03-The Christmas Tree - Chapter One

Chapter One

There once was a tree. And the tree lived in a great wood. And the tree was surrounded by other trees, its brothers and sisters, for they all came from the same seed. Morning and night, they loved to converse about the things they had seen—about the squirrels who had visited them during the day, about the birds who took shelter among them when the wind blew too fiercely, and about the snows that lay thick about their boughs.

Across their vast togetherness, messages were borne on the air and in birdsong. Merry tales wafted on nocturnal breezes, and laughter echoed back. All was told in a language of love.

And how they loved to dance, swaying in unison as the wind blew, celebrating their very existence. Theirs was a life of secret and endless wonder, that knew nothing of towns and cities or roads or men.

These were conifer trees, clad all year in green. They did not know the cycle of life and death endured by their deciduous cousins who shed their leaves in Winter and who, bare and naked, shivered and trembled through the cold season 'till Spring awakened them, and new growth sprang forth from them and around them. Perhaps, if they had known, they might have been better prepared for what was to come.

It had been a still night, the moon above resplendent in her fullest glory. The trees stood in awed silence before her silver reflection in the motionless white sea of snow at their feet, and watched, spellbound, as the long shadows she cast swept across the milk-drenched ocean beneath them.

When the first pink rays of Dawn crept into view, they had no inkling of danger. When the dim greys of night gave way to a warming array of orange, purple, red and yellow, all seemed to be as it had always been. But it was not. For danger was approaching, danger more terrible than anything they could have imagined, danger that would turn their world upside down and destroy all they knew and cherished.

At first, it sounded like a whisper from the distant reaches of the forest. Yet the forest tides today seemed to stir in a different and unfamiliar tone—a tone of unease and disquiet that rustled through their tender fronds. The stir rose to a restless hum, the hum to a chorus, the chorus to a cry. And the cry to a scream. And a shudder swept through them, a shockwave of consuming terror.

Now, all the forest was astir with panic. We call it panic, or we may call it pain. But the trees knew not what to call the dread emotion now striking deep at their hearts. For their language had never known such things with which we are all too familiar in our world.

But let us talk about our one very special tree. For before this tree was even a seed, Heaven had conceived him and blessed him and loved him, and had chosen him since before the beginning of Time, before forests even existed or even the earth for them to stand in. And we would not even know this tree were Heaven not our guide.

For now, as we look down in our imaginations upon the treetops of the forest, a divine light descends with us amid the thick mass of green branches, and we enter the heart of the tree the Spirit adores.

That broken morning, our tree trembled in nameless woe, not knowing what trouble befell his cousins and brothers and sisters at the far reaches of the wood. How he wished he could flee, to race across the vales and seek refuge among the neighbouring families of woods whose fame had reached our wood. But our tree had no legs. Or if he did, they were not yet freed from his woody mass. He looked up and wished that he could leap high into the air, or fly as the birds which now raced across the sky above him in loud alarm. But our tree had no wings. The squirrels too ran past in terrified haste, some at his feet, some leaping from branch to branch.

One stopped at our tree, one that had been a frequent visitor to his boughs, his eyes full of woe and pity. He motioned as if to speak, one paw raised and trembling, but he was too afraid, and no sound could utter from his quivering mouth. Only did he manage a frenzied clutch of a branch as if to wish our tree a farewell embrace, before fleeing again.

And now, the copse that had sheltered our tree, nurtured him, and rejoiced over him with singing, became his trap, imprisoning him in a sea of desperation. Only wait now, wait with his fellow trees. Wait in dread anticipation. Wait branch-to-branch, frond-to-frond in comfort of one another, bracing for a terrible impact.

The stir in the forest became a din that turned day to night and joy to wailing. The sound of angry roars came through the forest, louder with every terrifying minute. Then came the sound of voices speaking a language incomprehensible to our tree. But what he could understand from them was a spirit of malice, of fury, of greed insatiable and hate unquenchable. These voices merged with the screams of his kin, a screaming chorus, as each angry roar brought a fresh scream of pain through the horror-laden air.

Through his fellows' fronds, our tree could now make out some movement that caused all the noise. Two-legged creatures appeared, shouting one to another with cruel voices, and each carried an angry-throated thing which he applied to the base of every tree in his path.

And with each stooping of each two-legged creature came another angry-throated roar and a cloud of choking fumes, followed by the sickening sound of torn timber as another companion fell.

Now the older trees, weighty and strong and brave, did their best to protect their younger cousins by holding their branches in the way of the destroyers, and drew attention to themselves by slapping the attackers on their heads or backs with a branch, so as to draw the slayers upon themselves instead. And with an angry curse, the creatures would turn from their intended quarry and slay its protector.

