The Hanging Tree

Each night I try to stop a girl from killing herself until I couldn't find the reason for her to stay...

I always enjoyed the view as I sat upon the branch of the old oak tree near home. On a silent night I would see the bright orbs of light that freckled the vast darkness overhead. It always made me remember that my problems were small compared to the moon and my dreams have opportunities that are infinite as the stars. But the tree where I sat was called the Hanging Tree.

On the branch where I spent nights wide awake a noose was tied to it and below a wooden chair lied still. It was years since the rope was tied to the tree that its strings had frayed and the wooden chair was weather worn and grass had over grown around it.

One sleepless night a young girl with glasses and tears streaming down from her eyes came to the tree. She stepped onto the chair and put the noose over her. Before she kicked the chair away I yelled, “Please don’t do it!”

“Why not?” she asked, her face held no emotion but her cheeks glistened under the moonlight as hot tears rolled down.

“I’ll tell you why after you tell me your story,” I said.

“I am a failure,” she began, “all my life I try to do what is expected of me. A perfect student. Good grades, a nice girl, and a future everyone ought I will take. But I can’t be the perfect girl they think I am. And the more I fail the more worthless I felt. To me it seemed that my grades and studying where the only things I can keep and do… and if I failed keeping them up it feels as though I can’t do anything else. I feel like the world never needed me,” she said more tears welled from her eyes. There, I saw what was written all over her face, desperation. The desperation to satisfy everyone’s expectations of her.

“You can’t meet everyone’s expectations. You will always fail and lose yourself along the way. But you have to find who you are and pick yourself up again. The expectations of others that you are fed up with are just what they want you to be, not what you dreamed to be. Stop following the crowd and look up the sky from time to time,” I said and she gazed upon the vastness of the universe, “Your future isn’t tied to a paper with numbers written on it. Your worth isn’t bound on how much knowledge you crammed in your mind and how you retain it in your head just till the next exam. And who you are isn’t based on what people think of you.

“Life is long enough to find who you wish to be. The world needs you like how it needs the moon during the darkest nights to light the way.” I curved my lips to a genuine smile fighting back the tears I held just like her.

The glasses girl gave me a weak smile “I think it’s not yet time…” she said and went away leaving a piece of paper with a failing grade written on it.

The following night another girl came. She was quite plump, her hair was braided, and her eyes were wet and swelling from the tears. She then steps onto the chair and pulls the noose over her head. I shouted once more, “Wait. Please don’t do it!”

“Why can’t I?” she asked.

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll tell you why,” I replied.

“You can see for yourself, I’m fat and I am not even close to beautiful as the girls on magazines. Everyone tells me how fat am I and how ugly I am like there’s no tomorrow. And because of that I’m always alone. No one seems to care if I’m not there. I am never welcomed by anyone let alone become anyone’s friend… I just can’t take it anymore… the loneliness I feel even though I’m surrounded by many people. It’s just unbearable…” she cried trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Physical appearance doesn’t matter, but what matters is on the inside, isn’t what they always say?” I said looking from above.

“Yeah… but what good does it do? It can’t make them stop saying cruel things to me or find a friend when everyone I turn to goes away” the plump girl cried even louder hiccuping as she sobbed.

“You’re not yet there yet” I breathed. 

“Just keep on living as you try to love yourself day by day… you still have a family who will welcome you once you get home, who’ll prepare food for the table every day, and listen to your worries… have you ever looked at the night sky for once?” she then looks up at the sky glittered with innumerable bright lights.

“I know your family can’t always be there for you, but your pain and loneliness isn’t infinite like the universe. One day you’ll meet the people who will be the world to you, the friends you can never replace and never forget them how much time passes by. They will teach you again how loved you are by others and chase the loneliness away as if it wasn’t even there at the first place. They will come to you unexpectedly like an earthquake, they will shake your world upside down, break the weak person who you used to be, and after all that you’ll be stronger than ever into a person who can finally and definitely love yourself. So strive to live each day to meet them.”

The plump girl nodded vigorously, “I guess it isn’t yet the time,” she said as she wiped a tear away and left. On the ground next to the paper was a notebook left open with the words ‘you’re ugly’ written across the page.

Sleepless nights continued to pass and every dark night a new girl would come by to the old oak tree to stand on the chair and pull the noose over their heads. But never once I have failed to stop them from doing the most sorrowful and irreversible thing they would ever do in their lives. As this repeated itself night by night I realized that no one would do this for me.

When I kick the chair and choke the life out of me who would stop me from doing it?

And then it finally happened, a girl with a worn out blue jacket came and climbed up the chair and stared at the noose. She looked at it with tired eyes. She was exhausted, she didn’t know if ending her life would make any difference. If she’s gone for good will anyone love her then? Would anyone remember her? Would someone shed a tear if she’s gone? She was tired to continue living but she felt she was even too tired to die too. She was stuck between wanting to live and wanting to die… spending night after night to look at the noose and never pulled it over her head, contemplating whether to go through with her death wish or not.

And each passing night I just stared at her from above, and never said a word.

A few nights later she finally spoke as she looked up from the chair and met my eyes. “Do you always look at the stars?” she asked with a mask that hid every emotion inside of her.

I was startled at her question, but I replied with a yes.

“Every time I look up during the dark hours… I think that I am the pitch black sky and the stars are all the wounds and scars that marred my body and the moon is like the hole where my heart should’ve been,” she said. I couldn’t focus on what she just told me because I was too horrified from what I saw on her face.

She was black and blue. The skin that peeked out of her jacket was peppered with scars and her face was a mess of bruises that painted her cheeks violet, blue, with a little green.

I opened my mouth to speak… to tell her to stop… to stop coming to the tree and stand upon the chair, but she spoke first. “I won’t kill myself, it isn’t yet time” she said and left.

