If trees could talk

7.13am and David is sat in a world of his own imagination which is generally where he was at his happiest each day although that would of course depend exactly where his mind wandered off to. En route to the train station this morning he'd had to weave his way through piles of discarded junk food littered in a car park. That despite there being a litter bin in which to place such things a stones throw away from where they now sat and of course the cars or vans they'd arrived and departed in which would make such excellent transit carriers for rubbish if only put to use.

From the train window he was looking at the discarded orange leaves that carpeted the bases of trees that had lived much longer than he and putting any potential threat from property developers to one side, should continue to survive long after he had gone. He'd quickly made the link between the trees and the youth of today and was busy imagining what a conversation might be like between the two parties if only you could get a tree to talk and someone in their late teens or early twenties to listen. Both he reasoned threw things on the ground, one born of necessity and survival, one born out of bone idleness. In a weird way both sets of the detritus could provide nourishment for its environment. Biology was never one of his strongest points but he knew enough that trees dropping their leaves annually would eventually lead to nutrients being put back into the soil, or at least something like that. Discarded food waste would feed the gulls if nothing else. Would the tree sound hypocritical if it could talk pointing out all that was wrong in littering only to be caught on the hop with the obvious reply which would be to point out that well you did it too. The tree whilst magically being able to talk couldn't uproot itself and find a wall to go talk to which would be an easier and less painful experience. What would the tree say about all the work and effort they put in every day to save the environment whilst these silly little humans were driving round in circles listening to repetitive noises that to anyone passing sounded like a dumpf, dumpf, dumpf? Of course that wasn't all the time, that would be unfair of the tree to suggest so because as we've already ascertained sometimes humans stop long enough to refuel their bodies and throw the packaging on the ground. Was that the modern day meaning to the circle of life? 

"Excuse me," said a softly spoken female voice which had appeared from nowhere and was now talking into his left ear jolting him back to reality like a kink in the railway tracks. He gazes north westerly up at the voice which he's ascertained belongs to a woman he guessed was in her mid 20s. "I'm so sorry," she adds and makes what David assumes to have been her best apologetic looking face. It wasn't bad to be fair. Far better than he could have conjured up especially prior to half seven on a Tuesday morning or any morning come to think about it that didn't happen to be Tuesday. Today of course still being very much in the earliest influences of it being very much a Tuesday, which it would remain to be until it wasn't anymore and it would commence as another Wednesday just in case you'd not figured out how days of the week start, continue on and end. 

"Would you mind?" She asks and points at the seat.  

He considers being pedantic but quickly decides to leave her be. She's polite and more importantly for his sensitive nostrils, not part of the great unwashed that frequently dump themselves down next to him without asking 'Would you mind if I sit next to you?' That's what she should have asked of course. 'Would you mind?' Being more akin to asking someone saying would you look after something in his thoughts process at least.

'Would I mind the seat? Of course. Do you think it's likely to get up and run off because I was busy ruminating on what a tree might say to a teenager over the subject of detritus and I'm not entirely convinced I can do both at once but I'm willing to give it my best shot.' 

On another morning to another person that's what David might have replied. Instead he smiles at her and opens the palm of his hand and waves it over the chair as if performing a magic trick. He puts a little tick in his mental checklist for the day that he's been nice to someone which means he didn't feel the need to try to commit a second act of kindness at any other point between now and midnight. If the other 100 or so things on his checklist are ticked off as easily then today might not be as bad as weaving through litter had suggested that it might be.