But the noble sacrifice was in vain, except in Heaven, where noble deeds are writ for eternity. For those creatures of carnage, those walking vessels of malice, knew no discernment, cared nothing for beauty, and left not one single tree unfelled in their path.

Now you might think that trees have no eyes, and that trees have no hearts, and that trees have no faces. But look closely at the next tree you see. Is it calling to you? What is it trying to say if we only had ears to hear?

So when our tree saw one of the angry creatures approach his dear sister at his side, he screamed in agony and grief.

"I love thee, brother!" she said, her sad eyes looking into his. And as they cut her, she cried out, her eyes closed and shed their tears.

"Oh my beloved sister," said our tree, his heart full of sorrow, and weeping too. Tightly, their fronds wove in parting clasp. And as she fell, and as her blood poured out on the ground, she uttered her dying sigh, "Goodbye, brother!"

"How can a tree bleed?" you may ask. "And how can a tree shed tears?" It is by the pouring of that which we call "sap", that which flows through the veins of a tree. Other men of greater kindness took the tears lent them by the Maple Tree to make a delicious syrup which they pour on pancakes for breakfast. And will not those precious tears grace a divine banquet one day?

Now braced our tree for the cutting stroke that was to befall him. Weak he felt and trembling, and would willingly have collapsed to the ground to appease his tormentors, rather than suffer the shredding of his timbers and the cut that would forever separate him from the earth he had known and loved, and that had supported his whole life.

But now an angry voice called out to the angry two-legged creature that smote our tree's dear sister, and the creature turned away. He was close enough to smell, though—a reeking, acrid odour that invaded the woody pine-scented forest, a ghastly pall of death and carnage and horror.

The creature silenced his angry-throated thing and convened with his fellows, who now sat down upon the remnants of our tree's kin, which we call 'stumps', put a foul-smelling substance in their mouths, rolled it around, and presently ejected it as a wet, dark-brown clod, staining the once pristine snow. Each in turn then stood to leek pungent yellow fluid onto the ground.

They uttered strange sounds, a bit like laughter, for their bodies shook and their mouths opened to reveal the churning clods that mashed and rolled between teeth as stained as the snow they had just despoiled. But the laughter was born in an alien place, not a laughter of joy, but of destruction that would steal from the innocent and lay waste to beauty.

The stench was overpowering, and our tree and the others around him drew back their fronds in recoil and disgust. Some of the trees, seeing that the carnage had stopped, began to whisper and titter and giggle in the expectation that they had been spared,

But our tree sensed that the destruction was not over—something in the faces of these creatures, the insatiable glint in their eyes, the tension in their bodies, the greedy tones of their speech—and he did not rejoice, but trembled, silently calling to the weeping heavens.

Oh weep, dear tree, to hear the angry-throated things roar again into murderous chorus, weep to see your sap poured out on the ground, weep to see your tender timber shredded, weep at the unutterable pain now coursing through your being. And fall, dear tree, as the world rocks sideways, and feel your own weight crashing onto the frozen waste, and feel your tender boughs crush beneath you. Feel your life draining away into the earth. Weep on the cold ground, and see your branches writhe, not in the sweet tremulous joys of yesterday but in the shuddering horrors of today.

Feel your foot being dragged by rough, callused, and brutal hands across the spoiled snow. See thy belovèd mountains disappear from view. Hear the groans of your companions dragged behind you and before you. Feel the naked coldness of steel pressing against your yielding, supple, pliant, and once playful fronds. And now feel your companions heaped on top of you. And though you are somewhat comforted to feel their softness above you, that you are not alone, yet you gasp in the crush of needles and branches and wood, amid the choking dark fumes that now engulf you all.

And hate your innocent companions for their injury of you, as they hate you. Yet melt in your heart for their suffering as now you suffer.

Long is the journey as you lurch from side to side in the crush, as you compress under the weight of your fellows. Turn your thoughts upon yourself as you hear their anguished cries, and imagine a better place.

As night falls, the commotion goes on with its sickening jolts and swerves, so that by the time day finally comes, in thy great sorrow and distress thou art barely aware of it.

Now are you all offloaded by those angry, callused hands. Now is the crush relieved, and giddily you stand, mustering some relief. Now you and your kin are surrounded by many more two-legged creatures, who look at you, touch you, converse with their fellow creatures about you, and pass rectangular-shaped leaves one to another.

Your pains have subsided, but still you feel the onset of death and decay. You recall an ancient legend about a mighty ancestor who saved his kin from an evil race, and whose seed began your forest. And you hope that it is true.

Such were the thoughts of our tree and his companions as they stood in the market, and one by one were carried off to a fate unknown.