Upon encountering the question

Quick feet flicked through leaves and grass and stung dull thuds on dry, pressed ground. A tree was falling in the woods and he wanted to hear it. But for how far and fast he’d have to run, time and gravity seemed unconcerned.

Concrete, sidewalk, crosswalk, curb had eventually become rock, leaf, log, frog. Each footstep spanned a distance, leaped an image, and linked a word by an association of motion too fast and fleeting not to be crystallized in a progression of comprehension. And yet, that tree would soon be falling and that question still would linger.

Saliva was setting when he arrived, viscid-thick around his tongue, while sunlit streams hung silent from the trees still tall and standing. Within the stasis illuminated by those thousand dappled beams flapped wild, scattered insect wings, unfurling downy feathers, pine dust ruffles floating subtle, and dung spores airborn and fungal.

He doubled over, hands on knees, spat and panted heavy. The gob he hocked was steeped in detritus well before it hit the ground, swirled muddy, sunk silent.