exactly like us, except...

Rules for an imaginary world:

1. It takes one year to die.
2. Everybody speaks in a slightly different language.
3. Metal grows on plants.

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the tree climb went like this:
the limbs that were the lowest were still too far off the ground for her to reach. so she climbed up my back and onto my shoulders. from my shoulders she stepped into the arms of the old pine. she hugged the bark, and her cheek was sticky with sap. she tasted it, and was happy. up she went, and i didn't bother to stop her. some things can only be learned by climbing trees, and i wanted her to learn those things. it was time, i thought. a month before, she had begun calling to me in ways i didn't understand. the way she was putting words together was different than they way i had taught her- i was unprepared for this, even though they all told me that it would happen. the hill where the trees grew was dark, the moon was under blankets and the clouds were low enough to touch the tops of the trees. i had climbed the same trees, when i was her age, but during the day and without worrying about who was watching. i knew what she would find at the top.
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the way that dylan had died was a mystery. i didn't know when it happened, and so we didn't know when she would be gone for good. the middle of every sentence was steeped in drama, and i knew she had too much to say. "when you find someone that you understand," she used to tell me, "then you know that you can't let that person leave. they might be the only one." i was going to miss the way that she talked. little things were different, the shapes her mouth made when pronouncing the scientific names of plants, and the way she made vowels dance in the middle of words, those were things that I certainly didn't do. but without thought, I could understand what she was saying. When people ask me what it was like, all I can come up with is music. we spoke words and sentences and inside out philosophical phrases, but we heard it as music. I wasn't sure that I would ever find anyone like that again.
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it was well past midnight, and she was up high, out of my sight. i laid on my back, looking up through the tangle of dark branches, and watched the clouds move quickly away from the ocean, which I could hear crashing against the earth at the bottom of the hill. she called down by way of tossing pinecones and pieces of bark, and i was amazed at how safe i felt, with her way up in the sky. it was dylan's idea, to teach her how to climb. "she should know what's up there, at the top of the trees at the top of the hill." i was worried. i knew they watched the place, and that if they found her up in the trees, they would take her. and i wasn't sure if i would be able to find her again. a pinecone fell, close to my head, and made the sound of buzzing bees. she was close to the top now, and she was learning how to tell me that. the metal plants began to buzz, too, illogically beautiful.
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over breakfast one morning, a tuesday in september, Dylan said to me, "i don't know when it happened." i pretended i didn't know, but i had seen her body lying completely still the night before, and the day before that i had noticed that her cheeks remained cool and pale when we kissed- the redness was gone, and would never be coming back. my hand shook and i took a sip of coffee. "henry, i'm dead," she said, and placed two of my fingers on the inside of her wrist, where no pulse pushed life through her skin.