Our friend, who talks to wood

Unlike the rest, our friend could actually talk to wood. Not with words, and maybe Talking is a bit too strong of a term, but he could certainly communicate with the stuff. If a chair had a weak rear leg, on the right side, he would know to warn the obese woman about to sit down to favor the front and left, and he made a point to mention the weakness to one of her companions, should there be any.
Of course, the wood making up that chair would put off a cool aura, and only be able to tell him, with feeble pulsing, vaguely where it was weaker, or perhaps which grain still held the essence of the sun from a magnificent summer of growth. In the forest, alone, he would teeter on the very edge of madness, bombarded by the inexorable stubbornness and constant slow wailing of the various trees.
Firs tended to be a bit dull, as they never really changed their leaves, and put out hard spiky cones. But seasonal trees, like the chestnut, were a delight. They put off such phenomenal waves of euphoria at the first sign of thaw, rubbing against each other in the wind, sometimes putting forth tender green tendrils simply to taste the warming air, recurring frost be damned.
Now, our friend, he thought his whole life that everyone else could feel the odd doorjamb, or knew why he smiled at the quiet, confused story of a boyhood pencil. He actually never spoke about it, never mentioned it to anyone just as people don’t normally talk about the joys and intricacies of Breathing, until he was close to twenty, and fell in love with a girl one summer in Virginia, who loved to hurl whole pallets into midnight bonfires under obscured twinkling stars.