As a Tree - short story

[afarik]

The life of a tree isn't much different from that of you humans, you know. What a ridiculous statement, you must be thinking. Comparing trees to humans is like comparing apples and bricks, basketball and knitting. A tree cannot think or warn others of dangers or build cities or play chess. A tree spends its life growing upwards and outwards, making flowers and fruits depending on the tree. And then what? It dies? It's chopped up and used to make chairs or to heat up houses? I know you've thought those thoughts about us before. Oh, we know more about you than you could ever imagine, us trees. We stand there silently shading you from the sun and listen, many times unwillingly, to your rants and raves about your lives. We listen to the horrible things you say about us and watch helplessly as you and your dogs urinate at our feet. You rip our leaves and snap our branches. You let your rowdy children climb up our trunks as if we are worth nothing. But it is okay. It is not right, but it's okay. It's okay because you don't know us. You don't understand us and there is an unfortunate tendency in humans to not respect things they don't understand. Hopefully one day you will see that we are not so different from you, us trees. For you and I, my boy are truly one in the same.

We are very romantic, we trees. We cannot hug and kiss and run around like you folks do. We can't share meals under the stars or write songs or poems for each other. Unlike you folk who spend much of your lives searching for your love, we grow side by side to ours. As we grow, our 2 hearts become one. It could be because we spend every moment beside each other, one would probably say. But as we move higher and higher with each other, we learn more and more about each other. We celebrate the beautiful moments together and work around the obstacles we see in each other. In the end, we are stuck side by side to so we do what we have to to move passed the growing pains and continue to move up. Oh but like I said before, we are quite the romantics we trees.
When the wind blows through our branches and you see us swaying back and forth, that is usually a couple dancing to the song of the wind. We love to dance and we love the songs the wind comes up with for us. As a tiny sapling, you are taught the significance of bond we trees have with the wind. The wind is not just our friend, he is our saviour. The wind speaks to us, laughs with us, warns us of what is to come. Even when all is quiet and it looks like our leaves are as still as stone, we feel him. There is always a piece of the wind intertwined within our spirits.

We are not all the same, though it is understandably hard for the average human to realise. Some of us don't agree with the way things are set up for us trees. The way things have always been. Some of us maybe don't understand why things are the way they are and decide to follow their own path. A path less trodden. Sometimes these paths lead to amazing discoveries. Going against the grain can be a beautiful thing with the right intentions, with the right methods, with the right strategies. My father went on his own path. But he had no regard for how he would affect the trees behind him, the trees who would eventually rely on him...trees like me. The woman-tree he grew up with was strong like him, from what the wind had told me. She was beautiful and graceful and an amazing dancer. But dad didn't want her. I guess he didn't have the patience to get through their growing pains with her. He wanted another. He wanted to be somewhere else, to be free like the birds and the squirrels. He decided the sky wouldn't get bluer if they kept growing together. But he kept it to himself.

Until one night an owl flew onto his branch. What a beautiful owl he was. Not a feather out of place and the most striking yellow eyes that seemed to have seen everything there is to see. None of the trees knew this owl and as a tree, you tend to get friendly with all the animals that frequent your branches. But neither my father nor the other trees knew this owl. This owl knew my father though. My father felt like this owl might understand what he was going through. He told the owl things he never told the wind, even though the wind and us trees have the most beautiful of bonds. My father opened his heart and let this stranger in.
With eyes as shiny as nuggets of pure gold and a soothing voice sweeter than the wind itself, the owl simply said, I can help you. I can help you move. Follow me and I can take you to places you would never see staying here.

My father didn't ask any questions, for those were the only words he wanted to hear. He could have the chance to leave this place, and find someone else to grow upwards with. My father asked the owl, when do we leave? The owl replied as soon as my father gives him his alpha-pollen.
A tree's pollen was quite possibly the most valuable thing to them. When a man-tree is ready, he calls on the wind. He throws his pollen in the air and the wind catches it and delivers it to his love. Once there, a seed is made and the 2 kindred hearts form a new creation. This event happens once a year and is the most amazing time of a trees life. Now a tree's alpha-pollen is the only source of all pollen they will ever have. It is what they are born with, and from that alpha-pollen, all future pollen is made.
This owl wanted something of such value, something irreplaceable and my father was willing to give it away. He didn't care about the future consequences of his action. He didn't care that he was hurting the woman-tree destined for him. He didn't care about what the owl was going to do with his alpha-pollen. And though I wasn't even a thought in his mind yet, he didn't care about me.
He just wanted something he didn't have now. Or he wanted what he thought he needed. He believed he couldn't it in his woman-tree but he believed this stranger-owl could give it to him.
He gave his alpha-pollen to the owl, with excitement in his heart and ideas of adventure in his mind. While the transaction was being done, the wind heard news of what was happening. He blew by as quickly as he could and swept away the tiniest bit of pollen residue from my fathers alpha-pollen. He took what he could and blew away.
My father thought something magical would happen to him once he gave his alpha-pollen to the owl, for this is what the owl lead him to believe. However, the contrary happened. The owl's body began to contort and expand. He's claws turned in to feet, wings into arms, his feathers reduced into the softest of hair, however his eyes stayed as yellow as the sun. The owl turned into a human.

