Intermission I

In a pastel colored pasture, God found an old oak tree. Bare branches stretched above the hills to grasp at the clouds, yet the tree had died and would remain dead. The flowers, growing across the meadow like mistrokes of a painter's brush, bowed in silence for their departed king.

God squeezed her daughter's hand as she knelt at the base to pray, but her little kitten did not understand. Her mother spoke silent words in languages she did not know: of times, people and places forgotten an age before she was born.

God wanted to explain; and sorely tried. "This tree was once a man." she said, "Who in a dark age turned all his neighbors into flowers. When he was done he joined them, becoming a tree and ruling over them for untold years; for plants are similar to us spirits and live lives far longer than men. Like this they found happiness.

"I knew him back when I was a child." God finished, following the tree's reach into the sky. Whatever passed behind her warm eyes, her daughter would never know. She never knew.

The memory passed and God turned to continue her long walk across the meadows, hills, oceans and lands of her world, but her little kitten stayed looking at the tree a moment longer. Down at the roots were carved two letters: MT. She took her claw and scratched it through with a single line. Then God called to her and she ran after her mother, her beloved mother; so wise, so kind, so strong.