Trees
By pepsoid
- 1035 reads
“How do trees work?” said Larry to Mick.
“They don’t work,” said Mick to Larry. “Lazy blighters.”
Larry looked at Mick.
It was then that a tree, uprooted by indignation, knocked firmly upon the door to their abode.
“Go and see who that is,” said Larry.
“It is a tree,” said Mick, upon opening said door.
“Well don’t just leave it standing there,” said Larry. “Invite the arboreal fella in.”
Mick did so. But said ‘arboreal fella’ just stood there, twigs crossed, in the middle of the living room.
Larry and Mick looked at the tree, who looked at Larry and Mick.
“Well…?” said the tree.
Larry and Mick raised their eyebrows.
“What have you got to say for yourselves?” said the tree.
Larry and Mick shrugged.
“Have you seen Lord of the Rings?” said the tree.
“A bit,” said Larry.
“Whilst playing tiddlywinks,” said Mick.
“Were the trees of Middle Earth ‘lazy blighters’?”
Larry and Mick exchanged glances, whilst attempting to engage their memories.
“No they were not!” clarified the tree. “In fact…”
Then something happened.
The ground started to rumble.
Larry and Mick got a feeling of deja vu from their recent dealings with the Daughter of Cthulhu (see Cthuddlywinks).
As the ground underfoot became increasingly unstable, Larry and Mick reached out to grab something, found each other’s hands and, upon realising this didn’t feel as uncomfortable as they might have thought, decided to further explore the feelings that arose when they next found themselves in an emotionally safe space.
Tree shoots started to emerge from the carpet.
“Oh,” said Larry.
“Blimey,” said Mick.
“I’ll give you ‘lazy blighters,’” said the tree, who then slammed down a root onto the ground, upon which the tree shoots started to grow at a phenomenal rate.
“But wait!” said Larry.
At a flick of one of the tree’s twiggy limbs, the tree shoots (now a small forest of saplings in Larry and Mick’s living room) stopped growing.
The tree looked at Larry and Mick.
Larry and Mick looked at the tree.
“Well...?” said the tree.
”We... um...” said Larry.
“Didn’t mean it,” said Mick.
“Didn’t mean what?” said the tree.
Mick mumbled something, which was intelligible to none.
The tree slammed down its root again and the saplings continued to grow.
“THAT TREES ARE LAZY BLIGHTERS!” shouted Mick.
Twig flick.
“And...?” said the tree.
“And what?” said Larry and Mick.
Root slam.
“SAY YOU’RE SORRY!” demanded the tree, in a big tree-ish voice - and now the human subjects of said demand were put in mind of Treebeard of Middle Earth (and now a small corner or Mick’s (or was it Larry’s?) mind wondered why a tree would have a beard made of tree...).
“WE’RE SORRY!” said Larry and Mick.
“FOR WHAT?” said not-Treebeard.
“FOR SAYING TREES ARE LAZY BLIGHTERS!”
Twig flick.
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The saplings (now small trees) shrunk back into the carpet and the other tree (not-Treebeard) vacated Larry and Mick’s abode.
“That carpet will need replacing,” said Larry.
“You’re not wrong,” said Mick.
“Although...”
“Although what?”
“I think you should pay for it.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t me who said trees are lazy blighters.”
“Fair enough.”
And that was that.
< fin >
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Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and
Reminds me of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore - and whatever you were on when you wrote this - a very productive and funny combination!
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