How foolish and ungrateful you are, dear tree. You were so convinced you could go against what was ordained for you, what was set for you that you gave away your very source of life. How self-centred you are, great tree, that you had the utmost disregard for your woman-tree. You think the way you are is a curse? Don't you see the purpose you serve here? Can you not see that everything has been set in place for a reason? This life you had was not random, oh tree that you could just sell your alpha-pollen for another. Do you not know the effects your decisions have on not only you but your descendants? Such a tree cannot live in this forest. Such a tree that holds on to their life so hard while disregarding others shall lose it.
With that, the human produced an ax and cut down my father. I only know this because the wind told me. In fact the wind saved me. If not for him saving the slightest bit of my fathers pollen, I would not be here today. He threw the pollen to a woman-tree miles away from where I was supposed to be planted. This woman-tree had lost her man-tree before they were able to make their first seed.
Because my father was a different type of tree from my mother, I too developed into a different type of tree. Because of the decisions of my father, I grew in a different place, in a different way from other saplings would. I doubt that even if my father was alive, he would have cared about the trials I have gone through because of him. I had no say in anything in my life and I am the way I am now of no fault of my own.

Oh you beautiful boy, now sitting under my branches. If only you knew the trials I have been through. You sit there crying, wishing you were like me, blowing blissfully in the wind. But you have no idea that I, just like you have suffered because of poor decisions made by someone else. I see you writing in your diary, tears staining the pages. I can hear your heart breaking inside your chest and the wheels in your mind turning on overdrive. You yell as loud as you can because I am the only one around you. My mother died when I was young, leaving me alone in this very field you cry in. You yell as loud as you can, declaring how unfair life is, that none of this was not your fault. I too have yelled the same words young man. I too have looked around and found myself alone because of my fathers doing.
For the longest time, I believed I was alone. Eventually I wanted to be alone for none of the animals or insect were nice to me or respected me or even valued me. I felt I deserved to be alone, which was the most untrue thing I could think of myself. But I always had a friend. The wind. The wind believed in who I could be when my father didn't, and certainly when I didn't. The wind sang to me even when he knew I wasn't listening. The wind blew through my leaves every once and while to remind me that he was there. He was always there, intertwined in my branches on the quietest of nights. Though I stood alone here, in the very same field you sit now, he was with me. And once I embraced him, once I realised he was with me, I was never alone. Though the nicks in my branches and my malformed leaves reminded me of the mistakes of my father, the voice of the wind reminded me I am never alone.
Now look at my, dear boy. Look up from the pages you desperately seek comfort in and look at the magnificent monument I have become. Run to the edge of the field and lay your eyes upon me. Granted I am not what you typically expect from a tree. I am not the most graceful of dancers nor do I turn the prettiest colours in the autumn. But see the strength and wonder I display. See how high I have grown and how wide my branches reach and how much shade and protection I provide.
You too my boy have suffered as I have. You have suffered for reasons you had no control over, for decisions you didn't make. But look at me and know that regardless of your malformed leaves and your nicked branches, you can still be great. You can still display the splendour of the wind, the way I do. You can still wipe the tears from the eyes of boys like yourself and cause people to stop and stare in wonder. You can still provide protection and refuge and strength to those who need it. Those like you, writing alone in their tear-stained diaries.

But be warned, not everyone was happy when I embraced the wind and began to grown. The same owl that landed on my fathers branches landed on mine. He promised me the same things he promised my father, a life different from what I had now. A life that I had always wanted deep down inside. But how thankful am I for the wind. The wind was with me to the end, and I didn't need anything that owl had to offer. And I certainly was not going to make the same mistakes my father did.
Oh mighty man, as boy, now you sit under my shade. But when you leave, leave as a boy full of hope and pride in who you are. Leave with wonderful ideas of the man you were meant to be. A man with nicks and deformities that will mould who you are and cause you to change the world for the better. Walk away from my tall trunk knowing that regardless of your past that was decided for your, the future is ready in your hands. And always remember you are never alone, even if you choose not to listen. The voice of God is ready when you are.