The Tree Man

The Tree Man

The Tree Man came to me one day and whispered, “All are equal. All are equal. From the one that runs, to the one that swims, to the one that slithers, to the one that stands still and green in the earth… All are equal. All are one.” And I heard him with new ears, and my heart learned, and it said, “All are equal. From the tree that grows in the field, to the spider that spins its silvery web, to the bird that glides over all the earth, to the man with his silken scarf wrapped tight around his eyes. I hear their voices. I see their faces. I know their names. I understand. All are equal. All are one.”

And the Tree Man shaped me, and I became his messenger, and I told all of the world with my heart what he had taught me. “All are equal. All are one.” But my heart, too timid to speak up, was drowned out by the noise. I heard the war cries. I heard the chainsaws. I heard the sobbing, shrieking of the earth as it was torn apart. I saw the golden ribbons that tied the men to their saws. I saw the silken scarves bound tight around their eyes. So my heart screamed louder. “ALL are EQUAL! ALL are ONE!” I was drowned out by the roaring of the tigers as their blood saturated the forest floor. My ears were filled with the wild shrieking of the elephants as their ivory tusks were ripped from their faces. I could hear nothing but ten thousand voices – “TIMBER!” – and ten thousand thunderous booms as trunks crashed to the earth.

And so the Tree Man came to me again, and he said, “Open your mouth and speak! Scream! Protest!” And I tried, but I could not. My lips would not part. My voice would not sound. I was silent. The Tree Man said again, “They are dying! You are letting them die!” But I would not, could not speak.

The Tree Man made me pull out my hair. He made me claw my nails into my flesh. But still, I was silent. I was his messenger, but I didn’t know how to speak. “You are worthless!” he screamed the truth at me. “You are too stupid and frightened to speak for me!” And he threw me to the floor with his sharp branches, and although I cried, my sobs, too, were silent.

And then, I was holding a chainsaw, bound by iron chains, no golden ribbons or silken scarves to hold me. And I was cutting into the earth, gouging into its flesh, hearing it scream to me, begging me to stop. And though I tried, I could not stop; the chains were digging into my wrists, and the harder I tried to pull away, the farther into the earth I went. And over the mechanical drone of the chainsaw and the pleading of the earth, nothing could be heard. My heart sobbed, feebly mumbling its truthful mantra. “All are equal… all are one…” But the carnage around me rumbled and thundered and roared and shrieked and cried until I was too deafened to hear myself anymore.

And I begged for death, begged for it, because I knew how this would end, with utter silence, when the screams had died down and the earth was as barren and lifeless as it had been before the first microscopic bacteria began to teem in their prehistoric pools. And I knew it would be my fault, all my fault, when that silence settled in. I was letting them die… I was killing them myself. And so, disgustedly, and yet with a mercy I didn’t deserve, the Tree Man came to me one more time, to execute the murderer who was supposed to save the world. He choked the breath out of me, and the world went from gray and hopeless to comfortingly black. And he burned me, and I became the soil that the men dug into, screaming and screaming forever and ever until…

Silence.