By Darren Robinson (beneath-shady-devastated)
Do trees have souls? Before last year I would have said not, but I know of one tree that does. More than one soul, too, and they are all ill-gotten. I can say this because it very nearly claimed my own.
It is an old oak off Rillowby, up the dirt path from the main road and dominating the clearing a quarter of a mile up. I fell in love with this ancient sprawling oak when I first laid eyes on it, craving the protective embrace offered by its huge swaying branches that creaked in the breeze and its thick umbrella of leaves, but most of all the welcoming shade it kept close to its feet. I loved it so much I bought the empty house right under it and lived there for two years. That was before I finally saw it for what it was.
Since my breakdown—and subsequent enlightenment—I did some research into that old tree. All trees have a history, but this one especially so. In the very spot my house nestled under those ancient branches once stood a magistrates court. It’s not recorded how the fire started, but what is known is that lives were lost as it burned to the ground. An observer at the time commented on how the tree stood miraculously untouched as the fire tore through the building’s simple wooden structure.
Over the years more than one tired traveller along the dirt road from Maverley would be found mysteriously dead where they rested, back supported by the old oak’s thick trunk, beneath the canopy where the shade was darkest. The house’s previous occupant too met a sad fate – she died young but alone. Hers was only one of a long history of not dissimilar stories of misfortune and misery that lay steeped in its old bark.
When I moved in with my wife in the spring of two years past, life could not have been grander. I was successful, a top broker in stocks and shares. My wife loved me, I loved her and our child was on the way. But things seemed to change from the moment we moved in, subtly at first, then with no little momentum. I liken it to entering a tunnel, knowing that the light on the other side is merely a few hundred paces away, then seeing the tunnel gradually stretch impossibly long before me and the light grow fainter before my eyes, finally extinguishing to nothing and taking all hope with it.
At first, the mood changed between my wife and I. Things seemed soured. At the time, I put it down to an effect of her pregnancy. When the miscarriage happened, the despair was irreparable. The shade from the oak bearing over the house had at first seemed welcoming, protective; now it spread throughout the house like a plague. Everything was descending into darkness.
I couldn’t escape through work. My company was getting itself into all sorts of trouble and the debts were racking up. There was no respite. When the last account had been lost, there was nothing left to salvage.
When my wife left me the this last autumn, my transcendence into darkness was complete. Bankrupt and emotionally devastated, the shade of the old oak suddenly seemed the only welcoming place on earth. I took the gun from the desk with me on my way to the front door.
It was only then, standing beneath the shady tree, that I truly saw it for the first time. Perhaps it was the gun in my mouth, the last stand of a desperate and desolate mind that dispersed the illusion. Or maybe all its victims saw the same thing shortly before they died. All I know is that I was ready to pull the trigger, but somehow I didn’t. I simply walked away. Up the dirt road, away from this place. Away from the devastation.
The vision I had was one both macabrely supernatural and one of crystalline clarity. For a moment the house was no longer my home but the old magistrates building of yesteryear. The ancient oak was no longer radiant with life and light but a dark and twisted tower of wood that bore over me broken and dead. The thick green canopy of leaves was gone, yet the shade of the tree remained, no longer welcoming but thick with malevolence. The broad branches above me continued to creak and sway, moaning not with the breeze but with the weight of bodies. For turning gently in their dozens all around me were the ghosts of corpses, the hanged criminals of centuries past.
In witnessing the long dead before me in this moment, the highwaymen of the old dirt road, I can say that the doorway between life and death is a blurred line, a doorway of which I stood on the threshold. The spirit does live on, and in many different ways; in the case of the executed highwaymen, within the bowels of this ancient oak – free to continue in death what was begun in life, though their treasure comes not in coin but living souls. Who can say how long and in what way a soul may be siphoned from those that live and added to the ranks that swarm in the shade beneath the ancient oak?
I can tell you what finally broke the bonds of despair. Or perhaps who. I never used to believe in fate, but now I do. There was one other soul amongst the rest, one I’d never had a chance to meet in life but was somehow part of me. It brought me back from the edge of darkness, I believe that now; to start over, to live my life again. My soul was never meant to be theirs. These scales were already balanced: a life for a life. I know the rules of this game, that one shall die so another may live. I just wish that I could have chosen the one to live.
Slowly but surely, my world is recovering. It’s a long road, but there shall be no highwaymen along the route. I’m talking with my wife again, and business is improving. Soon I will be able to buy up the land around the tree, not just the house within the clearing, but the whole area outright, road and all. And then I can finally prevent the scales from tipping again with the souls of the living, the dead … and the unborn.
