[TALE] Firewood
Many years ago, I lived by the blueberry hill at the edge of the forest. It was a small crest girdled with thin footpaths that stood between the forest and the encroaching city. Every evening after work, I would walk home along those dreamy paths in the light of the setting sun. Towering pines and broad-reaching oak trees rose among the blueberry patches, and over the years I grew fond of all that grew and lived there.
In the spring, it was a place of wonder. Gold and purple from the evening sun threw long shadows among the rocks and the trees. Light would pour down from behind the crest of the hill, a cascade that joined the waves of brightly colored spring flowers. With the thawing snow came the fresh scent of earth, and the budding leaves of newly-awakened trees.
The summers were no less impressive. There was a flat rock on the side of the hill where I would sit in silence and meditate in the late hours of the day. It overlooked a tangle of paths that led further into the forest, and though hikers would often pass through here, some evenings were unusually still. On those evenings, I would emerge from my silent contemplation to see the roe deer foraging. Small families of three or four would walk leisurely around me, creatures of living bronze cast from the sunlight. I ate many blueberries with them under the blazing purple sky, awed by their simple beauty. The air in those days was thick and fragrant, a mix of green scents and blossoms.
In autumn my blueberry hill was a mosaic of fallen leaves, and in winter it was a dazzling realm of pearls. How many times throughout the years had I not seen the crows wading through the carpet of leaves, or the squirrels knocking sun-melted snow down as they jumped between the pines? In those cold months, the moon would light the paths on the hill. Countless worlds of silver met me on my wanderings, etched unto the shadows of the night.
I saw the trees of this hill so often that they became like friends to me. Lost in reverie, I would wander and whisper my fears and dreams to my stoic friends, taking solace in their wind-creaking calm. Each had a spirit of its own, and some grew to become the anchors of my day, the stable points in the bustle of life.
There were the Twins, two young maples that grew impetuously to either side of the opening to the street. Their branches would wrestle over the opening, bickering in the wind like brothers do. But they held true to their vigil just the same, and greeted all who entered.
On one of the slopes stood the Old Man, a twisted and gnarled pine tree that yet towered above the other trees. He was a weathered man, the remains of snapped branches sticking out of his sides like bony protrusions, but no storm had dared to fell him. Despite his rough appearance, however, the Old Man was a gentle soul, for the bark around his lower branches was smooth where the children had climbed on him.
And on the very brow of the hill, where the sun shines on a thick blanket of moss, grew the Stripling. He was the youngster among the trees of the hilltop, and I had seen him grow from a seedling to a tall and lanky fellow. I suspected he was the son of the King, the great oak tree that grew on the far end of the hilltop, and under whose wide-reaching boughs I had sat and watched the sunset on many a gilded evening.
In this way, and among these friends, I spent many years. On that blueberry hill I saw the trees grow and the stars shine, I heard the birds sing and the winds whispering in the leaves. Such was the love I felt for it that every other week, I would go out to collect the trash that uncaring hikers left on my beloved hill. I kept it as clean as anyone could ask – it was a duty I had freely chosen. I took pride in the beauty of the hill, and felt as if my humble service had made me a denizen of the dreamy evenings of the blueberry hill.
Here was a home of sorts for me.
*
I had got off early one Friday in late autumn, and I decided to walk my usual route through the forest, past my blueberry hill and down to the neighborhood where I lived. It was still bright outside when I entered the forest, though the gray overcast skies and the leafless trees left me with a feeling of melancholy and desolation. The crows were the only birds left in the forest, and the dry leaves whirled around me in the wind.
As I headed down the path that led to the hill, I noticed something peculiar as I neared the end of the path. The forest was much brighter than it usually was this time of year, and the sky seemed much broader. The trees further away seemed sparser than usual, and as I came closer, I could see some of the roofs of the apartment buildings sticking out from behind my hill. I knew right away that something was wrong.
When I finally came to my beloved hill, my heart sank as I understood what had happened.
The path I had walked nearly every day for years now ended in a fenced-off pit. Where once there had been blueberries there was now only barren rock, the vegetation peeled off the stone by excavators. My hill, before so lush and green even in the gray autumn, was now bone-pale like a flayed skull. Yellow excavators stood silently here and there, killers with buckets and jackhammers like something out of a butcher’s shop.
I staggered breathlessly towards the fence, touching the cold metal that was to me like the bars of a prison cell. The barren stone and overturned soil stared hideously back at me, twisted and disgusting shapes only vaguely reminiscent of what had once been my blueberry hill. Where were my friends? The Twins who guarded the opening, or the Old Man who had lived through every storm, or the little Stripling on the crest? There were no cascading colors on those gaunt cheeks, only the mocking drone of gray rock and brown dirt.
I looked over to one sloping curve of rock and remembered how there had once been a path there. I had once seen two deer on that path, lit up like silver spirits by the moonlight. On the other side I saw a broad stone plain, the bones of the little opening where the spring flowers loved to bloom. On that plain there had been a large boulder, covered in moss that shone emerald-like in the setting sun. I found what remained of it piled by the entrance to the pit, rocks and pebbles left after the jackhammers had done their work. And standing up in that pile of rubble like a tombstone was the flat rock where I used to meditate in the honeyed summer evenings.
These and many other memories came to me as I traced the perimeter. The pit was so silent and desolate, as if the sounds of cracking wood and scraping stone had knocked the air out of the world. I, too, was silent. What was there for me to say? There would be no more stories here. There would be no more summers with blueberries, and no more evenings with my path. They had cleared my memories away as surely as they had torn the little bushes by the roots.
Suddenly, the sting of freshly sawed lumber filled my nostrils like the scent of blood. I kept circling the perimeter, moving closer to the container offices that stood at the far end of the pit. The closer I came, the more I saw the spattered sawdust that trailed off behind the containers. When I turned the corner, I found my friends. I saw them piled to the side, my memories discarded, things I once held dear…
Stacked like firewood.