- How do you feel today?
- I've grown a new leaf!
- I can see that... How does it feel?
- How does it feel for you?
- I can't grow anything new... I could grow teeth but that was a long time ago and it didn't feel nice. It looks like your growing feels nice... It's more like blossoming than growing! There's a special word for a reason...
- Can't you grow hairs?
- Well, not anymore, I'm ungrowing now...
- I can see that... How does it feel?
- Sad, it means I need a hat, to hide my skull from the sun.
- Can't you grow nails?
- Yeah, and tumors too, I suppose; you're missing the point.
- What's the point?
- You should tell me! You're the freaking Gaia, you're the one who can open new arms to the sun and those feel like new lungs. You can embrace the sky with pulmonic orgasms, you can breathe the moon. You're becoming a planet, you'll be as big as my house in twenty years... by touching the other trees around with your feet...
- with my roots
- ...with your roots, you're becoming a forest. You know better!
- But I'm stuck there.
- So am I.
- You were elsewhere ten minutes ago. You'll be elsewhere in ten minutes. You never stay for much more than that.
- I'm always with myself, I'm not moving either. It's the décor that moves around me.
- Isn't that nice just the same?
- It could be, but it's moving too fast or too slow. It's dizzying. One time I'd like to be a mountain to stay by a flower and I am a river; the next I'd like to be the wind to fly to Campania and I'm a cavern.
- I'm by the side of this shrub, and this wall, and these other trees over there, but they are far and big and weird... I don't think they are endemic.
- Neither are you, you're a nectarine tree.
- A Prunus persica!
- Whatever, you're Asiatic, or from oceania, or one of these places where fruits are plummy and juicy, colorful, and elastic. Exotic. And alien. And out of reach...
- And now I'm stuck there!
- When you are where you need to be, you don't need to move away from that.
- So you're not where you need to be?
- Right now, yes.
- Why don't you stay then? Why don't you plant your feet...
- my roots!
- ...your roots into the ground and become a tree, like me?
- Who would water us?
- The sky?
- Do you know where you are?
- Where I need to be?
- As long as there is someone to water you. You're never in the wrong place when you have what you need... in your case, the sun—where you are, this is for free—and a lot of water. This comes from me.
- What's all the wryness for?
- What's all the dryness for?
- Who waters you then?
- You do. But only if my feet remain feet. They need to go fetch the water. As long as our roots don't touch, we'll both be fine.
- But why are you leaving already? You can teach me places but I can teach you time. Where are you going?
- To tell this myself elsewhere. It's been more than ten minutes now.