A New Golden Son

Chapter 10

The great arborist carried the leaf a little ways off and sat down. He crossed his legs and placed the leaf on the upturned palm of his right hand. With careful strokes and even pressure he smoothed the edges. He gripped it lightly with both hands then, just using his fingertips, and held the leaf up to the light. White and gold beams poured through the back of the veins and cells. The effect was a lightening of the hue of the cosmic chlorophyll that filled them. This made the tree-keeper smile. He liked the light. He liked the way it worked on the tree he had grown: feeding it, drawing it higher, changing and enhancing its beauty.

What he didn't like were the tears and rips. Those three gaps troubled him deeply. He knew why they were there. It wasn't a confusion of cause that created his frustration. It was the blatant disregard for life that they represented. They were the signature of self destruction. For that, he lamented.

Tears ran down his face and into his lap. The leaf quivered as a breeze snuck up and teased it. Holding the leaf close to his breast, the sorrowful man walked to the tree. Coming in between two large, exposed roots he turned his back to the trunk and stood still. For a moment nothing seemed to happen. But then the man began to grow and stretch. Primarily it was his legs that lengthened, but his own trunk grew too, and soon he was dozens of feet taller. Then, holding the leaf in his right hand, he raised his arms perpendicular to his body and laid these flat against two of the tree's largest branches. His arms, shoulders and head grew to match the size of his body.

The colossus then strained against the tree. He pushed with back and legs and arms and neck. From his mouth their escaped first a gasp, then a grown, and then a deep, guttural roar. That's when it happened. The man became the tree. Either his skin became bark, or the wood swallowed his limbs. But whichever it was, the tree-planter/keeper/caregiver was gone into the tree itself. The two had become indistinguishable from one another. All that was left was the fallen leaf, no longer fallen, held to a high branch by two thick twigs which looked remarkably like fingers.