Morning came without any more nighttime capers from the cat. Emmy got up, to disgruntled murmurs from a still sleeping Othello, put the kettle on for her morning tea and threw on some sweats for her morning run. Kettle boiled and running shoes laced, Emmy poured herself a cup of tea and headed outside to the roof garden to enjoy the clear crisp morning.
Contrary to Emmy thinking she was poor at tending to her plants, she had a lush roof garden. An oasis that many of her friends were sometimes jealous of since living in an apartment in the city usually didn't provide one with any sort of garden small, big, or otherwise. And since most of Emmy's friends lived in apartments of their own, with nothing more than a three by six balcony to stand on, she found herself entertaining company often. Pushing her way through the french doors she made her way across the brick laid patio, around the fire pit, past the potted fuchsias and petunias, stopping to watch the birds drinking from the splashing fountain, and finally over to the bench swing shaded by the clematis vine-ing it's way over its arbor. Cupping herself around the warmth of her tea and against the crisp chill of the early morning she sat down and when she looked up she nearly dropped her steaming teacup in her lap.
Next to the gray stone wall of her apartment, to the side of the french doors, where she kept her garden soil and empty pots was the bucket of dirt she had brought outside during the night. Only it wasn't a bucket of soil anymore. Growing from the bucket was a sapling willow tree. It looked as if it was at least 5 years old already. But how could that be? She'd only put that seed in the soil the night before. After getting knocked over by Othello last night she wasn't even sure it had made it into the bucket with the dirt. Aside from that, a seed doesn't grow over night into a fifteen foot tree!
Emmy set her tea down on the nearby table sitting in between two cushioned patio chairs and crossed back over the the bucket on the other side of the roof. She slowly put her hand out and touched the tips of her fingers to the bark of the tree. As her fingers brushed along the tree and whispered through its delicate branches, the music that had called to her yesterday whispered back. She pulled her hand away and immediately the music ceased. This was crazy. She was surely going insane. This tree couldn't be real. That music, clearly couldn't be real. Yet as she reached her hand towards the tree once again, her fingers felt something solid under them. Emmy was at a loss for what to do.
Just then Othello came out of the french doors and began winding his way around her ankles. Well, the cat certainly didn't seem perturbed by the sudden appearance of a new tree on the roof. Othello went over to the bucket the willow was growing from and rubbed up against it as if to convey his approval of its unexpected existence. Once he had had enough attention, he made his way over to the fountain and fixed his large green eyes on the morning finches coming and going.
Emmy didn't know what to do. She wanted to know if she was going crazy. She didn't feel as if she were, but then that was the first sign, wasn't it? What she did know was that she was beginning to freak out a little and she needed to clear her head. So, weighing all her other options, she decided to head out for her morning jog...
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