Sleep was a luxury we used to have

But the arboreal awakening of 2021 has shattered any hope of silence at night. The awakening has given trees the ability to talk and hear what we are saying, as well as communicate with other trees.

The challenge is that they seem to instinctively understand the language of humans, but so far nobody can understand their language. With the awakening, they have also developed the ability to make small motor movements: so they shake their leaves when afraid or seem to dance to popular music.

At first it was thought of as some epic prank, the sounds that the trees made, but soon we all learned how serious this problem could become. At night the younger trees babble to each other nonstop while the older ones shake the walls with their mighty snores.

But the real challenge lies with the trees that are diseased or damaged; everywhere crowds of good Samaritans gather, like those wanting to save a beached whale, yet nobody knows what to do.

In my yard a century old oak speaks a guttural foreign tongue that sounds like German. When the wind blows or storms pester him, he groans like he’s pulled a muscle. He yells a string of curse words when woodpeckers poke at his bark and laughs when squirrels jump from branch to branch, so he must be ticklish.

Today I spent some time at his base, looking to find some sort of mouth or eyes, but there are none of those. Somehow the sound comes from inside and they hear through their leaves. I’m trying to learn how to speak his language, but progress is slow. The neighborhood children have discovered how to tickle him, I hope this is something he can learn to tolerate.