“I’m sorry, I no understand log language too good. So if your next answer is ‘yes,’ try bouncing only once for it. And if it’s ‘no,’ bounce twice, okay?” They bounced once. “Fine. Now you are following me?” and they bounced once. “Why?” and they bounced three times. This was way beyond me, as the only words in log language I knew were the ones I either made up or they had before I met them — one bounce for “yes” and two for “no.” “Look. Why don’t we make three bounces mean ‘I don’t know’?” and they bounced twice. “Three bounces already means something else in your language?” and they bounced once. “If we’re going to understand one another, we have to get the right number of bounces for ‘I don’t know.’ Let’s make it four.” They bounced twice. “Five, then?” and they bounced once. “Good, Then one bounce means ‘yes.’ Two ‘no.’ Three doesn’t mean ‘I don’t know.’ I’ve no idea what four bounces means. But five means ‘I don’t know.’ Now. You two know your way pretty good around these woods, right?” and they bounced once. “Great. Do you know a shortcut to a highway where I could get a bus or hitch to California?” They bounced six times together, paused briefly, bounced three times and stopped. “Too complicated. I don’t even know what three bounces means yet. Do those six bounces plus the three mean that highways or buses don’t run through here?” They bounced eight times and stopped. Then one bounced twice. Then the other bounced ten times. Then both bounced nineteen times together, moving toward each other as they bounced till they nearly touched, then farther away from one another and stopped.
“I don’t understand. Did all that bouncing and moving around mean a single sentence or statement in your language?” They bounced once and tapped both ends. “Both?” and they bounced once. “I’m at least beginning to grasp some of your language,” and they bounced once, paused, bounced twice. “But not a whole lot, that what you’re saying?” They bounced once, fell to the ground and rolled over and got up and bunked their top ends once on the ground. “What? I just said something insulting and you’re mad? Or funny and you laughed?” They bounced twice, stopped, bounced once. “Tell me, though. Since one log uses the other to speak with, do you always stick together?” and they bounced once. “What happens if one gets carted off or even rots away, heaven forbid?” One log fell to the ground and stayed still. The standing log bumped and swayed till it fell on top of the log. Then it got up, scooped up earth with its bottom end till it covered the log on the ground with leaves and dirt. It then bumped in a circle around the log, repeatedly falling across the mound and getting up wobbling and bouncing twice. Then it circled the mound, but farther and farther away from it, falling here and swaying and staggering there, but always much less so, till I said “After everything’s over including the mourning period, it looks for another log to be with?” The log under the leaves jumped up beside the standing log, and the two tapped top ends together three times and bounced once. “What are you? Male or female or mixed together something like that?” and they bounced once, stopped, twice, stopped, then once. “Married?” and they bounced five times. “How can I begin to explain it?” and they bounced three times. “Three bounces means I should try explaining it?”
They bounced once. Then they knocked their top ends together, rolled completely over a few times and jumped up bouncing and tapped their top ends together.
“What? ‘Hurray’ because I finally found out what three bounces means?” and they bounced once.
“Okay. Now that we can speak together a little, I’ll ask again if you know a shortcut to the highway, and if you do, where?”
They bounced twelve times together, weaving around one another as they bounced. Then one bounced six times, then the other. Then they bounced twenty-four times together, fell down, rolled back and forth a lot though not completely over, bunking each other at either end every other time. Then they got up, bounced fifty or so times, stopped, a hundred or so times and stopped, this time with their top ends leaning on one another.