Do trees have souls? Before last year I would have said not, but I know of one tree that does. More than one soul, too, and they are all ill-gotten. I can say this because it very nearly claimed my own.
It is an old oak off Rillowby, up the dirt path from the main road and dominating the clearing a quarter of a mile up. I fell in love with this ancient sprawling oak when I first laid eyes on it, craving the protective embrace offered by its huge swaying branches that creaked in the breeze and its thick umbrella of leaves, but most of all the welcoming shade it kept close to its feet. I loved it so much I bought the empty house right under it and lived there for two years. That was before I finally saw it for what it was.
Since my breakdown—and subsequent enlightenment—I did some research into that old tree. All trees have a history, but this one especially so. In the very spot my house nestled under those ancient branches once stood a magistrates court. It’s not recorded how the fire started, but what is known is that lives were lost as it burned to the ground. An observer at the time commented on how the tree stood miraculously untouched as the fire tore through the building’s simple wooden structure.
Over the years more than one tired traveller along the dirt road from Maverley would be found mysteriously dead where they rested, back supported by the old oak’s thick trunk, beneath the canopy where the shade was darkest. The house’s previous occupant too met a sad fate – she died young but alone. Hers was only one of a long history of not dissimilar stories of misfortune and misery that lay steeped in its old bark.
When I moved in with my wife in the spring of two years past, life could not have been grander. I was successful, a top broker in stocks and shares. My wife loved me, I loved her and our child was on the way. But things seemed to change from the moment we moved in, subtly at first, then with no little momentum. I liken it to entering a tunnel, knowing that the light on the other side is merely a few hundred paces away, then seeing the tunnel gradually stretch impossibly long before me and the light grow fainter before my eyes, finally extinguishing to nothing and taking all hope with it.
At first, the mood changed between my wife and I. Things seemed soured. At the time, I put it down to an effect of her pregnancy. When the miscarriage happened, the despair was irreparable. The shade from the oak bearing over the house had at first seemed welcoming, protective; now it spread throughout the house like a plague. Everything was descending into darkness.
I couldn’t escape through work. My company was getting itself into all sorts of trouble and the debts were racking up. There was no respite. When the last account had been lost, there was nothing left to salvage.
When my wife left me the this last autumn, my transcendence into darkness was complete. Bankrupt and emotionally devastated, the shade of the old oak suddenly seemed the only welcoming place on earth. I took the gun from the desk with me on my way to the front door.
It was only then, standing beneath the shady tree, that I truly saw it for the first time. Perhaps it was the gun in my mouth, the last stand of a desperate and desolate mind that dispersed the illusion. Or maybe all its victims saw the same thing shortly before they died. All I know is that I was ready to pull the trigger, but somehow I didn’t. I simply walked away. Up the dirt road, away from this place. Away from the devastation.
The vision I had was one both macabrely supernatural and one of crystalline clarity. For a moment the house was no longer my home but the old magistrates building of yesteryear. The ancient oak was no longer radiant with life and light but a dark and twisted tower of wood that bore over me broken and dead. The thick green canopy of leaves was gone, yet the shade of the tree remained, no longer welcoming but thick with malevolence. The broad branches above me continued to creak and sway, moaning not with the breeze but with the weight of bodies. For turning gently in their dozens all around me were the ghosts of corpses, the hanged criminals of centuries past.
In witnessing the long dead before me in this moment, the highwaymen of the old dirt road, I can say that the doorway between life and death is a blurred line, a doorway of which I stood on the threshold. The spirit does live on, and in many different ways; in the case of the executed highwaymen, within the bowels of this ancient oak – free to continue in death what was begun in life, though their treasure comes not in coin but living souls. Who can say how long and in what way a soul may be siphoned from those that live and added to the ranks that swarm in the shade beneath the ancient oak?
I can tell you what finally broke the bonds of despair. Or perhaps who. I never used to believe in fate, but now I do. There was one other soul amongst the rest, one I’d never had a chance to meet in life but was somehow part of me. It brought me back from the edge of darkness, I believe that now; to start over, to live my life again. My soul was never meant to be theirs. These scales were already balanced: a life for a life. I know the rules of this game, that one shall die so another may live. I just wish that I could have chosen the one to live.
Slowly but surely, my world is recovering. It’s a long road, but there shall be no highwaymen along the route. I’m talking with my wife again, and business is improving. Soon I will be able to buy up the land around the tree, not just the house within the clearing, but the whole area outright, road and all. And then I can finally prevent the scales from tipping again with the souls of the living, the dead … and the unborn.