The wind whistled from tree bark to tree Bark as the peel of the trees slowly began to unfurl. The trees' skin, hard and withered, rolled up into winding balls that made their way to the soil, collapsing as though tired from their journey.

I sat and wondered at this marvellous phenomenon that presented itself before me. How could this be? For a faint flicker of a moment, I felt as though maybe it was a message that the skin finally had enough of the tree trunks and decided to run away. Both, in the strangest way, seemed just as bizarre.

I whispered into the steady blue night, “Do you wish to tell me something?”

Suddenly, the layer of skin next to this central tree, surrounded by many, began to peel again. However, only slightly.

Indeed, I thought there was a better way to communicate than to peel itself.

“Can’t you speak to me? Speak to me with words?”

The trees lay silent now, no longer rolling up their skin.

Perhaps this was the only way?

“Please speak to me,” I looked closer as the tree revealed something beneath its hard skin: a hole that revealed flesh, that which looked like an intestine peeking from within.

My stomach aches with a whirling force that shook me into stillness and made me feel weak. The fleshy intestine moved from the hole, and now only a dark pit of blackness appeared.

“What do you wish for me to say…” it spoke.