Devastation of a Tree

When I was young a tree was planted in my mind. I did not see it there growing. Did not notice the flowers that sprang onto branches; not until the child emerged from her roots. The child was beautiful and wild and brave in her adventures. She danced between the roots and gathered falling blossoms to lace through her hair.

She grew from the seed of the tree that was planted from the love of another’s soul. She dreamed and shared her wild universe with the mind of the girl she lived within. The girl began to write of adventures and paint impossibly wild and beautiful creatures. The two danced together invisible yet bound together; then the darkness began.

It was distant for long and away creeping closer even when the tree was first planted it had been hedging the universe within searching for a way in. It hungered for dreams and adventures to consume. The day the girl heard men of medicine say he is not long for this world now the child within grew still, holding her breath. She made ropes of roots and flowers nourished by tears shed in the night. But the darkness was coming closer and closer faster every day. Then the storm began.

Fed by medicines and whispers and broken hopes, the storm hid its ferocity high above the shade of the tree; unseen, unheard until it began to whip and pull at the delicate branches. The night the darkness came the Gardener called the girl and the child to him. He said, “Be brave, be in the world but not of the world. Do not despair. Promise me?” They promised. Hand in hand they sat at his side until he vanished in the darkness. The crying was quiet and constant held tightly within the tree; a thing for solitude, not to be shared. 

The tears nourished the tree; girl and child grew with it. Though no longer wild the dance remained strong, with purpose, “Be brave, do not despair.”  

The cracks began when the girl lost her first before it ever knew the forest or light. Grew as parents of parents and children of those faded into the grasp of darkness, one by one whatever she loved was ripped from her arms and consumed by the ravenous darkness. Her back stood straighter each time she felt love, yet broke that much more each time it was lost. By the time her mate was pulled away the child within clung to the upper branches and screamed into the whirling maelstrom. Yet the storm of darkness ate her every sound until the girl thought she was alone.

Time and again the gardener's voice tried to whisper to her, “do not despair, be brave.” But the storm isolated the girl and the child; trapped them in silence and darkness, with only a muffled wail to remind them they were alone with the scattered fragments of life. 

Each time the gardener came to them the child within told him, “It is a lie this Christmas! It is a mask they wear once a year in hopes of new toys to break. They do not mean what they say. Humanity only wishes to feed the darkness.” Then she would hide in the roots of the tree and draw monsters on the walls and her skin.

The girl could not leave, could not join the darkness, nor the child. 

No matter how dark and bitter the night she had a promise to keep: be in the world, not of the world. 

In time all that remained was the storm, the girl, and a child hidden in torn roots covered in monsters of blood and ink. Hoping that the day will come when either humanity ceases putting Loki on the throne, or the gardener calls her to him, the girl waits. In silence. Unable to hear the child over the storm she waits for the eye to be over her, she will know then what the last painting will be. 

Of this, I am certain.