Fiction: Willow Tree

ASSALAMU`ALAIKUM WARAHMATULLAH

I once had a seed of willow tree. I can still see myself in the past, embedding it into the soil, about an inch deep, and burying it gently. I can remember how frantic I was, filling up my bucket and giving my newly implanted seed a nice, warm bath. I know how seed loves water. Every morning, it was the first thing I greet and the last thing I wish goodnight to. I bought the best fertilizer in town using my pocket money, and sprinkled it around the planting site like a chef sprinkling sprinkles on his pavlova cake.

Sooner, it developed adorable buds, faint green color. I was there when those growing buds were pushing the soil, trying to rise from their beds. I introduced to them; the Sun, the Moon, the Sky, the Earth, me, my youngest brother and finally He who created all those that I have introduced them to. He who makes everything possible, including existence of all of us.

As buds turned into soft branches and leaves, and as the seed metamorphosed into sapling, I kept a good eye upon any insects and birds which try to devour it. I installed a cage around the sapling, just for extra precautionary step whilst keeping up the watering, fertilizer-sprinkling routine. The sunshine, the breeze and the hardness of rocks, I assisted not it on that, because I know, strong life begins with a little hardship.

A week after, I had already be able to see brownish patches on its trunk. How wonderful those patches developed from the bottom to the way up, and spread over the sapling, giving it a layer of mature protection. I was more than convinced that this sapling will come up just great. But still, it needed careful caressing. I put a signboard near it, saying, “Do not touch upon physical and chemical sensitivities”, so people could relate and will not anything to damage the sapling.

Two or three weeks past, that humble sapling had reached a shin’s high, yet was still too fragile to be touched by anyone except me, and unless under my stringent surveillance with disciplined protocol exercise. It was much harder to fulfill all the requirements to touch this pre-tree I called Denvoe, than to fit the bills as a speaker in the Ted Speech.

Two months past, the tree had really look like a tree. Even though it was no taller than a two grader, its hardened branches and leaves, and its grass-like scent gave me the courage to let it grow in a world without limitation. A month earlier, I decided to uninstall the cage, and it somehow enjoyed that by growing much faster. One day, a storm surged. It was so vigour, it destroyed our chicken coop and unroofed our house. After the storm ended, I found myself furiously running to this small, willow tree and suddenly be proud, because it managed to remain unattached.

So, eleven months turned into a year, the tree was as tall as I was. I could not be any more proud. I could already be able to stare at its progression without needing to duck and bending lower forward. Every day I taught it the meaning of life, and how much its life meant to me. I took many pictures of it, celebrated the New Year’s Eve with it, and even invited over my youngest brother to have a conversation with Denvoe. He said I was crazy. Anyway, before I went to bed, I would look it through the half-closed window pane of my room, thanking it for having such a wonderful appearance.

Years shed like leaves falling from tree, little did I know that I had been taking care of Denvoe for five years. From a seed, to a sapling, to a pre-tree, to an adult’s high tree and finally a tree with juicy green leaf color standing majestically at the center of my backyard; Denvoe was now deserve to be likened to a grownup in the humane sense. Yet, it maintained its childish dance against the breeze, maybe was knowing I love it to do that. Besides being browner, harder, taller and fatter, it had turned stronger.

One day, a giant storm, nothing like our nation had ever seen, raged through this state. Denvoe was right on the storm’s track, and despite the strength it had honed for seven years, Denvoe was uprooted and most certainly died. I mourned beside its trunk for as long as I could remember, putting my crossed arms on it and my teary face on thereof. I was already twenty one years old then, and had spent a third of my life raising it. Not that I would say it had caused a loss- those experiences are not losses at all. I just could not seem to accept the fact that Denvoe was finally lying on the ground. Not breathing.

Only after a month, I managed to get over the sadness. I braved myself to take a normal strolling near to the site where Denvoe was raised, lived and died.  The moment I looked that very spot, I tried everything I capable of to compose myself back into rationality. Right after, I saw something beneath the blocks of its already chopped trunk. It was yellow in color, setting a clear contrast with its inanimate surrounding. I waded my way through the trunk segments; branches and twigs; and I found something that made me smile in tears.

Two seeds of willow tree. Denvoe's legacy.