The Man and the Tree

'Perhaps the tree is happy this way', thought the old man to himself, 'standing proud and tall, looking upon the world in the most graceful manner.' He knew that time passed slowly for a tree as old as this one. But as he looked closer he realized that the tree glowed with a surprising, unexpected radiance. Its entire being seemed to bathe in true wisdom and enlightenment.

The old man couldn't help but feel that such reminisces were a sign of upcoming senility, but reminiscing he was. Off late, the tree had become an obsession. He had played around the tree as a little boy, sat under it to study and think about the wonders of the world as a young man, and even brought his wife to this very tree, when it was in full bloom, pink and white flowers scattering the ground.

However, in all his years of acquaintance with this tree, he had never bothered to give a second thought to the tree itself. Now, as an old man, he felt as though he was a part of the tree- he felt its- no- her (for the tree seemed to be a she) essence floating around, finding its way into him. Somehow, in the most uncanny and almost literal way, his life had revolved around the tree.

He slowly closed his eyes as he took in the smell of the age-old bark, and grazed his fingers over the trunk. He almost felt like he was in love with the tree, funnily so. But, he couldn't help it; the tree brought back so many nostalgic memories. So many, many, for it was right in front of his childhood home, and he laid eyes on it once every day for the first seventeen years if his life, and once every week for the last sixty.

Love, it was. But it was a different kind of love. A love so complex, he hardly knew what he was feeling. A love attached more to memories, proximity and a strange admiration than to anything else.

A love that seemed to have broken all barriers between the animate and the inanimate.

Love. That's all we need. :)

/fin