“What did all that mean except for your being tired at the end?” They went through the same long routine, though instead of ending up leaning on one another, they rolled off each other’s top ends to the ground. “You saying it’s something I can’t understand yet?” They forced themselves up by leaning against one another as they rose, bounced once and fell down. “Too bad,” and from their flat positions they bounced one of their ends. “Later, why not accompany me if you’re heading my way?” They got up, bounced five times and collapsed. “‘Accompany.’ You know. To go with someone,” and I bounced a few steps up the road, my feet coming down together each time. They got up and bounced four times. “I’m sorry, but those four bounces of yours I never figured out.” They bounced four times and stopped, repeated this fourbounces-and-stop number over and over till I said “I’m saying I still don’t know. Does it mean ‘to watch’ or ‘Listen!’ or something?” and they bounced once, stopped, bounced about ten feet up the road together and turned around and bounced back. “Then ‘walking alone’ is probably just one of you bouncing about ten feet and back?” and they bounced once. “Well, this might be a more difficult verb to explain. But how do you say ‘to sleep,’ as I can see you’re both as tired as I am,” and they fell down and didn’t move. We slept the night by the road. In the morning we set off together, the logs chattering constantly to one another as we walked. Finally I said “Nice day, hey?” as I was getting dizzy with all their bouncing and falling and rolling around me which I couldn’t understand. And also because I felt left out and wanted to learn more of their language for the time I was still with them. They bounced twice, tapped their top ends against my knees once, and took a left at the crossroad we’d come to. “Where you going?” They bounced four times and went farther along the road. “Well, it’s sure been nice knowing you,” and they fell down, rolled a little ways to me, rolled the same distance back, got up and bounced a bunch of bumps up the road without turning around again, and rolled into the woods. “Wait. Which of these roads do I take?” and I ran after them. In the woods were two other logs of the same kind of white birch tree as my couple, bouncing on the same spot faster and faster and then bouncing out to meet the logs whom I knew. When they met, they all bunked their top ends together once, so that they all touched at the same time. Then one of the logs whom I knew fell to the ground and the other log bunked its mate’s middle very hard. When the log managed to stand again, the three other logs leaned on its top end for a while. Then the two couples bounced farther into the woods. I followed them. Not only to later learn which might be the better road to avoid. But also because I’ve never been an expert on anything before. And here, out of the blue, I was becoming an expert on what was probably the one subject left that nobody was an expert on yet: the language, customs and behavior of logs. They stopped bumping along after a mile, lay down like a plus sign with all four bottom ends meeting in the middle and stayed there for about an hour. Maybe that was how they rested up after what to them might have been a long journey. Or that could be the custom or even the latest fad among logs, to sleep that way after two couples of the same tree type had either met by accident or plan. But they eventually got up and began talking. There must be sentences or topics in log language that can only be spoken through the combined movements and rest breaks of two couples instead of one. Or else some rule that forbids logs from speaking any other way but together once they meet. Because these two couples were always speaking in relation to one another and never gabbed on by themselves. For instance, after one long stop, all four logs bounced up and down ten times. Then one log bounced six times while another log swung at it and the other two logs fell down and bunked their top ends. Then these two logs rolled around at the same time but in different directions, while the other two were bouncing to and away from one another but around the rolling logs. Then three logs all at once butted the fourth log to the ground and covered part of it with leaves. The buried log dug itself out, got up on the top end of another log and bounced up and down on it, while the other two logs rolled underneath them every time this double log bounced into the air. Later, they walked a ways into the woods till they came to a lake. There, twenty-eight white birch logs of about the same length and thickness were bouncing in place faster and faster and then bumped and rolled out to meet them. When the two groups met, they went through the same greeting as the two couples before. They got in a circle and bunked top ends together, getting as close as possible to having all their top ends touching or nearly touching at the same time. Then a log from the couple my couple had met before, rammed its top end into the middle of its mate. When the struck log managed to stand again, the other thirty-one logs fell on top of it. Then without getting up, all thirty-two logs rolled into the lake. They floated to the other side and back without splashing, so I couldn’t tell whether logs speak in the water. They all started talking at once when they returned to the side I was on. Nine logs bounced together while six logs rolled around them and three logs tapped their tops on the ground and twelve of the remaining fourteen logs buried parts of the other two, and things like that. I realized that log language gets more and more complicated with the number of logs added to the conversation. It could be the most complex language there is. Maybe impossible for anyone to learn completely unless he brought all the white birch logs of the world together and for a long time watched them speak. It’s also possible that only logs of the same tree that had been cut up into logs become couples. And that if one logloses its mate for some reason, it has to find a log from that same tree who has also lost its mate. Or one from the same tree who has always been alone and speechless before because it was cut last and became the odd log. What I never learned for sure was how these couples arranged to meet here. It seemed that this information was carried from grove to grove in this forest by a couple of messenger logs. The log couple I first met, for example, as they were the only logs I saw on the road. I didn’t exactly know. These thoughts were mostly guesswork on my part, formed from the bits and pieces of conversation I was able to pick up from these thirty-two logs. The only thing I came closest to being a hundred percent sure about, was that all thirty-two logs were cut from the same tree. Not only from their conversations but because of their similar length, size around, condition of their bark and the way it peeled. I followed the sixteen couples to a forest clearing where there were hundreds of white birch logs of various lengths, girths and bark conditions. The greeting ceremony between the two groups lasted an hour because of the difficulty of getting all their top ends as close to bunking one another as they could at the same time.