Quincy Teabag

Hello. I am Quincy Teabag. I’m quite ordinary, I think. I can’t really say that about myself, I suppose. I was sitting in my house the other day and I decided to go out for a walk. I don’t go out walking very often, I like staying at home, but because it was sunny I put on my boots and went outside. Up the road there’s this gate that goes into some woods, but I’d never been into the woods before. I quite like animals so I went in there hoping to see something like a Dyr, or Foreseid. I like Foreseids because their fins are thin like paper, and they have pretty coloured hair on them. Their claws are really sharp, though.

I wandered into the woods and I got a little lost. It’s really big in there and there are loads of Bark-spiders and those big things with the loads of legs that I forget the name of. I thought to myself that I should have tied a rope around my waist so I couldn’t get too far from the gate. I haven’t got a very good sense of direction, you know. I started getting quite scared because I heard some noises that I couldn’t put names to. By the time night came around I was a gibbering wreck, but that could also have been because I hadn’t had any herbal tea since the morning.

There was a huge clearing to my left so I went that way and in the middle of the clearing was a great big tree. Well, it wasn’t very big when I was far away, but as I got closer it seemed to be getting really big. Not like when you move a stone closer to you and it’s a bit bigger than before, because it’s closer, it was more like it was growing whenever I moved. I turned around and walked toward it with my back to it and when I turned around it was bigger than ever. The tree was still very far away so I continued on toward it. When I finally came to the foot of the tree it stopped growing and I could see how big it really was. I looked up and I couldn’t see the top of the roots, because they were so high above my head. It was quite sheltered at the base so I lay under one of the huge leaves and closed my eyes.

It was dark when I woke up, but then I opened my eyes and it turned out that it was actually quite light. I was in the shade and it was cold so I went around to the other side of the tree to warm up in the sunlight. It must have taken me at least ten minutes to get to the other side of the tree because the circumference was so great. I was so tired the night before that I didn’t bother coming around to this side of the tree and I noticed that there was an ornate door with hinges made of what looked like metal but had the grain of wood. I used the door knocker (it was in the shape of a terrifying creature with crazy wild fur and massive teeth) which made a loud echoing sound within the tree, but there was no answer. I pushed the door and it opened, so I went inside.

“Hello?” I shouted inside, “Hello? Sorry to intrude…” and there was no reply because it was empty. Far across the room was a great staircase that split at the top, like a giant ‘Y’ shape that criss-crossed upward around the inside walls of the tree. I couldn’t see the top but I had a weird feeling that something amazing was going to be at the top. I ran toward the stairs, unable to contain my excitement, and started ascending. I took the right path because I like having the wall to my left; it feels like something bad will happen if I don’t do it that way. I expected to get very tired when I climbed the stairs but I felt full of energy inside the tree, like some kind of force was filling me with strength.

The farther up I went, the stranger my thoughts became. I started to talk out loud.
“How is it so light in here? Well, it just is, isn’t it? There’s no point in knowing, really, if it just ‘is’. Scientists would like to know, but I’m not a scientist. I don’t like scientists, they push things to the limit and the tree wouldn’t like that to happen, no. The tree doesn’t like scientists. You don’t do you, tree? This is silly, talking to a tree. It’s not like you can reply.” and so on. I don’t remember everything else I said but the tree didn’t reply.

The light inside the tree was getting brighter the further up I went and it was almost blinding when I reached the top. The top of the tree was a large platform suspended by strong-looking creepers. I hopped from the summit of the staircase to the platform and it swung slightly. It was hard to walk at first because I had been walking up stairs for so long, and the platform was moving a bit. It didn’t take up the whole area of the tree, like the bottom floor did; the platform was more of a path to the other side of the tree where there was a door. I reached the door and peeked out, worried there wasn’t a floor to stand on and I’d fall to the floor of the forest. It was a balcony with more stairs leading higher into the tree, but on the outside of the tree instead of being inside like the stairs I just climbed.

I’d come this far so I decided to continue on, and I didn’t think I could climb back down the stairs anyway. They were still there just as they were when I went up them, but it felt like something was stopping me from going back down them. It was nice on the outside of the tree. I saw some winged things flying around. Not feathery things, little fluffy things with powdery wings.  The warm air was perfect. I loved the tree. The stairs on the outside went around to the left, which I didn’t like very much because I wanted the wall to my left. It was okay, though, the tree made me feel nice and not like something bad would happen. I felt reassured by the tree. The stairs had a balustrade which was good too, because I didn’t want to fall off.

The branches of the tree were sticking out above and below the stairs and sometimes I had to duck but I didn’t mind, because the tree was so kind to me by putting a balustrade up and making me feel safe. The winged creatures had stopped flying around me. I don’t think they liked me very much. I didn’t need them, though. I didn’t need anyone. At last I reached the pinnacle and there was a chamber with a little window in it. I went inside and stood inside and looked out of the window with my arms by my sides. There was no view from the window. It wasn’t like it was dark and I couldn’t see anything, because I could see fine and it was daylight outside the chamber. It was about lunch time I think. There was just nothing outside the window. No colour, not black or white, no forest below and no sun above.

It was bright inside the chamber. The tree smiled at me. I think it smiled; the tree doesn’t have a mouth because it is a tree, but it felt like a smile and it made me happy. I looked around the chamber and the door was gone, and the window was gone and there was no wall to my left. I felt like something bad was happening, but the tree reassured me and everything was good because I was in the tree.

The light in the chamber is fading, and I don’t think I like the tree any more.