"No. Absolutely not. I'm not helping you with this."
Tim knew that Mindy wouldn't be easy to convince this time around, but he stood his ground and pressed on with his argument. "It's only going to be for one night. I promise, this isn't going to be like the run-up to Christmas at all. And if I do start going on and on about wanting to stay that way, you have my permission to drag me away from there."
"Tim," she said, with as much patience in her voice as she could muster, "you have less than a week left before your appointment. Now is not the time to go off and try to find yourself, or whatever it is you're talking about. All you have to do is stay right here for a couple more days and you're home free, and all of this will be like a crazy dream."
The idea that Tim, in an impromptu, rambling fashion, was trying to describe to Mindy came about like this. The more he had stared out the window in these first few frigid days of the new year, the more he had felt like he was missing out. And not like a kid staying home on a snow day, either. It had started to dawn on him: if he was a Christmas tree, and Christmas was over, what did that make him now? The same thing he had been before the Christmas season had kicked off: a tree. And, aside from the month of December, a tree belonged outdoors, fully exposed to the fresh wintry air. It was exactly the same train of thought he'd been on back in November, before it derailed when he'd let himself get swept up in all the Christmas stuff.
This time, he felt sure that he was onto something. And he was more than willing to compromise. He wasn't planning on leaving his apartment behind and moving out to the forest full-time. All he was asking for was one single night to indulge his body in what it needed. One night for taking a chance he was surely never going to get handed to him again. One night to step outside, dig his roots into the earth, and really experience what it was like to be a tree. And he suggested doing it on the night before his appointment.
"If you really need to do this," Mindy said exasperatedly, "and I really don't think you do, wouldn't it be enough to just stand on the street corner and get some fresh air out there? Why on earth do you want me to drive you out to a spot miles outside of town, where nobody would ever notice you were there?"
"That's exactly it," Tim replied. "Since I got changed, I've been outside plenty of times. I know what that feels like. It's not just fresh air I'm looking for, I really want to understand what it's like when there are no human beings around, just other trees. Even if it doesn't turn out to be all that profound, I just... I need to know. I would be kicking myself if I had to live the rest of my life, never knowing what I missed out on."
"Tim, listen to me. You are not a tree, even if you might look like one. You're never going to experience what it's like to be a tree, because a real tree would never experience anything. And no matter where you go, you can't find out what it's like when there are no human beings around, because you'll always be there yourself." These were the sorts of self-affirmations Mindy had heard other severely changed people tell themselves, but she couldn't relate to it herself. And she had no idea if that sentiment would mean anything to Tim.
"I know that," he shot back, with all the snappy energy of a man who hadn't actually considered that at all. "But it doesn't... feel that way to me, not deep down." He paused for a moment, then sighed. "You know, the longer this goes on, the more I start to realize... I don't know if I ever really saw myself as a human being in the first place."
"But that'll change the moment you get turned back," Mindy pleaded, not wanting to know where he was going with this.
"No. I mean before Halloween," Tim said. "Even when I really was human on the outside, I always kinda felt like an inanimate object that just hangs out in the background of life. That people never pay very much attention to. That doesn't really want to have too much attention paid to it. That gets stuffed in an inflatable costume at the office Christmas party and told to stand in the corner and not say a word." The sound of his breathing, even though it was a magical illusion and he actually had no lungs, was deep and unsteady, like he was letting the last of his insides spill out as he spoke.
"That was me before any of this happened," he continued, shakily. "And now it's literally what I am. Don't you think that has to mean something? Why else would this happen to me – hell, to any one of us – unless we were supposed to learn something from it? And how am I supposed to get anything out of this experience of being a tree unless I actually... you know... experience it full-on? I know my previous idea didn't work out, and I totally understand why you don't trust me anymore. But I just can't go back to the person I was before. Not without something in me changing."
"Tim, that just isn't how life works," Mindy said, gently pushing back against his words. "Even with magic in the world. And yes, I've actually been reading that book you got me, so I know a thing or two about magic now. Speaking of which, they've got to start teaching this stuff in schools. Everybody's gonna need to know how it works, the way things are going. And I think you should probably read it, too. Magic is not destiny. I think that's an exact quote from somewhere in there. It's a force of nature just like gravity or anything else. It doesn't do things for a reason, unless someone's controlling it with a purpose in mind. And what happened on Halloween was anything but. Tim, there are millions of people going through this right now, in one form or another. All of them just ended up as whatever they happened to be wearing. It's as simple as that. Please tell me you understand that you're not the protagonist of a story. This is just the world we live in now."
Tim said he understood. And he didn't kick up any more of a fuss when Mindy told him again, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be taking him to any forest, grove, or copse, outside of town or anywhere else. But he wasn't listening anymore. He had already made his mind up. And he knew that what he was planning didn't depend on her help.