by Robert Lopez
Parkinson’s patients have been known to start acting out in their dreams, often punching or kicking the person sharing their bed.
Parkinson’s disease is best known for its physical symptoms, like slowness and tremor, but is often preceded by a host of seemingly unrelated symptoms like mood change, loss of smell, constipation, and sleep disorders. Problems with thinking and memory are also common in Parkinson’s disease, with patients being six times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia.
This might explain some of Janice’s behaviors.
The man says, It’s all the same, in the end. Is it not?
The woman says, What is?
The man says, Everything. Everything in the world is the same. Modesty, immodesty. Bruises up and down ribs. Strangers kicking you on the sidewalk. It’s all the same. We are all on the same road here. This table is the same as a tree is the same as this glass is the same as all of us talking and busing and bruising and the same as a man fucking a tree or a car or a submarine slamming on the brakes.
The friend says, We call that all back full, in the business.
The woman says, There’s something wrong with the lot of you.
There is quiet. Two of the three take sips of wine.
The friend says, Who was fucking a tree?
The man says, Joyce Kilmer.
The friend says, Never heard of her.
The man says, No one has.
The friend says, And this Joyce Kilmer fucks trees?
The man says, He used to. He’s dead now. Some maple caught him with a sexy oak and bashed his skull in.
The friend says, So this Joyce is a man? The man says, He used to be.
The friend says, I don’t like hearing about this.
Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet remembered primarily for a short poem titled “Trees.”
Most critics disparaged Kilmer’s work as being too simple, overly sentimental, and suggested that his style was far too traditional, even archaic.
He was killed by a sniper’s bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of thirty-one.
The Second Battle of the Marne was the last major German spring offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The German attack failed when an Allied counterattack led by French forces and including several hundred tanks overwhelmed the Germans on their right flank, inflicting severe casualties. The German defeat marked the start of the relentless Allied advance, which culminated in the Armistice about one hundred days later. Thus the Second Battle of the Marne can be considered the beginning of the end of the Great War.
There is no evidence Joyce Kilmer ever had sexual relations with a tree or suffered from any paraphilia whatsoever.
The woman says, What about your darling wife?
The friend says, What about her?
The woman says, Seems like she would like this kind of repartee.
The friend says, I don’t know about that.
The woman says, She’s a free spirit, is she not?
It is quiet again. There is always a lot of air in a conversation between these three people.
There is time to think of other matters.
The man thinks about the car again, and how it reminds him of the first one he owned. That car’s acceleration was poor, and while he never timed the car going from zero to sixty miles per hour, it probably took two to three minutes depending on the weather. When the temperature was below freezing, the car did not perform well. Warming the car up didn’t seem to help, either.
Merging onto highways was tricky business, regardless of the weather. There had to be no cars in the intended lane for a successful merger. He almost caused several accidents merging onto highways.
There were a lot of things that didn’t work; for instance, the speakers. There were only two speakers, located on the inside panels of the front doors. The speaker on the passenger side door cut in and out. There was probably a loose wire, a faulty connection somewhere, but the man never tried to get it fixed. The left blinker did not stop blinking unless the driver stopped it his or herself. The clicking sound that often accompanies indicators did not work, either. There were many occasions when he’d drive around for miles threatening a move left or right.
The passenger’s side mirror was missing and the left front tire was perpetually in need of air, like an asthmatic, like his wife. The tire didn’t struggle for breath or fumble with inhalers, of course.
The man is planning to go outside later and take a closer look at the car. He doesn’t know what’s inside of it. Perhaps there will be a clue of some sort.
A moth flies from one end of the kitchen to the other, toward the fluorescent light. The friend notices the moth but doesn’t comment on it.
The friend says, I was watching the news before I came over.
The man says, What is the news of the day?
The friend says, It’s raining. Everyone agrees on this.
The man says, It’s collusion.
The woman says, It’s not collusion, it’s a consensus. There’s a difference.
The friend says, There is, in fact, a difference here.
The woman says, Why do you look different?
The man says, He shaved his beard.
The woman says, That’s right.
The man says, Does he not look handsome?
Janice likes to watch the news with her husband in the living room, but nowhere else. She will not watch the news in their bedroom or any other room. She doesn’t want the news to infect those areas. So in the living room they will sit side by side on the sofa and watch. Her husband almost always takes the throw pillow and places it between them. He likes to prop his arm up on the pillow, ever since the accident. Janice stays on her side of the pillow when they watch the news. She likes to comment on the goings-on, what they’re reporting. Her husband agrees with her by moving his head up and down.
