They talk about raises and new job offers and promotions. Moving to new apartments and traveling the world. Affirmation and fulfillment. They talk about living.

They talk so much about life in their shared class that they forget I’m there, sitting in the back seat of Jen’s car. They forget about the very reason they traveled back to Greensberry to see me today.

Greensberry. Such a strange name for a town but a fitting one, I’ve come to realize. A green berry is something underdeveloped, something small and not at its full potential. Something that no one wants. Greensberry is a town with nothing, a town to be left once you’ve grown and matured into a blueberry or a raspberry or a blackberry. If you know what I mean.

Eventually, Stacy remembers I’m there and tells me how much I’m going to love Sunset Lookout. That the reviews online are fantastic. That they kept going on and on about the view of the mountains, especially at sunset.

Well, I suppose they don’t call it Sunset Lookout for nothing.

I tell Stacy that it sounds great and that I appreciate her finding it. How I appreciate all of them burning the better part of a weekend for me. Only I don’t say it like that.

Paul tells me how much I’ll love watching the sunset every night, how they’d always been my favorite growing up.

I don’t tell him that he’s wrong, that sunrises were my favorite. Doesn’t he remember me waking them all up early practically every sleepover so that we could watch them? It’s hard to remember such things clearly, I suppose, when you start to forget a person even exists.

…

On the trail, Paul offers to carry me but I tell him no. He nods but I can see the way he looks at Jen and Stacy. I’m going too slow. 

I grit my teeth through the pain and speed up as best I can. My roots are sensitive and they’re starting to grow beneath my feet now. I’ve kept them pressed up inside my shoes for too long, my doctor tells me. Soon, I’ll have no choice but to give up shoes. Eventually, I won’t be able to walk at all.

…

Sunset Lookout is every bit as beautiful as Stacy described. I can only imagine how much better it would look at sunset. I would suggest we stay for that, but that’s still hours away and feelings of obligation only go so far.

Jen gets us all to crowd in for a picture. Then they talk about how great it is here, how breathtaking. But before long they’re focused on their phones.

They ask me what I think, and what do I think? There’s no denying the beauty, I should be happy here. But will I be?

The dirt I stand on is so worn out from so many sets of feet that I wonder if anything will ever be able to grow there again. It’s loud here too, and crowded. 

This is when I realize how shallow this place really is. It’s a place for people to come to get a quick look and a picture before moving on. It’s something to check off, something that you can say you did.

I think about the tree to my left. It’s a small maple tree, its leaves are just beginning to turn red. There’s even a monarch butterfly sitting on one of its thin branches. That tree is beautiful but it’s overlooked. All anyone can notice is the camera-ready view from the lookout. So much beauty is missed because no one is truly present here.

I can’t be a part of a space like that for the rest of my life. I just can’t.

…

Spontaneous Arboria. A condition that shouldn’t exist but now does. A rarity, an oddity, a mystery. The scientific community has few answers other than that the condition is not contagious and that there’s no known cure. 

A year and a half since I found the first cyst-like bit of bark on my stomach, I’m entering the late stage of the condition. Soon my legs will fuse together, my roots will need to be planted and my arms will be stiffly pointed upright and covered with mature leaves. I won’t be able to speak, see or hear. In time, my face, frozen beneath my bark, will be the only indicator that I was once human.

…

After Sunrise Lookout, my friends made the journey from the city to bring me to see a few more places they picked out for me. None of them were right.

I try to find my spot myself now. I can’t drive anymore and can only get around using a wheel-chair. These two things limit my options of where I can go but it turns out I don’t have to go far.

One morning, I find the perfect spot without even trying to. When they come to see it, they don’t get it. They squint around the little clearing but no matter how hard they look I know that they’ll never see what I see. I see the tall grass swaying in the breeze, I see bees buzzing from wildflower to wildflower. I see the forest that once stood here, the forest that, with time, can stand here again. I see life and growth, beauty and excitement. I see all of that right here in this one seemingly insignificant grassy field. 

Looking at my old friends, I see them too. They will always be on the look-out for the next career move, always looking to move into a better apartment in a better neighborhood. It will never be about the job for them, or loving their homes or their community. They will only ever be able to measure themselves in terms of status.

For so long, I’ve felt like I’ve been missing out on life, been missing out on experiences. But, what is true experience? Is it always moving around from place to place to see as many beautiful and exciting things as possible? Or, is it staying still and slowly getting to understand fully the beauty and excitement of one place?

In a sense, you could even say that if you never do that, you were never really anywhere at all. 

…

It soon becomes necessary for me to have a live-in nurse. By then, I can no longer move or speak at all. Not long after that, my leaves begin to wilt and I have to be planted. The local DPW comes one morning and hauls me down the street to the clearing. Under the supervision of my nurse, I’m planted in a deep hole in the center on top of the spray painted “X” that I marked when I could still move my arms. They’re careful not to snap any of my roots and to bury me firmly into the ground.

When they’re finished, they leave. My nurse stays for a few hours, talking to me and keeping me company. She comes back to do the same for the next few days before I am completely covered in bark and my heart stops. She confirms it with her stethoscope and I’m officially declared to be “dead”. I lose my hearing and my sight soon after. 

Jen, Stacy, and Paul didn’t make it in time. If they ever came back to see me again over the years, I never know. When my heart stopped and I officially stopped being human and became a tree, my consciousness didn’t stop, it just changed. I’m still alive even though I can’t sense or think in the human way. 

I’m aware of the water running up through me from beneath the cool soil between my roots. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my leaves in the summer, the crisp air of the fall, and the stinging cold of deep winter. 

As the centuries go by, I feel myself grow tall and strong. My branches reach up higher in the old clearing than any other tree. The clearing has once again become a forest of thick trees, many of them my own offspring. My roots extend down deep into the soil of the forest. I can sense the flight of butterflies and birds nearby, the chattering and scurrying of the multitude of squirrels all around, and even the growth of moss on a fallen log half a mile away.

There is not an inch of this forest that I don’t know, that I don’t experience. I am here, now and for always. And I am happy.