Once there was a mouse who loved his home in the forest.

On warm, summer days, he would go for long walks through the woods; the canopy of the great, tall, trees providing shade from the hot sun above. In the fall, mouse would scurry through the fallen leaves along his path, listening as the leaves rustled and crunched. In the winter, mouse would occasionally venture out to listen as the trees creaked and groaned in the winter wind.

But mouse’s favorite season was springtime.

The ground that was once frozen was now soft and squishy, and tracks of friend and foe were easy to spot in the mud.

The forest floor, while still scattered with gray, soggy leaves, became spotted with little specks of green pushing through the soil.

The towering trees, whose branches were covered in buds, seemed ready to burst open at any moment. Mouse loved the trees best of all. And so every spring, mouse would wander through the woods, and stop at each great, enormous tree waking up from its long, winters nap and wonder, “how did you get here? Where did you come from? How could something so giant and magnificent just…be?”