excerpt (ii)

4. In a field two trees stand. Birds nest in them, rabbits burrow deep between their roots and on hot days small animals rest in the shade of their outstretched leafy branches. During idle afternoons and starlit nights lovers nestle between them, lulled by the singing of the branches, and talk of dreams and make promises whispered in ears, and leave hearts and arrows and names carved onto the bark in declaration. One stormy day the sky turns black as night, and the wind and rain lash as if the sea had come ashore. Lightning cleaves one of the trees in two, charring the branches and gashing the trunk in a curved line. The next day reveals the blackened, smoky remnants of the barren form of the tree, burned inside and out, branches now twigs emptily reaching for the sky. The other tree is now twice as full, with all the creatures that survived sheltering within its wide arms and roots now. On the next idle afternoon a pair of lovers come wandering by, marvelling at the tragedy of the singed tree. After their lovemaking they declare their love, and the boy takes out his pocketknife, unfolds it and decides to put her name first, and a heart and arrow between their names. As he moves to carve the tree reaches down, grabs him and chokes the consciousness out of him. He wakes up later, ten feet from the nearest branch, alone because she has taken the car, and runs home. No one comes there anymore after a while.