The Wood

 The woman stood in the snow and wondered if the wood could hear.

    'Well, of course we hear,' the wood said.

    The woman nodded.

    Of course. It was a thing she had believed since she was a child, but hadn't yet known.

    'But do you listen?'

    'Enough to know that there are things you know that we do not, and things we know that you do not.' Woods are rather high and mighty. For all that, rarely does anyone pay attention.

    This woman was paying attention.

    'What don't I know?' she asked.

    The wood did not expect the question having come to a belief that curious humility was rare amongst humans.

    'Oh, this and that,' the wood stumbled, thinking, for it knew that it held secrets of which humans knew not, and yet it had never been asked to describe such things.

    'And are you content?'

    The wood was further taken aback. It might have even looked surprised, had it the right kind of eyebrows. It was a strange question that meant little.

    'We are never lacking. We are always dressed in season. We are never hungry. We thirst on occasion, but our roots dig deep. And when one of us must die, we die, yet without extinction,' was the wood's reply.

    'A perfect life,' the woman said, and sighed.

    Still, she went home and tried to emulate the wood. Yet, she found herself cold and wanting dress, with no option for clothing. Hunger frequently gnawed in her belly, yet there was little to assuage the pain. Thirst, in dry seasons, clawed at her throat, but she had no roots to reach toward drink.

    Woods, she realized, had much wisdom to offer, if you were a tree. But they were somewhat lacking when it came to humans.

    She walked into the wood and told it so.

    The wood sighed, caught the woman on its breath and carried her to a village.

    There she offered what she could with her hands, and received her food, her clothes, her drink. And when it came time for her to die, she died. Yet without extinction.

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