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## whispers around the trees (give me your hand)

|| Inspired by Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

Once, there was a parasite.

Of course, it wasn’t truly a parasite. The parasite was only a parasite when it looked in a mirror, when it viewed itself through its own eyes and stopped crackling in its reflection. The parasite was only a parasite in the in-between, in the pit-depths of its own internal land, where the Earthly trees had shriveled up, their leaves ashen, their souls gone. The parasite, in truth, was an alien, human-shaped proof that humanity’s infatuation with the skies above would give back in abundance eventually. There are others out there, of course there are others out there.

But this alien was alone. It was cut off from its home, like sawing down trees in beautiful rainforests to expand human corruption. It was amputated away. This alien was alone and alone and alone. It lived inside of a human man, but it was still eternally alone. Sad, isn’t it? Pitiful. This alien had nothing to give, even in its beginning. No one in this story had anything to give except themselves.

Once, there was an alien. This alien cared for the man it lived inside of—you might even call it love, if this alien was human. The love part comes after the caring, but it doesn’t matter; once there was an alien and once there was a man and once there was a one-way mirror with the rest of the world peering in.

Every day the man would approach it and ask it to leave. He gathered its energy, its electric presence, and attempted to string it into a hide of itself, into animal flesh that could be worn around his own shoulders if he got cold. Every day the man would place his hand over his own chest, drum his fingers in rhythm over the alien’s cage-home-nest, and ask it: why. Why are you here? Why are we stuck together? The man took its electric cage and used it defensively, to keep him and his friends safe, despite his lack of belief.

And when he was tired, he would sleep in the alien’s light, and when he was unable to sleep, he would talk to the light, and the light, after everything, would still glow and glow. But the man did not care for the alien, and he certainly did not love it.

The alien felt tortured.

Time went by.

The alien grew very, very tired.

Decades went by.

The alien carried the man through life. The alien released the prayer of torture from its breath; the alien played its pleas for the man on a television screen.

The man began to understand. And time still passed.

One day the man approached the alien.

“Come here, and bathe in my light,” the alien did not say, because it had been robbed of its own voice in this dimension. Come here and bathe in my light, the alien thought to itself, to the man, to the surrounding air.

“We are in too much trouble,” the man said. “We are being tortured. Can you help us?”

I’m sorry, thought the alien. I’m only familiar with torture.

“Can you get us out of this dimension?” the man asked. “Mr. Nobody has trapped the town here.”

I have only my ability to travel, the alien whispered, futile, futile. I am your deus ex. Take my hand and I will unravel this dimension and return Cloverton into being.

And the man walked away from the flames, and wrote himself an increasingly futile future.

The alien still felt tortured.

One day the man put his hand over his chest as he watched his friend fall into herself. He did not know what to do, he did not know how to help, he did not understand the specific pain that she endured. He did not have to ask the alien; the alien shook with its own fear, and formed a bridge between two worlds, two minds, two buildings that were both decaying despite preservation.

The alien suffered as it touched her mind, but it was a heroic gesture. The man dreamed and dreamed. The alien took the man and brought him to his own source of happiness: the one he truly loved, long ago.

And the alien waded through two tortures.

The next day the man woke up, and suffered himself. “I want to go back there,” he said. “I want to go back to John. I loved him. Can you take me back to the motel?”

I cannot take you back to the motel, thought the alien, but I can take you back to John, and then you will be happy, and you will move on.

The alien brought the man it loved to the man he loved, and the man moved on, and they were happy.

Happiness, here, does not last very long, does it?

One day the alien tried to give again. The man’s son had died at his own hands. The alien reasoned with itself: I can give you this catharsis. You don’t have to worry about this, either. You can move on.

“I am too sad to move on,” said the man. “I don’t understand why you did this to me. I want my family to love me again. Can you help them love me again?”

I cannot make miracles come true, thought the alien, but I will carry you to your family, and they will love you again. And if they do not, I will carry you back to safety.

One day the man loved the alien, but the alien was not happy. The alien was very, very tired, and it knew that it could not keep the man happy in an eternal state. It did not belong with him, and he deserved better. The alien was very, very tired, and did not wait for the man to ask.

“I will go with you,” the man said. “I will go home with you, and we will live together forever.”

I have nothing left to give, thought the alien, I wish that I could give you something, but I am no longer myself.

I will give you a family, thought the alien, and then you will be happy.

The man touched the alien in its new, true form - a reflection of the man, a monument dedicated to all that they have endured together - and for one holy, ephemeral moment, they were both happy.