Forgetting the Trees

Forgetting the Trees

Noel Laflin

8-27-14

Jack Trent came to breakfast one fine August morning looking exhausted.  He nearly missed chow altogether as he was very late.  His uniform was crumpled and his hair in disarray by the time he tried to nonchalantly slide into a table filled with other staff members. There was a wild and distant look about him, which actually wasn’t unusual for Jack lately.  He just looked a bit wilder that day as he absently brushed a few pine needles off his shoulder.

“I dreamed that I forgot to put out all of the trees this morning,” he mused, playing with the rock-hard oatmeal sitting before him.  “I can’t believe that I did that.  Man, were people pissed off.”

I looked out the old dining hall windows just to make certain that the forest was still there. Giant oaks and pines greeted my gaze all across the parade ground.

“Jack,” I began, “everything seems to be in place out there.”

 

“I know,” he hissed, trying valiantly to break apart his cereal.  “I did get most of camp done - got a few outlying areas to finish up though. I just need some calories here to keep me going and then head out to finish the job.  Pass the coffee there, will ya?”

“So, your dream job,” passing the coffee pot over to my friend, “is to put out all of the trees every day before anyone notices?” I chuckled, pushing aside my own cereal and while trying to butter some very cold toast instead.

“Yeah,” he said a little distractedly. ”This dream is starting to hit me every night lately – it’s always the same: take in all the trees each evening and then put them back out the next morning before the campers wake up.  But today I over slept and was suddenly awakened by these kids tapping on my tent, demanding to know where their part of the forest had gone.  They were pretty mad too.  Hey, hand me the sugar, will ya?”

Jack was taking his ecology conservation directorship pretty seriously this summer and I believe it was starting to show.  He’d even recently moved his sleeping quarters just outside the old nature center.  Said it put him closer to the action. But, poor Jack was starting to become a little delusional by my way of thinking. He was just in need of a few nights of good sleep, minus the dreaming I figured.

“Well, Jack,” I said, trying my best to humor him.  “I’m sure you’ll get the job done.  Would sure be tough trying to find our way to Deep Creek today if the woods were all screwed up?  How would we spot the trail markers, huh?”

Jack suddenly looked pained.

“Deep Creek,” he moaned.  “Shoot! I gotta run.”

And with that, the man bolted out of the old mess hall and made a bee line due west.

A group of campers and I missed lunch that day.

It seems we got lost on the way to my favorite swimming hole.  It took forever to find our way there and back.  Half the trail-marked trees seemed to have disappeared overnight.