The Oak by the River

Simon walks through the forest. His gaze caresses the silent trees; he suffers a deep understanding. His pace quickens when he sees a break in the trees where sunlight filters to the ground. The silent grove in the dense woodland holds a single, solemn oak tree. The ancient oak stands directly in the center of the grove. Its branches reach up, twisted and convoluted by years of the elements. Its skin is silver; the trunk bursts forth from the ground in a tangle of gnarled roots and twisted limbs. The leaves flutter quietly in the spring breeze. The tree speaks to Simon.

Simon enters the grove and briefly shields his eyes from the direct sunlight. A strange sensation fills his body, a giddiness. He takes a deep breath of air and smiles. The tree evokes joy in his lean, tall frame. It speaks of dreams and beauty with the elegant dance of its boughs in the wind. Its frame speaks of knowledge and antiquity. He stands in its shade, bathed in its presence.

The tree captivates him. He gazes up and down its gnarled trunk, admiring every imperfection. Time ravages the tree. Yet time enhances the wonder inherent in the tree. He reaches out and touches the rough skin. It feels old and tough. He feels the life deep within the tree, hidden underneath layers of scar tissue. He hears the whisper of the leaves laughing silently. They contrast the oak with their brilliant green aura; practically glowing in the morning sunlight. Simon compares his own calloused hands with the scarred trunk of the tree. He sees similarities. Both are worn by time. He muses over the idea of time, losing himself in the quiet spring morning.

His eyes snap open; he finds himself lying on the soft ground between two roots that remind him of serpents. His eyes are supernovas of green light, captured in two tiny discs. “I must have dozed off while thinking about time,” he thinks. He chides himself for his laziness, but with a big foolish grin on his face. He gracefully stands up and stretches further, elongating his already long frame.

The sun hangs directly overhead. Morning fled long ago; now afternoon holds sway. Simon strolls away from the grove, still berating himself for falling asleep so easily. He feels a gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He consumed a crust of dry bread and a cool draught of water for breakfast, but that was at the break of dawn. The sun beats down on the dark locks that are strewn across his forehead. His simple cotton shirt and wool pants feel itchy in the early afternoon sun. He continues to walk through the oak forest. The air is completely still, lending a certain weight to the atmosphere.

The woodland floor is filled with underbrush, sticks, and twigs. He weaves his way down trails so well used that he doesn’t think where to put his feet. Abruptly he turns a corner and a small, aesthetic cottage appears, with a undulating stream nearby. The stream is fed by an icy spring in the mountains. The outside of the cottage is built of weathered spruce logs; the spaces between the logs are sealed with mud and dirt. The roof of the cottage slopes and is covered in dirt and plants. Simon’s home conveys a sense of use and love.

Simon walks in through the open door. The inside of the cottage is as simple as the outside, but more chaotic. Papers are strewn everywhere, manuscripts with musical notes scribbled across the page. It looks like a wind blew through the room, throwing everything into a random configuration. A table rests in the center of the room with the greatest concentration of papers. A small stove stands in the far right corner of the room, with a black pipe running to the ceiling. There is only one chair in the room, a golden -brown, wooden chair that sits by the table. On the floor of the left side of the room lies a pallet with a white sheet and woolen blankets. The right side of the room has cupboards and a pantry with dried food in it. There are big windows on all sides of the cottage, all with views of the forest and the mountains.

Simon treads carefully across the floor to the pantry. He opens the white cabinet door and pulls out a loaf of bread and a block of cheese. The bread breaks easily and gives off a pleasant fresh-baked aroma. He whips out a hunting knife from his right pocket and slices the cheese to go with the bread. He voraciously consumes the tidy lunch. The emptiness in the pit of his stomach disappears quickly. He carefully puts the bread and the cheese back in the cabinet.

Simon realizes that his clothing smells a little ripe. He crosses the room in two neat bounds and sweeps a pile of dirty laundry from the foot of his bed into his arms. He vaults back across the room, through the door, and around to the back of the cottage. The stream roils like quicksilver across a bed of stones. He throws his clothes into the stream and looks for a rough rock. He squats over the stream, watching the ripples in the water. The stream reminds him of time. He finds a rough stone about the size of his fist, and he grabs a pair of pants. He beats them with the stone. The water is icy cold, and soon his hands are numb and red. The pants are beaten thoroughly, then a shirt, then some undergarments, and then some more clothes. Soon all his clothes are sopping wet, lying on the bank of the stream. He smiles as he takes the clothes and hangs them up on a line between two trees.

