treehugger

So I__ figuring this is death. The little air left in the cockpit is toxic with marthenine, and I can only wonder how much of it I have breathed in. Is my throat becoming raw hamburger? My lungs, oatmeal?

That__ when I notice Cheryl and Mickey cuddled up on the couch. She__ leaning on his shoulder, his arm around her, her leg across his lap. Cheryl throws glances at Kerry that say, __ook at me!_ while Kerry shoots a __ou go, girl!_ smirk right back. I think of CK, how he and I often sat like that. Not because we were seconds from making out or wanted to look like a couple, but just out of a deep, platonic connection. My heart hits a higher notch on the ache-o-meter, my teeth sear into my bottom lip, and then something inside me snaps as cleanly as a crayon.

If the tree doesn't hug you back, it's not a problem with the tree, it's a problem with your heart.

Now tell me what you__e afraid of.___ncle Nathan is right about this tree. It__ got some kind of spirit in it. And it doesn__ want me to leave._ I saw my dad smile and shake his head. ____ serious, Dad. You can__ send those guys up here again. The tree will try to kill them before it lets them take me down. Didn__ you see it happen?___ saw a couple of accidents___nd Ronnie fell yesterday, but somehow I__ able to be up in this tree no problem. I got up here without any ropes or ladders. Don__ you find that mysterious? Uncle Nathan doesn__. Grandfather doesn__.___hey are both superstitious, that__ all.___ know,_ I said. __nd what about that, Dad? You__e spouted all your legends and myths at me my whole life, and now you suddenly don__ care about them? That doesn__ make any sense.__e sighed so deeply I could hear it. __ study those legends to get to know our culture, our heritage. I don__ believe that they are literal truths.___ut what about the mermaids?_ I pressed. __emember the big story you told about the singing boat and the killer whale? It was you who told me that maybe the story was wrong and it wasn__ a singing boat; it was a mermaid under the boat.___ remember, but I had a real mermaid staring me in the face at the time. There isn__ anything like that going on right now.___ hear whispers coming from the tree. It moves on its own. It is warmer than it should be___ou__e been up there too long. You__e delirious.__ grunted at him. __t started before I climbed up!__ad rubbed a hand over his face. __ don__ know what you want me to do here.__ turned on the camera and flipped the digital pictures until I found that one with the face. I stuck it in the bucket and lowered it down to my dad and told him to take a look.__s that as good as a mermaid right in front of you?__e studied the picture a moment and then replied, __ always see faces in the knots of trees. Who doesn__? I think that__ why so many people create horror stories about them.

Man must learn that his current path is not suitable for Earth, and soon, Earth won't be suitable for Man.

So is this being in love? I stay with the moment, waiting to find out, the space between us fluctuating with uncertainty. The only thing I am sure of is that each time his lips leave mine they are right back again.