the place, probably the only place where the best thinking comes from. We’re the park, the place where the green grass is at, the place to go picnicking with lovers. We always hang out in leisure wear. It’s comfortable here. It’s always symbiotic, with us and everybody else. We get along.” James heard other trees cheer. The grass stood erect.

“I wish we could be more like you guys.” James said, with nature drooling out of his eyes.

“You are what you are.”

“Yes, I am what I am, but right now …I’m here! Aren’t I!?! I’ve dreamed of this. Thank you!”

James was asleep. The giant Sequoia Tree bent over to shield James’s eyes from the sun. The Giant Sequoia Tree cared.

The End