The Neighbor's Tree

SERIES OF SHOTS:

A spry, middle-aged man wakes up before sunrise. 

Reaching over to the bedside table, he puts on his glasses. 

He springs from bed, and begins a series of robust stretches and lunges in his clean bedroom—which, though small, is well-kept, affording him plenty of space for his lunging exercises.

He sways and bends from the hips. Rotating his pelvis. He arches his back, far backward—then forward—like an exaggerated dance, though with no set beat or rhythm. Random. Swaying. 

With gusto. 

A single photograph hangs framed on the wall. It's an old picture of a young boy standing beside an old man. Very formal. They stand beside each other, arms at their sides, next to a young sapling, freshly planted in the ground.

The man looks at the picture between lunges. Between stretches which increasingly move his entire body's posture in extravagant poses in his room, dawn growing outside.

Later, in the kitchen. 

Though he is fit, we see him extract a whole pack of bacon from its wrapping and throw its entire contents on a pan. 

Six eggs are cracked into a fry pan.

Half a loaf of bread comes out of the toaster. Butter. 

He reads the newspaper at the table, eating a large, energy-dense breakfast. 

What is he reading? The weather report. He notes that it will be sunny outside. High temperature. Little to light cloud cover. He glances, between bites, at a framed photograph on the table before him.

It's another picture of him with his grandfather. Again, a very formal photograph of him standing beside the man—each of them noticeably older than the photograph in the bedroom. They have the same formal posture as before. Hands at their sides. Standing side-by-side, beside a growing young tree, taller than it was when it was first planted.

Later, in the shower. 

The water is streaming out of the shower head. We see the intense heat of the water. The dial is turned all the way to "H". Steam billows up from behind the shower curtain. But the man is unflinching under the scalding water.

His skin is red from the heat, but he washes everywhere, vigorously. Front and back (in that order). 

Standing in front of the mirror, he shaves even the shortest stubble from his chin, stretching his skin to cut each hair down to its root with care. No cuts, no blood — clean. 

He opens a tube of sunblock and empties the contents onto his freshly washed skin, rubbing it in deeply, favoring the parts of him that will be exposed to the punishing sun. Face. Hands. Neck. Ears. The top of his head. He rubs the sunblock in, deep.

Another photograph on the wall. He and his grandfather. He appears to be a teenager. His grandfather, quite old. They stand, arms down at their sides, facing forward—standing beside a larger tree, nearly full grown. 

The man stands before his closet. He is naked, but stares at a row of shirts and pants with a repeating pattern of wood plank across their fabric. 

He dresses. One leg at a time. Slipping the shirt over his body, buttoning up to the neck. 

He stares at a photo hung near his closet door. Himself, an adult, alone, standing formally beside the fully grown tree. The old man is not beside him, but instead, he holds a new young tree sapling in a pot in his hands. 

Inside the garage. The man is stretched, fed, bathed and clothed. 

He enters the garage and approaches a young tree. This was the young sapling in the previous picture, held in the pot. It's larger, but still quite young in a tree's long life. It is in a larger pot, but the pot has shoulder straps attached to it. 

The pot, and tree, can be worn.

The tree stretches up into the garage. It's got a pleasant splay of branches and leaves. He appreciates the tree as he approaches it. It is lush and green, though it is still far from the tall tree it will one day become.

Doing a few quick lunges and stretches, he picks up the tree, the pot, and hoists it onto his shoulders, over his back, wearing it like a backpack. 

The man, wearing his tree, steps out onto his back yard. He approaches the edge of his fence. The day is still young. The sun is still coming. The fence borders his and his neighbor's property—and the man stands resolutely before it, facing it. 

The man closes his eyes and thinks of his grandfather. The sun rises. His clothes match the exact pattern and color of his wooden fence. 

After a moment of pause, he feels the wind, and shifts his body in the direction the wind is blowing to. Gently. The branches and leaves he wears on his back, rustling. 

The wind blows a little more, and he sways with the wind. Blowing with it, his feet "planted" in the ground beneath him.

Soon, at every gust of wind, the man is lunging—proportionate to the strength of the breeze—with the same fervor he had when stretching upon waking earlier that morning. The tree shakes on his back, dancing in the breeze.

The man sways with all his heart and might. Soon, through his effort, sweat beads on his brow, shifting his body, and his heels, in unison with the blowing wind. 

The sun shines down on his skin, covered in sunblock. He will be out here all day, until sunset. It's going to be a hot, sunny day.

CUT TO:

The man's neighbor is awake, inside his house on the other side of the bordering fence. 

He stands in his kitchen, looking out the kitchen window, holding a cup of coffee. 

The neighbor stares at the wind in the breeze on the other side of the fence, unaware of the man its strapped to, shifting with every gust. 

To the neighbor, it just looks like a normal tree, planted in the earth on his neighbor's property, on the other side of the fence.

He sighs happily, looking at the tree. He likes looking at it every morning. He doesn't really know why.

CREDITS:

The tree continues to blow from the view of the neighbor's kitchen window, over the wooden fence.

A bird lands, and perches, on one of its branches.

The wind picks up, and the tree sways in the breeze.