The only time Janice has ever watched the news in her bedroom was in the wake of the terrorist attack ten years ago.
She was living alone then, with her two cats.
She stayed in bed and watched the news of those lost in the tragedy, including the twelve-year-old boy on his bicycle killed in the explosion.
She did this for three days straight, but hasn’t done it since.
The cats lived long and healthy lives. One died of old age and the other ran away.
The woman does think the friend looks handsome but she will not say this aloud.
The woman says, I read today that a man was caught having sex with his car.
The friend says, How would you?
The man says, It’s not important.
The friend says, It takes all kinds.
The woman says, That it does. Have you ever fucked a car?
The friend says, Not that I can recall, no.
The woman says, What about a tree? Have you ever fucked a tree?
The friend says, Perhaps once, in college.
The man says, It was probably a fall-down tree.
The friend says, What’s a fall-down tree?
The woman says, It’s a song.
The friend says, I don’t know it.
The man says, Neither do I.
The woman says, This morning my husband said that people don’t notice trees.
The friend says, That sounds like you.
The woman says, Do you notice trees?
The friend says, I can’t say that I do.
The woman says, So trees go unnoticed around you, then.
The friend says, That’s fair to say.
The man says, People don’t look up. We know this.
The most recent hurricane, the one that had the woman volunteering in the park along with the neighbors, toppled over 8,000 trees in the city alone. Of course, it doesn’t take a hurricane to uproot trees.
A young woman was killed by a falling branch during this most recent hurricane. She was out walking her dog.
Why she was out walking a dog in the middle
of a hurricane is unclear.
All trees have the potential to fail at some level from force of wind, snow, or ice. One main reason, all tree experts agree, is the phenomenon known as windthrow, which uproots a tree. The tree trunk acts as a lever and so the force applied to the roots and trunk increases with height. Taller trees are more susceptible to windthrow.
The roots of trees can extend 1-2.5 times the radius of the branches, and many urban areas do not allow this extensive development. The problem lies mostly with trees that have been developed around and had roots cut, crushed, or torn in the process. There may be ensuing decay.
Wood is a strong structural material; however, it is not homogeneous or consistently strong at all places in the stem. Wood decay caused by fungi can weaken wood structure. However, the mere presence of decayed wood or even a hollow does not mean that the tree is more vulnerable to failure.
No one thinks of the thought experiment that asks if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it.
Which isn’t to say that these three have never pondered the whys and wherefores of this question.
The man once spent an entire day in a forest, under a tree, thinking this question all the way through. He was only a boy, no more than eleven. He’d played baseball that day. He’d had a conversation about baseball with the mailman, Ben. He may’ve also had a conversation about baseball with his father. Sometimes he confuses the two.
Philosopher George Berkeley, in his work “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge” (1710), proposes, “But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park and nobody by to perceive them. The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden…no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them.”
In June 1883, in the magazine The Chautauquan, the question was put, “If a tree were to fall on an island where there were no human beings, would there be any sound?” This is believed to be the first time anyone framed it so.
Albert Einstein is reported to have asked his fellow physicist and friend Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, whether he realistically believed that “the moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.” To this, Bohr replied that however hard he (Einstein) may try, he would not be able to prove that it does, thus giving the entire riddle the status of a kind of an infallible conjecture—one that cannot be either proved or disproved.
Both the man and his friend have come to similar conclusions, though neither has read Bohr.
The woman says, When should we eat?
The man says, I can wait.
The friend says, So can I. I had a late lunch.
The woman says, What did you have?
The friend says, Fish.
The man says, Brain food.
The friend cannot feel hunger but will eat when it’s time to do so.
Outside, no one passes by, either on foot or in cars or buses. There are birds flying around out there, though, both seagulls and starlings.
Fish is indeed considered brain food, as it is a nootropic, which is a substance that enhances cognition and memory and facilitates learning.
Nootropics are thought to work by altering the availability of the brain’s supply of neurochemicals by improving the brain’s oxygen supply or by stimulating nerve growth.
The friend says, Speaking of modest…
The man says, What modest?
The friend says, From before. We were talking about modesty.
The man says, That’s right.
The friend says, That friend of yours.
The woman says, What friend is this?
The friend says, Your friend, the nudist.
The woman says, The one you humiliated.
The friend says, I wouldn’t go that far.
The woman says, You always go that far.
The man says, She’s right, you do.
It’s not clear if the friend ever humiliated the woman’s nudist friend.
