It was the Tree that made him stop. He saw it in plenty of time to avoid it, but his comrades were pressing so close on either side that he couldn't decide whether to swerve to the right or to the left until it was too late. Now he stood facing it, unsure of what to do. How strange. Instead of jumping right back into the fray, he simply stood and looked up at the Tree.
It wasn't an especially large tree, but Enoch nevertheless felt a twinge of awe or respect as he looked up. Its branches formed a black silhouette against the dull cloudy sky, and Enoch felt as if he should say, "Excuse me," or, perhaps, "Thank You."
He turned and looked at the throng rushing by on either side. Most of them were focused ahead, but an occasional lemming did glance at Enoch. Was that fear he saw in their eyes? Or anger? Or mockery? He began to feel as if he were a great disappoinment to his race by allowing himself to pull aside for a few minutes. For this, of course, was only a brief diversion, this stopping by the Tree. In a minute he must find an opening, rejoin his own kind, and continue the journey. And so the scorn he imagined he saw in their eyes must be unfounded.
Then he turned around, facing uphill, his back to the Tree, his face toward the home he had left so far behind. It would be an arduous journey back, an unthinkable choice. Yet now that he had stopped, a certain calm entered into Enoch. Gazing up the long slope, he slowly realized that he was daring for the first time to think the unthinkable. He saw a few more trees up there, and could almost feel them beckon to him. How long he stood thus, he could never later guess, but it seemed a very long time before he took his first step uphill.
His progress was slow, for two reasons. For one thing, it was uphill and against the lemming traffic that continued its frenzied pace. Besides, as Enoch instinctively realized, a slow pace would make it less likely for the onslaught to trample him. By moving slowly and deliberately uphill, Enoch gave them plenty of time to avoid him. Like an immovable object, they swerved around him to the right and to the left. "Like a tree," he thought. Being regarded by his old compatriots as an immobile object, or at least as a non-lemming did not make Enoch regret his decision to return home. Nor did it inspire unkind thoughts toward his fellows, though it was now clear that he was a complete alien to them. His heart began to melt with pity for them as they rushed by in their hopeless pursuit, and he turned his thought into a kind of prayer for them. "Like a tree," he prayed, "May I become to one of them like the Tree that turned me around." Thus he continued, as he walked slowly back toward home.
There was great finality to the Click. Then silence. So that was that. Daniel numbly hung up the phone and sat motionless for several minutes, letting the full realization of it all slowly sink in. Surely his professional future was in great jeopardy now. No, it was beyond that; he may as well admit it. His career was now a complete shambles. Curiously, he wasn't angry. Disappointed, drained, weary, very weary, but not angry. In fact, Daniel felt a quietness about him that he couldn't explain. If he didn't know himself better, he would have even called it a feeling of relief. The window facing him revealed the grey autumn afternoon, a mirror of his soul. Without calling the office, he picked up his jacket and went out.
Daniel stopped walking, and, as if for the first time, looked about himself. He observed the dark tree branches, now almost bare of leaves. He scanned the bleak autumn sky, and breathed the earthy smell of fallen leaves. To his left, a sidewalk led up some stone steps to ivy-covered brick walls and arched windows with stone sills - a church. Without thinking, Daniel walked up the steps and tried one of the heavy wooden doors. It opened.