Warning this explanation will only make sense to those that roleplay – i.e. D&D or the like:
To put it in context our party of adventurers (in a D&D'eske fantasy game), dispatched the goblins that used a ruined temple to raid the nearby area to discover a crypt under the temple. Thinking it would hold treasure, the party raided it, only to discover the goblins had looted it a long time ago, but had left behind an oracle of sorts – a goblin skull that contained the spirit of a long dead shaman that spoke in riddles about the future. Unfortunately my character (elf wizard for those that want to know, and now I've told you, those that didn't want to know as well) was rendered useless by a typical dungeon trap at the end of last week so I have to admit I didn't pay that much attention to what had gone on this week. So when later I was reminded I was supposed to "write the log" for this week this was the result:
It was a log, and could even be described as a big log, but it was nothing more, but then again, it was nothing less. It sat surrounded by clumps of grass, although these grew only where their roots were tucked up underneath it, the ground further out stamped flat and hard by many, many days, and with too many to count, goblin and now other feet walking past or nervously twitching as the bodies they were attached to sat and waited. The very same bums had rubbed the bark on it top surface to a smooth almost polished surface, and in several places worn it down to the expose the wood underneath.
Because this particular log, one part of a great oak tree that had sprung up at the edge of the graveyard of the temple, already ruined when the acorn it sprung from, found purchase in the collapsing stone wall, was not just another log from the trunk of that tree. All the rest were now part of the great circle of life, their carbon entering the atmosphere as the combustion product carbon dioxide or into the soil as ash. But this log was special. It was set aside to be more useful than just another hunk of dead tree to feed the fire. A particular configuration of secondary branch stubs and a 'just right' diameter meant it made a stable, almost comfortable seat.
So dragged into the ruins of the temple by the goblin leader of the time, his name lost to history, and ultimately history was in no way poorer because it, the log was used at an exposed seat for all those bought before that forgotten chief and all the other nu-nameable ones since. Most recently, if the log could feel emotions, it might have felt lonely, as there had not been any goblin bums on it, or goblin feet nervously tapping it, but it didn't feel anything, it couldn't. It was just a dead bit of tree. Anyway, if it could feel anything, the agony of being slowly eaten from the inside out by a myriad of insects, all boring, burrowing and chewing on the bulk of it, would drown out any other possible feelings, so being an unfeeling and unthinking bulk was probably a blessing.
Speaking of thinking, if it could think, which is a preposterous idea to consider a plant, even one as majestic as a giant oak tree, could think, it would not be interested in the goings on in a stone walled chamber deeply buried directly beneath the ground it sat on. That there were a number of non-goblin creatures there, did in no way trouble its non-existent thought processes. That one was a thinking inanimate object, just like it, if only that it was inanimate remains of a living thing, so really a long dead goblin skull was only barely like it at all, so the simile falls down at that point, but, that this thinking skull, spent a great deal of time tracing the tangled web of future time lines extending in a multi-dimensional web from the present, mattered not one iota to the log.
It was incapable of noticing the way the creatures camped for the night, moving with the same fluidity that was impossible for it, as a log, it was not capable of anything like that type of movement, unless there was an incredibly improbable chain of events that would lead to it being picked up by a passing giant, who's club had incredibly broken just before it strolled over this very patch of forest, maybe broken from a fight with an equally unbelievable gorgon or basilisk, or to less strain the bounds of possibility, the giant's club had snapped from being hit against fully grown trees in frustration at the way they retarded the giant's progress across this heavily wooded terrain, and thus picked it up to use as a replacement weapon, the long period dead and drying out and the pre-trimmed nature of this particular log making it look like the perfect replacement. But the giant would get a real shock as when it first was used in anger, the wood lice and borer beetle lava had fatally weakened (if you could even use the word fatal for something so long dead – but I suppose the insect's activity could prove fatal for the giant, so the use of the word has a certain validity) the log to the point that it would shatter on impact. Probably not the first impact, maybe not the second, but soon after, leaving the giant weaponless (and thus likely killed if they could not get away, so fatal may well be an adequate descriptor).
But the log could, even though often described as dead, be considered as, in part, a living thing. It's bottom and centre certainly thrived with life, scurrying and scuttling around in the tunnels that threaded through it, created by the tunnel's inhabitants own hunger. But this life, even though at some level felt and thought, it was certainly not conscious thought, nor were any of the emotions felt more complex than hunger, fear, pain, or desire, so even these creatures, that numbered in the thousands and more gave any notice to much larger creatures acting their strange end of day rituals below them. And the concept of a dead skull being anything other than a possible source of food was far above their capability as it was for them to invent sliced bread – which is the universal measure of how good an invention or new idea is. They'd not gotten even as far as creating dough, let alone bread, which needed fire to bake it. But as the lived their entire existence inside a large chunk of firewood it was probably for the best. How knows, maybe wood lice had invented fire any number of times, but the invention was immediately followed by the entire colony being roasted alive, including the inventor by their very invention, it had not caught on.
So that some of the creatures below ground stayed awake and other slept meant nothing to either the log or its inhabitants, buried as they were deep within the log, most never seeing the light of day, so the concept of day and night mattered little to them, in their compressed lifetimes. That the thinking skull spent the entire time examining the future timelines never even registered, nor did any of the other incomprehensible actions of the other creatures.
Even the loud exclamations of several of the creatures, bemoaning the lack of treasure other than piles of shiny objects, such as bits of polished brass or paste jewels and a near worthless goblin skull, even if it did speak, the sound vibrations from this was not loud enough to pass through all that rock and dirt to make any noticeable movement on the insensible log or cause interruption in the life of the insects within.
The log, being both inanimate now, and even while a part of a living tree, lacked even the most rudimentary senses, failed to notice the creatures erupt from the ground off to one side of it, as the day warmed from the sun. Maybe one or a few of the insects that called the log home (well maybe not called as they had no language or even symbolic thought) but they did instinctively or used scent trails to return to the log, could have noticed the vibration or sudden shadow and scurried for cover but took more notice of this than any other possible treat to their existence, so the creatures departure from the area that could be considered close to the log was unnoticed, and even if noticed, certainly unheralded.
Thus the log sat, slowly being chewed and diminished from the inside for another period where sometimes it grew warmer from the sun, cooled at night, or got wet when it rained, or the very outside layers froze in the snow.
It would be nice to think that this log's existence carried on forever as it had in the past, a convenient place for goblin bums to sit while waiting audience with the latest chief, but that was, as the thinking skull discovered only one of unknowable different possible futures.
But for our younger readers, that could be scarred and damaged by the knowledge of the many ways the log could, and was, damaged or destroyed, in each of the many possible negative futures (well from the log's perspective), we will think happy thoughts and assume the blissful continuation of the status quo is the case.