The Forest for the Trees
Trees. 900 words, 2 minute read. With Gemini.
The world began with a firm, encompassing pressure, a fleeting echo of a falling seed, a parent tree tall against a forgotten sky, then a comforting darkness. Above, a flash of bright red t-shirt, a pair of muddy sneakers, and then small hands, surprisingly decisive, tamping the cool earth around my base. "Okay, Ashy," a boy's voice, high and earnest, smelling faintly of bubblegum, whispered, almost conspiratorially. "You gotta get big. Super big! This is our secret spot, alright?" That was Tom. My Tom. And so, my silent watch, and our shared secret, commenced.
In those early rings, my existence was a simple thirst for sunlight and the deep, satisfying draw of moisture from the soil – a daily, grounding root-ine. Tom was a near-constant presence. His small back would press against my developing bark, a warm, vibrating hum as he mumbled about playground injustices or the baffling rules of long division. One sweltering afternoon, after carefully glancing around, he confided the elaborate plan for his "Great Treehouse Escape" – a plan involving ropes and a smuggled cookie supply. Years later, I’d feel the rhythmic scrape of his pocketknife, carving a lopsided ‘T + A’ into my flank. Amy. I watched him from afar, showing her how my own winged samaras would spin to the ground in autumn, a silent offering of continuity that mostly went unnoticed by the young pair. I learned to map his moods: the frustrated kick at a loose stone near my roots meant a failed test; the quiet lean, head tilted back to watch the clouds drift through my increasingly broad canopy, signaled a moment of deeper, teenage contemplation.
The years didn't just leaf by; they were marked by the changing chorus of the neighborhood and the evolution of Tom. The rumble of his first car, a sputtering jalopy, faded, replaced by the confident purr of something sleeker, then the hum of a sensible family sedan. His visits, once daily, stretched, but he’d always find his way back. "Easy now, kids," I heard his deeper voice caution one afternoon, as a whirlwind of giggles and sticky fingers attempted to scale my lower branches. "This old fella’s a friend of the family. Been here longer than your dad." He’d run his hand over my bark, thicker and more furrowed now. One quiet evening, as a much older Tom, silver at his temples, leaned against me, gazing at the sunset, he murmured, "We've seen a lot, old friend, haven't we? A whole life, nearly." I'd felt the tremor of his unspoken memories. The blight scare brought a different anxiety; I'd register the concern in his tone as he discussed 'treatments' with a specialist, the subsequent chemical tang a reassurance of his desire to keep our shared space intact.
The storm announced itself with a sky the color of a deep bruise and an eerie, charged silence. Then the wind, a low moan escalating to a physical shriek, tore at my leaves, whipping my branches with a manic frenzy. I felt my upper trunk strain, a torsion that vibrated down to my deepest anchors. Rain followed – solid sheets, turning the earth into a sodden, treacherous soup. I fought, limbs creaking, roots clenching, but the ground was too yielding. A sudden, horrific give. Not a snap, but a colossal tearing sensation as my main roots, my lifelines, surrendered their tenacious hold. The world upended in a dizzying, sickening rush of green and brown. Through the dripping curtain of my own canopy, I saw him emerge. His face, pale, etched with a raw, profound sorrow that resonated even in my woody heart. He stumbled towards me, his hand trembling as it rested on my exposed cambium, a silent, devastating communion.
The whine of the saw was less an assault, more a precise deconstruction. Then, his workshop. The air grew thick with the scent of my own drying heartwood – a perfume of sun-baked summers. Days turned into a different kind of growth. It was less a shaping, more a conversation in texture and grain. I felt the keen edge of the plane, his hands guiding it not just with skill, but with a tenderness, as if coaxing out stories embedded in my rings. The rhythmic rasp of the saw, the patient scrape of sandpaper – it felt like he was trying to preserve every memory we’d shared. He’d hum, often, those same slightly off-key tunes, a soundtrack to my transformation into something new, yet still fundamentally me.
He carried me – this new, smooth, curved version of myself – onto the porch one crisp autumn morning. He positioned the rocking chair to face the empty space, the raw wound in the earth. Then, he walked over to it, moving more slowly now, a certain stiffness in his joints. He knelt, the effort visible, and with those same hands that had first pressed me into the earth, he firmed the soil around a slender new whip of an ash. He patted the base, twice, just as he had done all those decades ago. "There you go, little one," he murmured, his voice raspy with age and something akin to hope. "Grow big and strong." He returned to the porch, settled into the gentle curve of the rocker, and placed a hand on its wooden arm, his fingers tracing the grain almost absently. He began to sway, his gaze fixed on the new beginning, a quiet understanding passing between the man, the chair that held his history, and the promise of the young tree.
