... 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
