The insomnia gnomes reared their ugly little bestockinged heads again, so this morning I got to an early start. While I don’t love not sleeping, I do love observing this little town in the wee hours, just as it’s waking up. Especially on the empty downtown strip. There’s such an air of expectancy, of waiting; it’s as if the pavement has absorbed the energy from the thousands of people who walk it during the day, and stores it up carefully to warm itself during the evening hours. It’s a far cry from walking about in, say, a dead urban area, in which not even the ghosts of past pedestrians linger.
So I was walking along, generally of cheerful disposition (despite the lack of sleep and the slight headache from last night’s bourbon), when I came across the most terrifying tree I have ever yet encountered in my travels.
