#branchtip

[bunnyunderthebed]

if our friends hadn't pulled the trailcam footage i wouldn't've believed you. i didn't remember a thing, as far as i was concerned i went from cooking dinner to waking up in a hospital bed.

the way you tell it, we were knee-deep in a discussion about a series we had been watching when i turned to look out the sliding door and dropped the plate i was holding. you whipped your head around from your seat on the couch to see me staring out into the cold, dark landscape and mumbling about a deer. you asked what the matter was but i was in some sort of trance, all i did was slowly walk towards the door, opened it, and stepped out barefoot and lightly clothed.

you called out to me, screaming at me to come back, but i didn't respond or even acknowledge you, just continued to follow a deer you couldn't see into the snow and howling winter wind. you considered picking up the red phone in the kitchen, the emergency line to our friends across the farm, but couldn't bring yourself to do it. not until you could see the fire over an hour later.

they couldn't see the flames from their house, situated lower than ours, but an atv ride up showed them your frantic tone wasn't for nothing. you couldn't explain and they didn't understand, but they ran to the fire garage and started the tanker pickup truck anyway, leaving you on our porch to stare at that pillar burning into the dark sky.

of course the fire marshal eventually arrived, and once i was loaded into the ambulance statements were gathered and an investigation began. our friends had followed the smoke to a patch of unused woods, a place where not even walking trails had been made, and found me standing in front of a tree fully engulfed in hellfire. the flames burned with more intensity the closer they got, seemingly unaffected by the wind. the snow around the trunk was fresh, still cold and powdery to the touch despite the extreme heat that threatened to scald their faces. they called out to me, fighting against the heat to reach me, but my eyes were locked on the burning wood. they managed to grab hold of me, and as they tried to pull me away i began to scream.

it's right here! i have to kill it!

i fought tooth and nail, clawing and biting at their hands, but eventually they overpowered me and restrained me in the back seat. they said i screamed and howled like an animal until the fire was out completely, then passed out and wouldn't wake up. the fire marshal was shocked when he ventured out to the site and found nothing. no fuel, no fire starter, no tools, no evidence of someone having started a fire at all. just the ashen tree, burned to an ebony crisp from roots to branchtips. he had no choice but to rule it an act of god and commend our friends for their quick response.

the doctors were no less confused in their examinations. for having been mere feet from a veritable inferno, as the video showed, they couldn't find any burns. dehydration and mild frostbite, they said, marveling at how even my clothes were devoid of any damage. i was clear to go home the moment i woke up, and i walked out with you headached and confused.

you ruminated on it while you drove us home, going over every detail with me in the hopes of making sense of the ordeal, but one bit seemed to stick out to you.

"The strangest thing was the tree itself," you said over and over, "it was a lemon tree."

"We can't even grow lemons here."

[adventuresinbiologysection]

Cottonwood trees can grow by branchtips

Ripara, rob naimen. Isbn: 0126633150

[coffeenuts]

59961.01 Quercus rubra by horticultural art https://flic.kr/p/2hExVUd

[graywyvern]

@svenbirkerts

"Nor, in the end, could Arthur hold Roman Britain against the Saxons."

"woods only a world of dew armadillo"

--@poem_exe

"...and you can also buy acrylic paints called 'yellow ochre,' which has become the paint of choice for many Aboriginal artists."

farthest branchtips sway measure i bound my world by fifty cent turnip

& the cold & the brightness assail me lugging the trash

"Friedrich Theiberger, Kafka’s Hebrew teacher, records a moment when the two men stood at a window overlooking the old town square; Kafka pointed and said: 'This was my high school, the university was over there, in the building facing us, my office a bit further to the left. This narrow circle encompasses my entire life'."

[coffeenuts]

59215.01 Picea pungens glauca by horticultural art https://flic.kr/p/2aPhUNj

[coffeenuts]

59583.01 branch tips by horticultural art https://flic.kr/p/ToTQVw

[coffeenuts]

58137.01 Malus 'Red Jade' by horticultural art http://flic.kr/p/UgTtcd

[coffeenuts]

58234.01 Euonymus alatus by horticultural art http://flic.kr/p/V8V8ZL