I feel like I’m being followed by a woman. She has the kind of gait where her feet point a bit outwards, and she kicks them with a little huff to get more from every step, only to land heavy on the heels. She usually lumbers and shifts her weight radically, but tonight she floats behind me.
She’s eating something idly, as if it’s secondary to whatever she’s really up to. One-hand food. It’s not a knife, but she holds it like one.
And then I feel like when I stop to look at this tree she looks at it too. She looks at me, and then back at the tree, and then at me again, because she’s trying to make sense of why I’m looking at the tree.
It’s not so interesting to her because it’s not about her. It’s natural to feel like things that don’t speak to us are a waste of time, but I’d like to look at the tree anyway, just in case it does speak to me.
Then a few other people see us looking at the tree and gather, thinking there’s something remarkable to see in the tree. They look at the tree, and then at us, and then back at the tree, and then at me. I start to feel like I’m wasting a lot of people’s time, which should be a serious offense because time is in the top three most important things to people.
The public interest has restored some faith in the woman that there might be something to see in the tree, but then she finishes her snack.
I feel like her body language is expressing critical signs of frustration. She’s exhaling heavily then tilting her head back and shaking it to let the excess sighs leak out. I feel like she’s rubbing her temples now too, but it’s hard to know exactly what I’m seeing out of the corner of my eye because I’m still trying really hard to look at the tree.
The thing about the body language of frustration is that it’s so subtle it’s more contagious than it is observable. Now I feel like they’re all tilting their heads back sighing uncontrollably. More people gather to look at the tree, then look at me, then back at the tree, and then they join the great big chorus of sighs. There are nearly two hundred people standing there, looking around and sighing.
Then I have this unfounded urge to entertain the woman. So I try to mimic the tree. I put my hands up in the air and stand on my toes like I’m a tree. And she likes it. Maybe too much. I feel like I look really silly contorting myself into the shape of the tree. My hands flail in the air, my fingers curl like twigs, I’m on one leg, and the other. She’s bellowing with laughter. I pretend to blow in the wind.
I try to explain myself, to make myself feel less stupid, but no one wants to hear it because they’re all cry-laughing and my act makes them all so happy.
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From Imagining One, I Took the Other by Thomas Laprade. Used with permission of the publisher, Montez Press. Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Laprade.
