The girl was in a tree. She looked out to the world. A small bird landed on a branch nearby and whistled brightly, singing a song. She watched the bird and they both held onto the branch as the wind moved the tree back and forth. The bird seemed to gaze back at her. For a moment, they were silent. And then the bird sang again. This time louder. Then, fluttered away.

She moved with the tree and with the wind for a while. Hand on the rough bark. Leaves waving.

She watched the forest of endless trees – like an ocean of green. The little pockets of movement. Little leaves waving to one another.

When she closed her eyes to the wind, the scent of earth and newness was in the air. It was sweet and smelled like dewy mornings when you might run your finger down a leaf speckled with droplets of water until at the edge of this leaf water had collected and… 

drop 

off onto the soft dirt below.

She hugged her knees closer as the wind blew cold on her skin. And as she began to feel warmer again, she started to hum to herself a little song of her own creation. A song that started faint with the dim light of an overcast sky. Then grew as she heard something she hadn’t heard before. When she stopped all she heard

beneath the rustling of the leaves

the whistles of the birds 

and calls of the other animals 

and insects

beneath the wind rushing through the dense forest

was a low hum from everywhere and everything

it grew for a moment before disappating into the soft sounds of the forest.

She stayed up in the tree for very long before it was time to climb down. Half in a daze, she found a place to lie down. And the last thing she remembered until being catapulted to the dream land was the twinkling stars above her and the call of a distant bird.