TALK TO THE TREES

 

                On the morning of October 17, Louis awoke refreshed.  He had a good  night's  sleep, something he had not  enjoyed for several weeks. During that time he had a strange recurring dream.  He had dreamed that, walking down a familiar path, he had suddenly come onto an unfamiliar place.  It was not an unpleasant spot; yet, he remembered in the dreams, he had turned around and seeing his friends, shouted at them.  They had ignored him.  He remembered seeing his mother walking down the street, and calling to her, not having even seen her turn her head.  He remembered whistling for his old dog, and not seeing it respond.

 

            He had a feeling as he left the house that morning that he should not take the same road he had always taken.  He walked to work, and this walk took him off the main street, down a well- beaten path to a small creek that he crossed by a stepping- stone bridge, up a bank, and through a small grove of large trees.

 

            He had always loved this place because it seemed so peaceful.  His crazy  grandfather once told him that if he sat quietly, it would embrace him and speak to him gently, but that he must not panic.  He thought of these  trees as "Grandfather's Place".

 

             At first his dream had given him a "Grandfather's place" feeling, but despite this, he woke every morning after a dream sequence terrified, stricken cold.

 

            That morning, as he went to work, he thought that perhaps he should take his car, ride around this wood, but he knew that it was only a dream, and "What are dreams?"  he said to himself; "just silly little things you tolerate in the night."

 

            He kissed his mother, whistled to his dog, patted it on the head, said goodbye to his brother and sister, and headed off to work.  "It's a beautiful day," he thought to himself as he strode down the asphalt street.  He left the hard road behind for the dusty path which led to the creek almost without thinking.  It wasn't until he got to the stepping- stone bridge that he wished he had made his way around this place completely so as not to go through the grove, but it was a day of sunshine, bright fall sunshine, and there were so many memories of joyous play in these old trees.

 

            One had a gigantic recessed scar big enough to take shelter in when it rained, which he had frequently done, until his mother warned him away from it.  "Lightning-electrocution," she had said.  That had been enough to keep him away for years.  Today he wondered about the place as he approached it. "No, just a crazy dream," he said to himself as he walked up the bank and into the wood toward the huge scared tree.

 

            He had not stepped more than several feet into the forest, when he noticed what seemed to be a panel wall to his right; yes, it was wood-grained, but a natural color.  When he turned from staring at this, he was surprised to find a similar barrier in his direct path, and whirling, found the same situation to the left.  It was now that he first noticed that the early morning birds he had heard before had stopped singing.  The light wind that was blowing quieted down.  He remembered that he could hear a dog barking in the distance.  No more.

 

            He spun around now, glanced back down the path to the creek.  He looked outside on the shining autumn morning.  "’Outside?’  Why had he used  that word," he wondered.  He started to walk back toward the creek, but was halted abruptly by something in the air.  No, more correctly, bounced backward.  He moved cautiously, both hands searching forward.  Together they pressed against an invisible barrier, pliable but yielding only to the length of his hands.

 

            Just a few feet away the leaves were moving before the gentle wind, and, in the far distance, he could see a dog respond to its master's signal.  "I was really walking to work," he said to himself.

 

            Now he pounded on the wall, but the wall did not pound back.  He pressed with his right hand, pressed hard.  His hand seemed to go through, but he soon realized that the wall was only shaping itself around his hand, that his hand had not broken through.

 

            Glancing behind him, he noticed that the immediate space had become an enclosed room, wood grained.  A screen started in his throat, but was cut short by the approach of two people.

 

            Louis yelled.  He beat furiously on that unseen force. He pressed once more  against the wall. Both hands experienced movement into and were surrounded by the pliable barrier.

 

            At that moment the two familiar figures approached close by.  His sister was speaking and looking right at him.  The younger brother was nodding and reaching toward Louis, almost touching him.  His fingers stopped short a few inches away and flattened white on the ends.  At that instant the younger brother's voice became clear to Louis.  "And it  feels unusually smooth too," he said.

 

            "Shiny, like a one- way mirror," she responded.

 

             "Louis used to love this old tree," he said and added, "I was so sure he might be here when his boss called and said he didn't get to work."

 

            "Grandfather always talked to these trees," she said. 

 

            " He was crazy," he replied.

 

            The boy was about to leave, but his sister pointed upward.  "Look at those two strange burrs growing out of the lightning scar," she said.

 

            After a long moment, he replied  hesitantly, "Why, they look just like, like human hands."

 

            They both stared at them for a moment.

 

            "Let's find L………"  His voice shut off as he withdrew his hand from the tree.

 

            Louis screamed to the departing couple.  "Don't go; look it's me."  He raged against the condition he was in.  "Dig  me out, find me."  He suddenly grew calmer and added to the  backs of the distant figures.  "Keep looking, please……..  will you…………….. remember me?"  And then very quietly, he added, in a trilling voice, "At least come by  sometimes, and,... and,.... and,… ...talk to the trees."

 

THE CRY OF THE BRIDGE MOTH

Chris had worked on the bridge, THE BRIDGE, from the beginning. He was a nobody in school, his family died early, and he was set adrift in the magnificent city of San Francisco.

He had worked at some minor roles in high school, mostly picking up trash in the parking lot overlooking Fort Point, but at the age of twenty he got his first job out on the "GREAT SPAN OF LIFE" as he thought of it to himself, and he usually kept his thoughts to himself.

By the age of thirty he had established himself as a bridge-scraper, the underside bridge-scraper, and over the years had acquired a friend.

