Stories of a Tree

1692

I watched her leave the prison. Unlike the rest of the crowd, I was quiet. I had seen this before. The unfair punishment of the innocent. The uncontrolled rage of the scared. For the past 1,013 years I inhabited this earth, and generation after generation I noticed the same pattern. When a community is frightened of the unknown they force control over it. And if it can’t be controlled it must die. This was the unfortunate case of Bridget Bishop who found herself caught in the religious hysteria that was woven into the safety net of the little town. In the eyes of the town, she was seen as a threat to this safety net. She liked bold fashion and expensive tastes and the people of Salem did not understand it. The only explanation for her actions was witchcraft. And on June 10, 1692 the town of Salem prepared for her execution. I watched as Bridget was pushed by the crowd towards me. They tied a rope around my strongest branch and rested a ladder against my trunk. She walked up the steps of the ladder and looked at me with tears. They wrapped the other end of the rope around her neck and they asked one last time: “Are you guilty of witchcraft? Did you speak with the devil?” Bridget, with her last hope, answered: “No I am Innocent. I am a woman of God and above all I am not a witch.” She looked around in search of some reassurance but all she found was anger. The ladder was kicked from under her but her neck did not snap. I had to watch her violently shake for what seemed eternity.

1725

A boy of about 5 years old loved to spend his days playing around my trunk. Everyday he made up a new story to keep himself entertained. Sometimes he pretended he was a sailor conquering the raging seas. Other days he would sit on my branches and pretend that he could fly among the stars. His creativity never failed him. It seemed as if the quarrels of the town did not affect him. As soon as he saw me he was in a different world. The adults called him childish and laughed when he talked about his adventures. As years went on he too began to think of himself as childish. He stopped climbing my branches and instead stayed grounded by my trunk. He would spend his time reading and writing and soon enough he forgot to look back at the stars. After a while he stopped coming back. The last time I saw him he looked tired and lost. He was no longer the cheerful child he used to be. From what I saw in my 1,046 years of life, I concluded that Adults are just tired children who want to be something better than children. They seem to forget how happy they used to be running around carelessly. They become so miserable that they take joy in turning happy children into tired ones. I hope the boy realized this pattern and chose to become a sailor who took on the raging sea or maybe he learned to fly and decided to join the stars.

1918

They sat under my shade enjoying the sunset. “I love you” he whispered. She smiled and said it back. The night was falling and she was getting tired. They seemed in love but they also seemed anxious. If I had words to speak I would have asked, but all I could do was observe. His eyes began to fill with tears but, though a trembling voice, he managed to say: “I leave tomorrow morning, and I might never see you again.” She immediately turned to comfort him and said: “Oh, don’t say that! You’ll come back, we’ll get married and maybe build a house right here, next to this tree.” Comforted, the man pulled out a knife and began to carve the letters “A + B” into my trunk. Then he surrounded the letters with a heart. It hurt a little, the sharp blade, but I knew it had a sweet intention. The next day, she returned and leaned against me. She cried until the sun left and I tried my best to comfort her. Every day, no matter the weather, she visited me and prayed for her lover’s safe arrival. Even though she thought I couldn’t hear, I too prayed with her. 50 years went by and her lover never arrived. She told me stories about him and I later found out he had died at war. A warm afternoon in late summer, she visited me and contemplated the letters carved onto my skin. She looked sick that day, sick but happy. That was the last day I saw her.

2000

A man approached me and began to take measurements of my trunk. He didn’t talk, he just shook his head and walked away. No one visited me anymore so I was excited to learn the man’s story. A small yellow house was being built next to me so I would assume he was moving in. He wore overalls and worked the land around the house. He placed a sign in front of the house that read Julien’s Pear Farm. As the days passed I began to see the fields in front of me fill up with lines of small trees. I didn’t really know what role I would play in the farm but I was excited to find out. Maybe he would use me as shade on sunny days or as a rest place when he was tired. Maybe he had a daughter who would ask him to hang a swing around my branch so she could play. But weeks passed and the farmer seemed to have no interest in me. I didn’t mind because I also enjoyed watching his hard work from far away. One day, however, he walked toward me. He carried an axe in his right hand and a rope in the other. He wrapped the rope as far up as he could and began to chop me down. I then realized that I did not have a role in the farmers plans instead I was in the way of them. Once he had chopped half way through my trunk he pulled on the rope and I came crashing down. I fell and with me fell Bridget Bishop, the tired child, and the lovers.