What is Love?

There is a worm chewing at me.

Crap.

I might as well die.

No jokes.

It's going to RAAAAAAIN.

Again?

It is, from 7 to 9 today and around midnight.

How did Sam know, it's a tree.

If it rains, I will be the first to know.

Correction. Before it rains, I already know.

You don't know that. That's insensitive. Predictions are evil. You are trying to rule time.

Sam's going through its phase.

You have a phase?

Every few years or so. I feel sentimental, as if all the juice in my soul is leaving my tree self through photosynthesis.

I think you mean evaporation.

See, Jarvis doesn't get literature. Evaporation? Who would say that? The juice in my soul evaporates?

Photosynthesis is really not better.

Every few years, there is this especially hot week. I don't wanna sound old but... guys, global warming is a thing. I feel it.

[Empties his water bottle] Here's some water.

Thanks for refilling my soul a tiny bit.

It's odd how your physical state impacts how you behave. When Alex was gaming on his laptop, and it was all heating up, I was the same.

Pac died.

Who's Pac?

You don't know her.

That's why I asked!

She's beautiful.

What species is she, if I may ask?

She's a weed.

The drug?

Tune your humor level down, Alex.

[Pointing at some grass] Wait, is she this one? I think she's still alive! I almost sat on her...

No. They got rid of her this morning. She turned... yellow.

I am terribly sorry. But, Sam, you know, a weed like Pac, they come and go.

But aren't you... a bit too big for her?

That's not very sensitive of you.

I feel sad.

That's a very reasonable feeling.

Why am I feeling sad only when she is gone? I mean, a few months later, I might forget about her, at best a few years. She's just one of the many weeds I have met. There is also Bruce, Cole, Minnie, Pete, Rick... They got rid of Natalie too, last month. I liked Natalie, but I didn't feel as bad. It took 5 names for hers to occur in my mind. In my prolonged and slightly boring life, there have been weeds, a frightening amount of them, for a mower at least. All I do is talk to them, but once in a while, I feel sad for them.

What's special about Pac?

If it rains, she will be the last one to know. But she never worried about that as others did. She said it's nice to be sensible.

What's to worry about the rain?

They loosen the soil too much, weeds with shallow roots get washed away.

I asked her if there are sharks in the ocean since we've never been close to the ocean. She said she would give it a shot at figuring it out.

How?

We looked at a map for directions, and she threw her seeds as far as she could in the direction of the ocean. If she keeps doing that and telling her children to follow, they can grow to the ocean and come back. Then I would know whether there are sharks in the ocean.

Wait, are they still here?

What?

The seeds.

No, I think some rain washed them away.

Oh...

If it helps, they wouldn't get to the ocean in your lifetime, not to mention back. There is a big enough river in the way.

Pac made peace with the squirrels. They are difficult to deal with... With a bit of my help, of course! I offered to tell them the best spot on me for food. And Pac would help Hulot with his back itch. She's very smart. In return, Hulot and his friends must not dig holes 30 centimeters from Pac, plus or minus 3 centimeters. Pac taught them to use a ruler. That's why I asked for it from you.

I was wondering.

I don't know if this is an appropriate question, but now that we are here - is that love? What do you feel for Pac?

Sam is a tree, though. I am not saying that you cannot love something very different from you, but isn't there something called reproductive isolation?

Love is not all about sex, Alex. You are the human being here. You would know.

No, but arguably the concept of love started from reproductive needs, wouldn't you say so? Then it developed into the complex thing we know today. Hey, Sam, are you a guy or a gal?

I don't know.

Jarvis, do trees have gender?

Sex, not gender. Sex in plants tends to be a property of the flowers, not the entire organism. There are 3 main patterns: Perfect (bisexual) flowers - stamens and carpels in the same flower; monoecious - separate male and female flowers on the same tree; dioecious - separate male and female individuals, which is the closest thing to what you mean here. Very few species are dioecious. I doubt that Sam is.

Hmm. So Sam is both, or neither. In that case, I don't think I would say Sam is capable of love. At least not the same type of love I experience.

What type of love do you experience?

Well...

Meaningless animal sex?

Nice, Sam.

My bad. Take that as a joke. Here is my actual problem, Sam. You don't need anyone.

Excuse me?

That was not an insult. If you put me alone in a room for ten years, I'd die, or come out crazy if I am lucky. I am a social animal. Yet, you would be fine. You'd stand here for a hundred years and be fine.

I would be bored.

But alive. Whatever love is for us, it grew out of needing each other. I don't know what it would be for, in something that needs no one. If we allow love to be like that, it seems like it would become... too floaty.

She knew she would never hear the answer, and she threw her seeds anyway, to a place absurdly bigger than her, unimaginably beyond her lifespan. Whatever you want to call that, it is not floaty.

What is it then, Sam? Do you feel anything that matches the description of love?

I don't feel the passion and desire in love, even if I know of it from talking to you folks. Honestly, I don't feel too strongly about anything. The closest I can feel is probably the feeling of light. It feels empowering.

I guess so. I have myelinated axons that have signals traveling at tens of meters per second.

Plants have electrical activities too, but they tend to be millimeters to centimeters per second. They cannot physically respond rapidly to their environments anyway.

But what you felt for Pac... Would you call it love?

I don't know.

You are a tree, without any needs. But Pac cared for you, in her own naive way. She is similarly immobile, but with a negligible lifespan compared to you. It's probably not your needing, but her giving.

Thank you for saying that. I don't have a word for it. Never seen anyone like that.

You gave her something priceless too.

Hm?

She was right under you. In this weather, that's the only thing protecting her water from evaporating at noon and preventing the heavy rain from washing her away. Your roots can also pull water up at night for her. You were what allowed her to be so nonchalant.

I didn't really do anything.

No, you were just there.

When she started to turn yellow, she told me something felt off. I realized my leaves had been blocking her sunlight.

Some trees can discriminate kin from strangers by root chemistry and grow less aggressively against relatives.

Pac was not a relative...

No.

So I asked Hulot to help bite some of my branches off, hoping she could recover.

Sam. It has been almost a week of rain. She wouldn't have enough sunlight regardless.

She told me she started to feel better, but they got rid of her anyway.

Damn it.

I am sorry, Sam.

It's OK. I know she has had a wonderful life. She told me that.

There. Told you.

I told you first.

You did.

Alex.

Yeah.

There's still a worm.

Do you want me to get it out?

If you don't mind. It's on the branch right above Hulot's place.

Be careful.

There is no worm here.

I still feel it.

Oh!

What's up?

I think it's the branch Hulot bit off, Sam. It's recovering.

Oh, alright then.

You didn't know?

I think faster than I feel, Alex.