As an underside bridge-scraper he was suspended each day in a metal mesh net which his friend helped he get into each morning, and out of each night. There he would spend the day, scraping and sanding, snug in his thermal suit and face mask, pleased to be one with the bridge.

Chris worked on those places that couldn't be taken care of by the enormous scraping and sand blasting equipment which were suspended from tracks, one on each side of the bridge.

It took a year to paint this bridge. Millions and millions of gallons of paint, but to do the underside of the bridge, one paint car started on one end, and another started on the other end on opposite sides of the bridge. There they would be, moving every day, spraying and covering everything, automatically.

Chris talked to his friend every morning for a few minutes before he got into his net and was swung into position. His friend became the official person to help him with his morning and evening ritual. Several times the friend was sick, and Chris just relaxed and remained overnight.

The net was a close knit wire, and after he had lain for some time in it, he shaped it to his body.

Chris would have been cold except for his thermal suit and the steel structure that blocked off some of the constant wind. But because of the structure, many of the other workers were not even aware that he was there. To passing ships the net was so small, it was unnoticeable.


Chris worked at this job without a single day's absence for years and years, twenty, twenty-five, with his one friend helping him into an out of the net. Sometimes he would even ask his friend not to help him get out at night. He would lay in the dark and watch the great ships move below, and he would gaze at the lights of the city.

At times Chris would stay for even longer periods: he had learned to cut down on his body needs.

Then one day there was a mix-up. Chris's check didn't arrive at the bank. When Chris went in to find out about his check, no one seemed to be able to locate it. As a matter of fact there weren't any records on him at all, and no one knew him.

Chris asked humbly that his pay card be found and left saying, "Somebody remember my name."

One young clerk named Stanhope took down his name and promised to straighten things out, but the note was blown into a waste basket several minutes later by casually dropped papers. The clerk remembered his promise the next day, looked for the note, grunted, and went back to dreaming about being the chief engineer of the bridge.

That night Chris's friend was sick. The next morning Chris had asked a stranger to help him into the net and into position. The stranger hardly noticed Chris. He was more concerned about the new job he had accepted in Oakland. That night Chris' friend died.


And all this time the painting machines were moving. On the following day the painters on opposite sides met at the net and went by in a cloud of awesome rust-red spray.

The years went by; the sprayers passed the net again and again; the young clerk, Stanhope, ambitious, fulfilled his dream of becoming chief engineer.


As a clerk, Stanhope had started the habit of walking the bridge at least once a day. Now as the man in charge of its structure, he would walk the bridge, awed by the fact that he was caring for "THE GREAT LINK OF LIFE" in one of the movements of modern civilization. As a child he would walk with his father, also a bridge engineer, but of wooden bridges, who carried a thin metal probe to look for weak spots, wood rot. He had inherited that probe, relished poking at the steel girders and smiling to himself.

The chief engineer had just passed the first tower on his daily stroll. He had casually poked his "rot finder" at the tower and pressed. He didn't even pay attention when it sunk-in three inches. He even walked on several feet before he reacted. "He had been dreaming," he thought to himself, but went back and tried again. His own father had overlooked dry-rot only to be crushed by the same bridge.

This time when he pressed the probe, it slid in to where his fingers touched the metal. Stunned, he tried in other places, faster movements, then faster. Finally, remembering his father, he rushed off the bridge and immediately convened the bridge commission.

When he told them of his findings, there was laughter, then anger for wasting their time, then threats against his job if he continued the "nonsense" as they called it.

It was only after he said that he was joking, but that he wanted to show them something that would please them, that they decided to go to the bridge. Once there, he pushed his rod up against the steel and pressed it in easily. Back in their meeting room they called the Highway Patrol and had the bridge closed off.

In the next few days they studied the bridge, they had pictures taken by plane, they hid away from the cries of the mayor, the public.

Only after examining each and every picture closely, did they begin to realize that there was a bulge under the bridge that didn't belong on the original structure. They searched through their files and called people out of retirement. Finally an old bridge superintendent remembered the net and that at one time they had a man assigned to scrape away the old paint that the sand-blaster couldn't get. "That man left suddenly," said the superintendent, "without even giving notice, and I couldn't find anyone to replace him, so we discontinued the position."

"What was his name," asked the engineer.

"Who knows," answered the superintendent.


A search through the files revealed nothing.
The chief engineer requested that the present superintendent have the net removed, but he wouldn't go out on the bridge, and neither would any of his men.


Stanhope decided to do the job himself. Followed a little way by a few reporters, he took a steel-cutting power saw and lowered himself in one of the carts. He started cutting at one end of the net cautiously. As the blade cut through the wire mesh, a fine rust-red powder fell toward the bay. When the saw had cut half-way along the net, a membranous structure began to emerge, and then gradually a leather wing, then a rust-red colored beast with the head and body of a moth. But the face: He remembered: the old man's face. It was the old man who…………….

Stanhope continued to cut. The creature rolled out of the net and fell, plummeted downward shaking off the rust-red dust, turning golden-red and crying out with a vibrancy that visibly shook the bridge, "Somebody remember my name!"

Then, slowly, the moth spread its wings and flew aloft, soaring high and out of sight
The chief engineer and the reporters had also felt the vibrancy and ran for the end of the bridge.

And the bridge? Did it crash in a grinding of girders and plates and twisting wires? No. There was an awful silence as the girders and wires, bolts and plates came together….collected…… into a great cloud of rust-red dust and then……….slowly

BLEW OUT TO THE SEA.