Birch Dialogue

Wielding empty buckets, the ‘old coot’ and her fellow-picker wander through a birch meadow. Winding through the grove, the trees sway gently with their late-summer color, like clusters of doubloons glinting in the sun. She falls behind and kneels, peering to the side of the trail at a slumped mass of fur. Collapsed by a tall stump lay a mutilated fawn. “Wolves probably,” she says.

“Think that they’re still around?” The apprentice picker inquires.

“It’s not a fresh kill, but the cold must have staved off the flies in the night. We’ll come around back to the trailhead later and see if there’s any progress”

“Progress? Now that’s a funny word to use.” The picker replies.

The two arrive at a large bush brimming with berries. The apprentice, believing his thoughts on their last exchange justifiably reassessed posits: “It makes sense actually, death brings progress because others seize the leftover opportunity, improving their own positions.” He squats and begins combing berries from the branches. “Even that fawn’s mother has one fewer mouth to feed, she’s less likely to starve at her offspring’s expense. Assuming she escaped the wolves, she progresses.”

“Yeah that makes sense.” The coot replies. Her fingers begin to stain purple and red as she picks away at the branches. The picker continues, “Death is lost life is exploited by the living.” He pauses his picking and turns to her, “My side of the bush is good, do you want to keep walking?”

Continuing on the Coot asks, “So is that the proof of the old adage ’what doesn’t kill you…?”

“Maybe.”

The Coot loathed lecturing. At this age it seems anyone with the gumption to ponder on a ‘pop’ topic quickly discovers the justification for a spiel, ignoring any obvious lack of qualification. Feeling that itch of a topic’s hidden facet left unexplored, she continues their walk and lectures the Picker on death.

“Death has consequences: some advance, others are left to suffer, but that doesn’t tell you what death is.” She says.

“But it tells us what death yields, it tells us about death, a fleeting glimpse perhaps.”

“It’s definitely fleeting.”

“So” the fellow-Picker asks, “what is it?”

The trail looped back to their starting point, and their buckets were hardly full. The coot approaches the fallen fawn, but points to the nearby stump, “I think this stump illustrates death well.” The Picker was puzzled. “This tree was young and was probably snapped in the wind. Look closer, you can see the holes of carpenter ants eating it hollow. The other trees here probably don’t think about it, but if they did, what would they think about such a permanent reminder of their frailty? Do they awake in the spring and remember their fallen friend? Would they say, ‘Here was one of us!’ and sway somberly for years?” She pauses and looks at the rotted grain with her hand on her hip.

“So is that all death is?” the Picker asks.

The Coot looked at him and shrugged.