This episode is open to interpretation.
He did try to make a joke at a party in front of everyone one evening, but to him this wasn’t at all humiliating.
And it certainly wasn’t his intention to humiliate anyone.
He liked the nudist and enjoyed spending time with her.
The man agrees that what his friend said at the party in front of everyone wasn’t at all an attempt to humiliate the nudist, but the woman does not.
The neighbors with the dog were at this particular party, though they left early to go home and feed the dog and as such didn’t hear this humiliation or joke.
After they fed the dog that night, one made a pass at the other and the other responded by saying, Not again.
The man says, Some call nudism naturalism.
The woman says, What of it?
The man says, Nothing of it. I’m pointing it out.
The friend says, That’s funny.
The man has spent hours on the Internet looking up nudism.
There is quiet. People take sips of wine. The man thinks to put out the cheese dish and some bread, but then forgets to do so.
The man says, I suppose it is natural. As nature intended. Mother Nature, nude for all to see. Naked trees and seagulls and starlings, men and women.
The woman says, This is tedious.
The man says, It’s all the same. Naked, clothed, natural, unnatural. All the same.
The woman says, Who was talking about starlings?
The man says, He was, earlier. He had a problem with the starlings.
The woman says, What was your problem with the starlings?
The friend says, I didn’t have a problem with the starlings. Charlie Birdman is mistaken.
The woman says, Is this true, Charlie Birdman? Are you mistaken?
The man says, It certainly is possible. I have been mistaken before. I probably make a great many mistakes during the course of a day.
The woman says, I should say so.
The man thinks of Charlie Parker, who was known as Bird and was a highly influential saxophonist, a leading figure in the advent and development of bebop.
The man likes jazz, but isn’t particularly fond of Charlie Parker.
His wife, who played sax when she was younger and still practiced every so often until she developed asthma, considers Charlie Parker a god.
However, she doesn’t think of Charlie Parker during this conversation and will not again until she hears “Yardbird Suite” on the car radio next month while commuting to work.
The man says, I have been mistaken for a tour guide. Whenever I am out and about, people ask me for directions. On the street, in the park, it’s all the same.
The friend says, You look like you know where everything is.
The man says, I don’t.
The friend says, I know. It’s false advertising.
The woman says, It is. False advertising is no good.
The man says, I agree.
The man doesn’t know where everything is. In fact, his sense of direction is poor, though it has improved over the years, marginally.
While the man does know from which direction the sun rises and sets, this knowledge has never been helpful when finding an address. He can never remember which streets/avenues run north-south and which go east-west. He only thinks in terms of forward and backward and everything looks the same to him regardless. There have been many occasions when he has been unable to find where it is he is supposed to go. This has happened to him on foot, while taking public transportation, and in his own cars.
Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The name “Sturnidae” comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage. Starlings are native to the Old World, from Europe, Asia, and Africa to northern Australia and the islands of the
tropical Pacific. Several European and Asian species have been introduced to these areas, as well as North America, Hawaii, and New Zealand, where they generally compete for habitat with native birds and are considered to be invasive species. The starling species familiar to most people in Europe and North America is the common starling, and throughout much of Asia and the Pacific the common myna is indeed common.
The common starling is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature, including the Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare.
Unpaired males find a suitable cavity and begin to build nests in order to attract single females, often decorating the nest with ornaments such as flowers and fresh green material, which the female later disassembles upon accepting him as a mate. The amount of green material is not important, as long as some is present, but the presence of herbs in the decorative material appears to be significant in attracting a mate. The scent of plants such as yarrow acts as an olfactory attractant.
The nests are green, different shades of green.
Common starlings are both monogamous and polygamous; although broods are generally brought up by one male and one female, occasionally the pair may have an extra helper. Pairs may be part of a colony, in which case several other nests may occupy the same or nearby trees. Males may mate with a second female while the first is still on the nest. The reproductive success of the bird is poorer in the second nest than it is in the primary nest and is better when the male remains monogamous.
The friend says, Is there a double meaning here?
The man says, Who’s to say?
The woman says, Words have meaning, friends. Actions have meaning. Some words have multiple meanings, multiple definitions. Some actions have multiple meanings, too.
The man says, There’s no point arguing.
The woman says, Take nudism and naturism, for instance.
The man says, Let’s take it for a walk around the block, for an ice cream.
The woman glares at the man.
She looks past and through.
The friend sees this but does not comment and in truth thinks nothing of it, as he’s seen it before.