He strolls back around into the cottage and decides to pick up the mess of paper filling the entire house. He trades for his paper in a town 30 miles away. He also trades for ink and various other food supplies. The papers turn out to be quite a project. Each paper has a portion of some symphony, etude, concerto, or sonata that he composed. The problem is that each paper isn’t marked which movement or piece it connects to. He finds himself resting an hour later with a glass of water and four neat stacks of paper on the table.

His thoughts drift back to the morning and the oak tree. He thinks the way time is like a river, rippling in an effervescent froth. He thinks how time is full of change and unpredictability, yet on the whole it has very predictable tendencies. To predict the location of each drop of water in a river would be impossible, yet predicting the location of the river is quite simple. A flash of inspiration hits him and he frantically searches for a blank sheet of paper. His hand shakes in excitement. He grabs a pen, dips it in a pewter pot of ink and scratches musical notes across the plain white parchment. His demeanor becomes intensely focused. He loses himself in the composition. He writes a sonata for horn, cello, and piano. He titles it, “The Oak by the River.”

A bead of sweat drops on to the parchment. Simon glances up and realizes that the day vanished. His concentration evaporates, and he jumps up from the chair leaving the partially composed music strewn across the table. He walks across the now relatively clean floor and removes the remaining bread, cheese, and a piece of dried meat from the larder. He sits down at the table and nibbles on the food while he contemplates the mountains rising majestically in the sunset. After finishing his supper, he quickly cleans the table and replaces the cheese in the cupboard.

Simon strolls outside. The sun illuminates his gaunt frame against the ground. The air has a certain fresh, clean quality to it, hinting at the beauty of days to come. Simon decides to take a walk to the base of one of the mountains only three miles away.

While he strides purposefully through the green forest, he finds himself at peace. He lets the singing boughs and laughing leaves tell him their tale. The evening light filters through the trees, creating dancing patterns across his white shirt. He walks up a slight rise to the foothill of a peak with no name. He finds pleasure in knowing that there is no name for that mountain. Names are transient in comparison to the eternity of a mountain.

The last rays of fading light disappear and the world changes. Black shapes flit overhead, while the chirp of crickets fills the air. There is no moon; the stars fill the sky in a glorious show of light. He lies on the top of a small grassy knoll and stares intently at the stars. They fill the heavens, lending an inexplicable quality to the night sky. He lets the silent music of the stars drift down to him. They sooth him, and soon he falls into a deep slumber.

His eyes snap open at the sound of chopping in the distance. His nose catches a waft of smoke. He springs up in an instant, his stature radiating alarm. The sun barely peaks over the top of the mountains on the eastern edge of the valley. He listens very carefully to the chopping noise and determines their approximate location. He sprints through the forest, a sense of urgency driving him. The smoke becomes thicker, and the chopping and now sawing increase in volume.

Rage fills Simon, from the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers. He roars and charges into a clearing. The clearing lacks the attributes of a natural space in the woods. Trees are strewn across the clearing, their magnificent stature reduced to defilement by man. The undergrowth burns in a corner of the field where men clear the ground. Simon spins, rage overflowing his system. He screams again when he sees two men with a saw digging into the flesh of the oak. The oak writhes in agony as the two men saw back and forth in a pendulum motion.

Simon sprints across the clearing and jumps one of the men with the saw. Simon pulls the man to the ground and proceeds to pummel him with his fists. Tears run down Simon’s cheeks as he beats the man. He hears something behind him and turns. A fist swings and hits him in the back of the head. Simon falls on top of the man, rendered unconscious from the blow.

When Simon opens his eyes he finds himself lying on the floor of a dark, dirty room. He rolls over to see the sun shining through a small rectangular window with bars. The back of his head throbs. He slowly sits up. Immediately, his stomach tells him that sitting up was a bad idea. He gags and spews on the floor in front of him. The floor of the room is hard, cold stone and the walls appear to be stone as well. The door to the room is a massive oak door with bars across it and a small peephole.

