Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 02

TREE OF LIFE BOOK II

CHAPTER 02

"You know, I've never been up here." Brian followed Nicole into her apartment and closed the door after them.

Nicole lived on the seventeenth floor of the newest high-rise in the downtown area. When you walked into her place, it was silver and glass everything. Posh of the posh, so it was said. Well, she could afford it. At the tender age of twenty-six, she was the youngest practising full-time gynaecologist in the biggest hospital in the hippest part of town. She had a reputation for being the best, and the brightest, so although young, the hospital considered her a real asset and paid her handsomely to retain her services. She was doing well.

Nicole reached out and slapped her friend's shoulder. "Would you like something to drink?"

Brian shrugged. "Why not?"

Nicole brought out a bottle of bourbon and smacked it on the table.

Brian smiled. "Oh, you mean, a 'Drink'."

Brian took the bottle, reached for the milk glass he was handed and poured the bourbon in until it was full. He downed it in one go and began to pour out another one.

"Well, save some for me." Nicole smiled and snatched the bottle away the second he was finished. She brought out a blender for herself.

~~~

Alcohol was a funny thing to the three of them. When they became of legal drinking age, they had all tried some over the normal course of things. But within a short period of time, they had come to realize the chemical didn't affect them like it did other people. That was, other people who had never known the Tree. It always took a heavy, heavy drink with enough alcohol in it to bowl over a small farm animal, before it would give any one of them the slightest buzz, and that for only a few minutes at a time, if it worked at all. This seemed a neat novelty at first, especially in college. On nights when the three were feeling particularly impish, they would set up a hustle and get as much money on the table as possible, and then have Nicole waltz in, with her golden hair and angelic face, and drink all the other heavy-set, bearded, grown men under the table, systematically. After a while though, it became boring and just one big disappointment. In life, as it turned out, it helped sometimes if you could get drunk. And they never could.

~~~

The two finished off the last of Nicole's third bottle of bourbon. Now for the scotch.

Brian began pouring out a tall one for himself. He set it aside and didn't drink it right away. As he stared into the glass, he turned it around and around, slowly. "Nikki, you know I meant to call."

She nodded. "I know. For three years." She smiled and then made a face.

Brian laughed. "You're such a..."

She smiled. She reached out and touched his hand. "I'm just teasing." She patted it a few times. "You know I understand. I do."

And she did. How could she not understand? She knew his mind inside out, just as he knew hers. Well, perhaps not so well she could read his every thought, but the three of them shared a link of sorts and could tell if one or the other was near and also a sense of how they were feeling at the time. That's how Nicole knew it was Brian in the shadows earlier when she had been running in the park.

~~~

Yet another gift to the three of them after the incident with the Tree-this mind link. There have been many others since those early days, now that Nicole thought about it, though they didn't realize it at first. At the start, the three had assumed the changes brought by the Tree were only physical, superficial, that the three of them had just gotten taller and stronger, but as it turned out, that was only the beginning. As the years went by, things got even better and not only physically. Not only were they stronger, they were smarter too. Like a lot. All three finished High School early and went on to University studying the logical choice-Medicine. Putting in extra work, they managed to finish that early as well. Nicole took a further step after that and went on to specialize in gynaecology upon graduation. That was the mental part.