“If I was dead, I would hope nobody would see!”
“Whaddyu mean?”
“I wouldn’t want them to have to see!” the girl whirled around. “Dying makes people sad!”
He thought about that for a minute, holding a small tree branch out of her way as she took the lead. They tested the malleability of teenage birch trees. Burnt leaves hang rigid, shimmering as a reflex to their tugging.
It’s dry, it’s crisp. It’s intentionally falling apart. She pokes a dead critter with a stick and raises her eyebrows at him.
“Ew,” he said. His contemplation bloomed: “Actually: I think I would want them to see – Well, maybe not. I would want them to come see me. After I was dead. When I was dying, though — I don’t think I’d want them to see that…” He points at the still fur. “We didn’t have to see that. That’s probably why you’re being gross – poking him with a stick.”
“He doesn’t care! How do you know he didn’t die earlier just to be dead here while we were walking by?” She commits to a seriousness, waving the stick from the critter toward the sky then back to the ground where she makes a circle around it. “He gets to stay home from school, for good.”
The girl was pushed by silence. “I think I change my mind: I would only want people to see me if I was dead—”
“—If you were dying”
“Right! If I was dying – I would oooonly want people to see it if they were okay with it, like ME!” Satisfied, she laid her stick down gently by the critter. A memorial. The boy found a stone to rest his legs considering the facts before him. He draws his fist up underneath his chin with the thumb untucked.
“What about if somebody saw you dying?” he begins, slightly bravado. “—and it makes them feel really, really bad. But they actually can stop you from dying, so they have to come and see you while you’re still alive but about to die – but they don’t like it the whole time, even though they want to save you.”
“I insist on being by myself if I was going to have to die.” This was honest-to-God.
“You don’t know when you have to die! It’s completely up to the last second — some genius doctor could bring you back to life. Or they’d have your favorite food. It’d smell so good that just the thought of not having your favorite food again would bring you back to life!” He realized all of these things as each word came out.
“That’s ridiculous!” she replied. The boy noticed a wavering as she continued, “a smell is not going to bring me back to life if I am dying, D-Y-I-N-G. I would be too busy crossing over to the great blue sky to care about food. I’d be getting cheeseburgers with angels. I could have any type of food I want. With ANGELS.”
The boy rolled his eyes and stood up. He cannot combat the supremacy of Cheeseburgers with Angels. Why would he? Way more impressive than normal, on-Earth, human-kid food. He likes steak. And Doritos, all types. She got in his head with that one.
Sunlight reaches a sacred position, overlooking the children as they reach their destination. Moments away from the clearing, the two stop and look out over the tree farm. Row after row of the trees folks chop and cherish for Christmas. They gaze out over the yellow orange and yellow greens before them, sneakers out of view beneath the frontline of tall grass. They don’t dare step one inch into that clearing. The tree farmer is known to shoot all trespassers dead, especially the little ones.
A safe distance from that forbidden pass, a huge, old tree is marked by a set of planks nailed into its trunk. Neither the boy or the girl have any idea who built this treefort, but they are grateful.
“Let’s vow to protect this fort with our lives. And welcome all wayward kids like us in need of higher places to hang out!”
The boy remembers that and asks, “Do you think we could fight off the Old Tree Farmer if he knew about this over here?”
“He wouldn’t shoot a girl.”
“He shoots all kids!”
“I haven’t seen it happen once, and I’m always here.”
“That’s cuz it’s just you and me that come here, and we run a tight ship.”
“I come here other times, too.”
“No you don’t. When?”
“Doesn’t matter. At night. And other times when you can’t come play.”
“You come outside at night??” The boy is reeling, as his bedtime is at 8 PM. He’s also afraid of the dark and coyotes. Plus, she does not go out at night… Nobody could argue so good if they were always going in the woods at night.
“That’s a sure way to end up dying with nobody seeing.” he says, thinking I gotcha!
“And I wouldn’t make anybody sad!” she says, smiling. Dark, but simpatico. “You get so riled up.” They climbed the Planky Trunk and shimmied around the second “floor.” One impressive bough extended past the threshold of the forest line, into the Tree Farmer’s territory. The children believed this was No Man’s Land, and dangled their legs freely among an element of imminent danger.
“You just think about such weird stuff,” he said.
“It’s not weird at all” she was peeling the bark off of the bough next to her. “Does it scare you?”
“I guess not,” the boy was surprised that he agreed with these words. “I just don’t really know anybody that’s died…” The boy laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I thought about asking a dead person what they thought about it and he didn’t have much to say,” the boy whispered, suppressing more laughter.
“See?” the girl grinning. “You’re a loony freak too. But that’s kind of what I’m saying. You just are dead at some point, and everybody’s dead at some point. Maybe the best way to be dead is to help people be funny about it. Or like — get them to remember everything besides that you died. Like doing them a service! Garbage man!”
“God! You take it so far – everytime!”