This is of a time when the trees had stopped talking. This is of that time, when in the morning you could find them trees uprooted from their ground, dead, the beast named time clawing away at their being. And no, it wasn’t just one or so tree that was found this way, it was their entire tribe. It was as if they were committing harakiri. This is of that time.
The man had been walking for a long time; his feet hurt, but in a distant way, where in he was only remotely aware of his feet, and their motion. Walking had begun to seem as usual as breathing to him. That however did not mean that he did not stop. That would be stupid, and if he was anything it was - not stupid. He had stopped once while he was in that village, that village, which like everything else was but a dream. He had stopped there and had bought some cookies, drank some water, and some tea. He had done that, and then he had continued on.
He tried to remember why he was walking, then, soon he realized that he couldn't be bothered by something that stupid, and so he continued on, slightly irritated by himself.
The road he was walking on, changed ever so slightly. But over time, the more he had walked, the softer it became; the road. And then, one day he had started walking in the forests. Sort of forests. See, the trees had been dying, so it was not like walking in the forests of old. He had heard the stories. But that was all he had. Stories.
He wrote stories. He heard stories, then he told stories. That was the only way he functioned. And so, once he'd had, or rather thought he'd had told all the stories he could've told staying there, in that place, they called home, but which had become a big bad jail for him, again, in time, he decided he would have to leave. There was, of course, a period of deliberation, for if there was one thing he was, he was- not stupid.
They had initially cared. When the trees were falling, dying. They had removed the corpses, using them judicially, something befitting, a glorious, marvelous creature, that a tree was. Then, in time, as more and more trees fell, and in groups, it was feared that this was a virus, a bacteria, some disease which was spreading through the masses, and so, if only to stop it from spreading, they continued removing the corpses. When nothing changed, the men stopped.
There were dead trees on both sides of the road. Dead corpses, rotting away. The man moved at the same pace, accustomed to it all. He had been interested once, in them, but nobody wants to read about dying corpses. There was no story; the dead seldom speak. And they had stopped talking even before! He was not affected by the sceneries around him. He was walking, not even for the sake of walking. He was walking for at the end of the walk, he imagined a story. A story so glorious that it will fulfill the purpose, his purpose.
And so he walked.
It had to have been a sweet voice, and a beautiful song being sung melodiously for the man to notice it. And it was. The man stopped immediately. There was something about art, good art, art that spoke to you, that left you in awe. This was that for the man. He left the road, and walked guided, by the first time in years, not by the elusive, but rather by the present. He ran, then walked, then ran again. He did not notice again, where he was going. He was lost, again, in the symphony. He walked.
His surroundings had changed. Gone were the corpses. Long gone. Then there had been a plain, with tall grass, stretched across the horizon. Then the trees. Then the forest. Finally the forest. And in the forest, over and above all the noises, was the song. It was nearing completion, he knew, for it was a popular song, a traveller's song. And so he had begun running again. He hadn't noticed the surroundings yet. It was yet to come.
The tree was like any other. Any living one. It wasn't present in an enchanted piece of land. It did not have branches working as arms. It could not uproot itself and hope to survive. It did not have a face. It was completely, and utterly routine. Yet the man looked at it, as if it had all.
The song had stopped now. There was that familiar buzz, as life hustled around the forest. The forest. There was a certain exhilaration he felt when he realized he was in a forest. He hadn't been in one in all his travels. If he thought, made plans, then yes, he would have had earlier. But he did not, and so he had not. But the exhilaration had quickly died, and in its place was excitement, and fear. He wasn't sure yet if be should say anything. He was expectant. And so when the voice came, he was ready.
'Who are you?' it said. It was the same voice, the same voice he had followed.
The man heard himself say his name in response. Then he heard himself saying that he was a traveller, a storyteller. Then he asked the other voice who it was, what was his name.
'What is a name?' it said.
The man was stumped. He tried to gather his thoughts. No more questions, he thought to himself. This has to be perfect.
'A name is how people know you, recognise you' he said, fairly confident of himself.
'Why do you need a name for it? Don't people, just know you, intuitively?'
'They do, but you need names in order to address things to people' he said.
'Oh. I don't have a name' it said calmly.
'Can you see me?' he said.
'Yes. But not how you see things' it said.
'Where are you?' he said.
'Right in front of you. You can see me can't you?'
The man smiled. He had been correct.
'So you're one of the old ones then? The talking trees?' he said. He could smell the story. It was there, right there, just beyond the thin fog of immediate future. He smiled. This was going to be it.
'No. I am not them. I am particularly young, if you and I mean the same old. Why do you ask?' it said.
'Well you haven't really been talking these past few years' he said, 'and by you, I mean...'
'Yes. That...'
The man had sat by now, under the tree opposite to the one he was talking to. He had considered sitting under the tree, but felt conversational protocol demanded that he faced the speaker. And so he did.
The silence lingered on. The man realized that it would not be easy, this. He also realized that he needed this, from the tree. He tried again.
'We are different' it said after a while, 'you and I. We are different not just biologically, but ideologically too. But we are similar too, in certain subtler ways. I have been here since before you, though I'm not sure if that is how it will end for the pair of us. What I mean by 'I' is different from what you mean by 'I'. You as a race, are similar to us, and yet so different. We have a collective consciousness, while you don't. What you have, is something different' it said.
There was the silence again. But this time, it really was quiet. The entire forest was listening.
The man felt he should say something. But for all his ability to play with words, to twist them, turn them, he couldn’t. And so he stayed silent. Looking at what he imagined were the tree’s eyes. It helped.
'Let me tell you a story' it said, and the man could imagine the creases on the tree's face, around the lips as it smiled; a smile of knowledge, a smile of contempt, of supremacy. Still the man was happy, content. He was, after all, getting his story!
'This is of a time, when men used to talk to trees. When men understood, when men could respond. This is of that time. This is of a time when men gathered around us, and wisdom flowed, freely. This is of that time. I know for I had been there. I... have always been there...
The man had slept, he had slept for men no longer had the capacity to talk to trees. For they were more and more dependent on sound, not mind. The man had not realized that. The tree hadn't realized that either, for it talked to the mind, and to it, it did not matter what the man said, it saw everything, each and every motive, each sentence in the man's head, whether spoken or not.
The tree looked at the man, bare man, and realized a little later that the man wasn't listening. It was young, and even though it knew, it still hoped. This was the first man it had talked to after all, first and last.
It took a while, not because there was any fear, or hesitation; for these were the emotions of men. There was no hesitation, as there was no indecision, or a decision to be made. The tree knew what it had to do. It did. It took a while because the physical implications of the decision required time. It took time for it was rigid, had grown so over time; and it had to withdraw all it had so lovingly grown, its roots. It had to break all the bonds it had made, in time, with life. And that took time, the contraction. It took time, for the tree was rigid.
The man stirred a little. He had never had such an enriching, and fulfilling sleep. He had dreamt. HE HAD DREAMT. And in that dream, he had found his purpose. His story. All the decades, and millenias of it. There was a smile on his face, a soft smile. And there was no effort, neither in its birth, or continuance. He was at peace. Fulfilled. And then, suddenly he felt a pang of enormous emotion, of loss. And he knew.
The tree had fell.