Now, a cutter stained with blood lied next to the notebook and paper.

I thought over and over in my mind as if those words were on replay “Who would stop me?”

Each time I leaned my head back to gaze at infinity I started to think my dreams isn’t as big as the moon but rather, it was dark and invisible like the sea of gloom atop and my problems were countless as the stars…

“It’s time” I finally said.

I climbed down from the branch and stood upon the weather worn chair that creaked. I realized that the nights before I haven’t really seen the sky clearly at all. I always looked down at the girls who visited the tree and when I look up from the chair to the view I have always known that would save me… the beautiful scenery that told me I had a place in this world... was gone.

I couldn’t see the stars or the moon anymore but the cloudy sky that hid the light behind them. The reason to save myself was gone.

I sighed.

My clothes sagged from all the weight I have lost. I threw my glasses to the ground, loosed the braids on my hair, and stripped off the worn out blue jacket. And pulled the noose over my head.

“No one would do this for me but me,” my last words.

And kicked the chair away…

I couldn't save myself in the end... and the Hanging Tree kept its name.

Author's Note

Please critique my work, and I'll review your works as a thank you. This is the tragic ending. I'll post the better ending later, same story different ending. LOOKING FOR A CRITIQUE PARTNER!!! Please message me if you are looking for one as well

Reviews

[Nora]

It's amazing, i really love it , now I have 2 wishes
The first one , i wish i could find any mistakes in your story like you did to mine , but i failed it is masterpiece
😂😂😂
The second wish ,
I wish i can write like you one day , even we both not native English speaker but my English is bull s**t compering to yours 😂 excuse me i am self educated
Keep going and pray for my English grammar to get well soon 😢😂😢

[Psychotic Lily]

😂😂😂 Thank you for the review. Tip, before you write you need to read. We have all been idiots at the start, and I'll always keep an update to your writings 😁

[Nora]

My pleasure dear and thanks for your words 😊

[Coyote Poetry]

A amazing story told. I like the characters, thoughts and the hanging tree. Many movies use the hanging tree. Leave the reader with thoughts and fear. The internal thoughts and ending. Worthwhile and very good.
Coyote

[Psychotic Lily]

Thank you Coyote 😁

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome.

[Tom Float]

This reads almost like a fable. To me there is more than just writing here. There is a desire to convey a message? I may be wrong, but hey! That's the beauty of literature right? If this were written like a normal story I may mention a couple tiny little things I personally would think about (the responses of the girls & the inability for the narrative voice to take her own advice) but again, its not a typical story and so it's lovely exactly the way it is in my opinion! Nicely written.

[Psychotic Lily]

Thank you for reading my work Tom. Actually, the girls she meet are herself, she's trying to stop herself from committing suicide until she couldn't do it anymore. I'm still editing the story to further improve how I convey this message

[Vic]

I liked this story. I think the end is perfect, that the girl stopped herself so many times but couldn't go on forever. It's sad, but a good story.

[Psychotic Lily]

Thank you :)

[Farhan Shaikh]

It is awesome, i think it is perfect..an amazing story i came across today..
Dialogues are perfectly penned.
Very good job

[Psychotic Lily]

Thank you 😁

[JayG]

Okay, try not to hate me. ;-)

First, structure:

Primarily, this is a “told” story. The narrator is talking to the reader, not from within the moment of “now” in the story, but as a synopsis. The problem with that is that the reader cannot hear the emotion you hear in the voice of the narrator when you read. You get your storyteller’s performance, but they get only the emotion the words suggest to them. Have your computer read the story to you, aloud, and you’ll hear what a reader gets.


Try an experiment: Take a read of a few pages of this graphic novel:
http://www.gocomics.com/lostsideofsuburbia/2011/07/26
It’s one I really like.

Then, go back to page one and think about how much emotional and story content is added by the graphics, and how much like your story it would read without them. My point is that unless you have the drawing talents of Kory Merritt, that story’s writer, you need to upgrade the writing to provide what the Merritt’s drawings do for his story.

Next, the story:

First, you cheat: The one narrating the piece says, “I’ll tell you why after you tell me your story,” but doesn’t. And this repeats, an obvious plot device—as is the suicide tree that’s been there with no one taking the noose down for years. The fact that each person who comes is “saved” by a few words of wisdom (if only), repeating the scenario several times, is a problem. First, because it’s too obviously a set-up, and second because this wise person, for unknown reasons can’t see her own advice and apply it to her situation, or even seek help. And those she helps don’t try to engage her in conversation, or become friends. They simply accept a girl sitting in a tree without question. Would you? Wouldn’t you come back the next night to talk to someone so wise? Yes, I know it’s really her, but the reader doesn’t, as it’s read, and will ask such questions.

So while the writing is well done, and I applaud the effort that went into it, you need to address the issues I mentioned.

I would strongly suggest you dig into the tricks of the trade, and acquire the tools that will allow you to bring the reader into the story, to experience it, as against reading about it in summation from a narrator.

It’s not an easy book, but I’d suggest you dig up a copy of Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer,” to acquire those tools. It can make a huge difference.

And finally: one of the problems with first person is that it undercuts the reader’s worry that the protagonist dies in the story, since they live to tell it. But your protagonist does die. So how can she report it?

You might want to dig around in the writing articles in my blog, to see what areas of your writing you need to bolster.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Psychotic Lily]

Thank you so much JayG. I completely agree with you. I always had problems with the "show, noy tell" when it came to stories thank you for pointing it out and for giving me materials I could read to improve.

I really had a hard time that the girls that come to the noose is the one who's up there on the tree. So basically she's saving herself... anyway I cannot thank you enough. I'll revise this one keeping in mind the problems you pointed it out. (This was a crappy first draft)

Thank you again!