Simon sits in the room. He feels empty inside; the one thing that fills his life with meaning evaporates. He sheds no more tears. His body fills with numbness, and he stares dumbly at the door. His hands rest on his knees and his head hangs in despair. “Why?” he mutters, “Why do they always destroy?”

After sitting for an unknown length of time, the massive door creaks open and a bailiff strides haughtily into the room. “You! Stand up! You have an appeal bright and early this morning,” the bailiff snaps.

Simon slowly rises and looks down at the bailiff. The bailiff ties his hands together tightly. The circulation stops to Simon’s hands. The bailiff pulls on the rope attached to Simon’s hands and walks briskly out of the room. Simon stumbles forward, trying to catch up with the quick, efficient pace of the bailiff. They walk down a dark corridor and then climb a flight of stairs. They reach another large, oak door, which the bailiff opens quietly.

They enter a large hall. On the far end of the hall sits a panel of five middle-aged men. The hall is filled with empty chairs, except for the row nearest the panel. Those seats are filled with more old men, all muttering among each other quietly. The bailiff escorts Simon to the front of the hall and sits him in a stiff wooden chair.

“So this is the one that attacked Jon,” whispers one of the men in the audience.

“Yes,” responds another.

“We bring the case of this man,” the oldest man on the panel points at Simon, “versus Jon and the workmen involved in clearing the Terolie valley.”

“What is your name?” the man on the far right of the panel asks Simon.

“Simon,” Simon responds in a detached voice.

“Where do you live, Simon?” another man on the panel asks.

“I live in that valley.”

“Do you have documents declaring ownership of land in the valley?” the head of the panel asks in a worried tone of voice.

“I moved to the valley to escape society. I wanted to be free to be myself without the clutches of society holding me back,” Simon responds quietly.

“But you don’t have any documents?” the man queries.

“No.”

The men on the panel look at each other with dead expressions on their loose faces.

“Simon, we want to get to the heart of the matter. You attacked Jon. This we know. The question is: Why did you attack Jon? You don’t own the land, in fact we could indict you for squatting, but that’s not the present issue. Why?” a man drones in a monotone voice.

“He killed me with every stroke ‘of his saw. They killed me with their burning, chopping, and sawing. That forest is a part of me, as essential as my arms or my legs. It represents the reason why I exist. When they destroy the forest, they destroy me. I merely responded in defense.” Simon speaks: Simon’s voice slices through the room with an intense quality, quite different from the dry, dead voices of the men present.

“But you have no ownership over the forest. How can the forest be a part of you? That’s ridiculous,” the head of the panel laughs. The other people in the room chuckle as well, but only after they see the head of the panel laugh. Simon stares blankly at the faces of the men on the panel. His eyes glow with an intensity that causes the smirks on their faces to disappear. Fear sparks in their eyes.

“We must confer,” the head of the panel pronounces. The five old men with flowing white locks and drooping faces lean towards each other and whisper. Simon looks at them with a disconnected feeling of hopelessness. He realizes that there is no convincing these fossils of his innocence, much less the crime of clearing the valley.

“We have reached our decision. You are guilty of assault. You have a choice of your punishment. Either you rot in prison for the rest of your days, or you will help clear the rest of the valley. Which will it be?” the head of the panel speaks in a dry voice with little inflection.

Simon stands up. “I choose neither. Goodbye.” Simon sprints out of the courtroom, ripping the rope out of the bailiff’s hands. He makes it out the door, and runs into the town square. In the center of the town stands a tree, glowing green in the mid-morning sun. It mocks him. It shows him the corruption of nature by man. As this realization hits him, he fills with rage again. He rips the rope off his hand in an inhuman burst of strength.

The bailiff runs out of the hail yelling, “Get back here, NOW!” Simon turns and punches the bailiff in the head, knocking the bailiff unconscious. The rage evaporates from Simon’s body and he falls to his knees, weeping. Society controls everything and destroys the most beautiful things in the process. “Life is like a cycle,” Simon thinks, “from life comes death, and from death comes life. I have lived, so now I must die.”

The body hanged from the tree for days, swinging in the wind. A twisted smile filled the ivory face, and the green eyes burned in a glassy stare of death. The body swung in the wind, a grotesque counterpart to the tree. A week later the entire town burned down. Strangely, neither the tree nor the body was touched, leaving them the only thing standing amidst a blackened landscape. Simon laughed, even in death.