Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 03

“You look worried.”

Another bolt of lightning.

“I’m not worried.” She smiled.

“You have no reason to be nervous. In fact, statistically, it is extremely unlikely that we’d actually get hit by lightning…”

“I’m not worried.”

“…and even if we did, nothing would happen.”

She took him by the arm. “I’m not worried!”

Brian glanced down at her hand on his arm. Her knuckles showed white. Nicole looked down too.

Turning away, she let go, and then brushed away at her shirt to straighten up. “So what have you been doing with yourself?” She shrugged. “I mean, like for three years and never called.”

Brian nodded and smiled. “Ha! Well played…”

Nicole tipped her head, took a bow.

Brian shrugged. “Um…not much. Same as you, really. Working hard. Trying to help as many people as I can.”

“And that’s why you sold your soul to join Movartis?” she asked with a crooked smile on her lips.

“Now wait a minute!” Brian wagged his finger at her. “I thought we all had a deal…”

“I’m just teasing…” She smiled. She knew she wasn’t supposed to talk about that. Too long ago. Too many heated discussions over the matter.

By about their last year of medical school, a difference of opinion had emerged between the three, well, mostly between Julian and Brian. Julian had felt that healing and saving lives ought to be a one-on-one affair. Each individual person in the world was unique in his way and you would have to get to know each person, know how he was suffering personally before you could bring to him a unique but complete healing. Brian had thought this was nuts. There were just too many people out there. How could you possibly tend to all of them in time? No, to bring healing to as many as possible, you have to find a shortcut, a common but important ailment that affected everybody, and then overcome this problem to find a common cure for all. That was the way to do it. Nicole had thought they were both right but nobody was listening to her.

The arguments had dragged on and had become so intense they had to call a truce. They had to agree to leave it to a time when they could come back to it without wanting to kill each other over some silly ideology. The deal had been brokered by Nicole, just to keep the peace between friends.

Brian shook his head. “You know, I’ve never understood why you and Julian could be so naïve…”

Nicole frowned. “Hey I thought you said we weren’t talking about that…”

“…can’t you see the big picture? This is how we heal the world. Going at it one person at a time is too slow, too stupid. It just doesn’t make sense. Why can’t you two see that?”

“Brian…!”

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay!” He turned to look out the window. Outside, the rain slowed. The turbulence had stopped and even the lightning strikes were now few and far between.

Brian turned to face Nicole. “Do you know if he still has it?”

“What?”

Brian furrowed his brows. He leaned in closer. “The seed.”

Nicole looked down to regard her nails. Hmm. Some of the polish had come off one of them. “I guess so. I don’t know.”

“So he never got any further with it? I mean, like recently?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She reached down to her purse to look for some nail polish. “I think that was as far as he got. I don’t know any more about it than what happened in high school. Like years ago. You remember what happened, don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

Nicole began to undo the top of the bottle of polish. “After that whole thing with Julian’s father, and the Tree gave Julian the seed and said it was important.” She began to work on her nails. “It was the following spring that Julian tried to plant it, over in the park by the river in it.”

“Yeah, I remember that. ‘Cause when he tried it, it wouldn’t grow.”

She nodded. “Then he took it to the science teacher, Mr. Cohen, and asked him about it. Mr. Cohen said that some seeds are tricky. They only germinate and begin to grow under exactly the right conditions—like soil temperature, acidity and so on. He said that in fact, there are some seeds that are so unique that as large as the Earth is, they need to be planted at exactly the right spot on it before they will start growing. Mr. Cohen had a look at the thing, but he didn’t recognize the type of seed it was, so he couldn’t tell him how he could get it to start up. I think Julian pretty much gave up after that.” Nicole sat back. She had finished her touch-up. Now, she held up her nails and blew onto them. “I haven’t heard him mention it since.”

Brian laughed. “I hope he hasn’t tossed it out with the trash by accident.”