David Toothe
and his
Amazing
Dancing Trees
Young Mr. David Toothe was often spotted donning a pair of headphones. When he was at home he wore them almost all the time and his poor mother would yell, "David, take that thing off or you'll be deaf before you turn 18!" But David would not take them off unless it was his bath time which was spent with the radio on a shelf above the towel rack playing music. While he slept, he wore his headphones, and so he had magnificent dreams of colorful and ever-changing events with an equally magnificent soundtrack.
The one time when he had no choice but to remove his headphones was in school, but even then, David still heard the music in his ears and he thought of nothing else. The other kids would tease David about his headphones and one-legged mouse which he sometimes carried in his shirt pocket, but none of it bothered him because he could not hear any of it.
One day in October, David was walking home with his headphones on, and from the opposite side of the street David's mother was taking her daily walk. She saw David and thought to call out to him, but was frightened to see that the row of trees that lined David's side of the street appeared to be swaying quite unnaturally, left-ways and right-ways, and even upways out of the ground and back downways as David walked by them, oblivious to what was going on beside him. The trees moved so much that his mother was also fearful for David's life, that one should fall and crush him.
"David!" she yelled, but he did not hear her. "David!"
David then turned into their yard and went into the house. The trees became still once again and David's mother did not know what, if anything, had just happened.
That was not the only time someone witnessed objects moving around David. I witnessed a similarly frightening sight about a year later. It was after school and I was sitting in the park, observing, and David walks in the park and under a very old and very large tree - the kind of tree with many, many branches and rope-like things hanging from it. David had stopped under the tree and looked as if he had dropped something because he began looking at the ground. While he searched the fallen leaves, the very old and large tree appeared to bend backwards, not so obviously, but very slowly and very subtle, as though stretching it's old, creaky spine. And then the tree leaned forward now, and it's branches began to spread outward and then it's thick roots pulled from the ground and stepped backwards and forwards, it's two largest branches shot this way and that, it's rope-like things swinging wildly to and from. All this while David was intent upon recovering his lost property in the dead leaves below. Finally, David appeared to give up his search and he walked away without noticing the dancing tree behind him that seemed to become less alive, and more still again as David walked away from it and exited the park.
It was no surprise then, that David's oblivious nature would also be responsible for his demise some days later. He was crossing a busy street and the cars on his side were backed up and he crossed without looking out for traffic in the next lane. He was hit by a car and died almost instantly. The trees in the city lowered their heads. It was the middle of spring, but I swear that all the trees in the city lost their leaves that day and people stood, dumbfounded and knee-deep in fresh, green leaves.
The morning after David died, the groundskeeper at the park raked up the grass and leaves under the very old and very large tree. Underneath, covered in grass clippings, he found the body of a one-legged mouse.