Serento's Promise

This is one of the very first stories I wrote. It's about life after death for a little girl and the spirit of a very introspective, reflective tree. ID LOVE SOME REVIEWS

Serento’s Promise

“It was winter… a solemn, desolate, subzero winter. Blizzards had been blowing in day and night, on and off, for the last couple of days. Feet of snow had buried the ground to the point where I was sure I wouldn’t see a single soul until spring. But then, there they were, armed with axes in a group of 15 or so. They chopped down every tree within a mile radius. I was no exception, chopped down the same as the rest. I hold, however, no grudges against them. I know that my sacrifice, though not by choice, was for the continuation of humanity, and I had accepted my fate long before this day had come. “

After having relived my death, I look down to my right at little Zoe. Her hazel eyes were huge and glossy with tears. Suddenly, I am unsure of what to do… she’s about to cry. I open my mouth with the hopes of saying something vaguely comforting but before I can manage any words her gentle voice asks a question again.

“How old were you?”
Looking at her I smile, and at a near whisper I confide to her,

“Age is truly a strange thing for trees. We can spend decades, sometimes centuries, drifting. Completely unaware of the physical world. But we will always know our age. Each ring in my trunk represented a year of my life and every single one resonated within me dictating a certain kind of constant stability that lingered always.”

I take a deep breath and chuckle lightly before adding at last,
“When I was killed I was 3743 years old.” As the last tendrils of my voice were assimilated into the air, Zoe commited an act I surely thought impossible; her eyes got even bigger.

“3743?” she echoes back in shock, tears forgotten. I nod my head in response.

“3743.” Breaking eye contact with me she glances up at the incredibly picturesque sky; periwinkle blue with marshmallow clouds completed by a perfect afternoon sun brightening our meadow. Surrounded by flowers and sunshine, shaded under a particularly large tree, lounging in the grass, it’s almost too easy to forget that we’re dead. Relieving us of the silence Zoe asks yet another question,
“What’s your name?”

Ah, the innocence of youth. If she were talking to any other tree they’d have to admit to not having a name. Luckily, I am not like other trees in this aspect. I have been given a name which I relay to her proudly and with confidence.

“Serento.”      

A quiet breeze blows by and the rustling of leaves above makes my heart ache. Zoe’s light brown hair stirs, her curls dancing in the slight wind. Her dress is every shade of forest fire, almost flickering as she smooths it out. She formally introduces herself.
“I’m Zoe. I was eight.” She extends a hand and I take it.
“Hello Zoe, It’s good to meet you.”
It might have been the fact that a 3743 year old tree and an eight year old girl just introduced themselves to each other, or perhaps that the act of shaking hands while reclining against a tree trunk is awkward, or maybe just that it has been such a long time since true communication and our current contentment was oddly amusing. Whatever the reasoning, we both burst out laughing, limitless.

After our laughs die down and we have rolled about on the ground for long enough, I stare up at the tree’s branches and as I’ve grown accustomed to, Zoe asks a question.

“What was it like… being a tree?

Her voice small, hesitant. Almost as though she realizes that this is a rather personal question. I allow silence to descend, taking advantage of this opportunity to determine the best way to answer her question. Moments later, I begin my explanation,

“They don’t… see the way you do. Their vision consists of the vibrations from the ground and observing the energy of lifeforms and deeper thought. They exist on a higher plane of consciousness than that of your race, humans. They are incapable of communication in the form with which you are familiar. Amongst each other few bother to reach out, thus isolating ourselves within our own thought frames. My only communication throughout all my years was with a human male.”

The memory of the first day I truly communicated with him, is branded into my soul like that of any other common knowledge that just exists within. His thoughts were shouting through the abyss, feeling demanding recognition. His mind’s eye was teetering on the rim of the deeper level in which my race presided. Instantly, I felt as though I had known him for a millennia.

Zoe’s eyes are baring through me. Childish excitement and the sheer curiosity of youth coat her voice as she asks me,

“What was he like?”

My face grows a smile. Happy in my memories I continue my story,

“We only spoke three times. The first time was, obviously, over a woman. He paced back and forth in front of my trunk. Worry coming off him in waves. He spoke to me. He said, ‘Clearly there’s something wrong with me because I’m standing here talking to a tree.’

If you didn’t know Zoe, standing in the middle of a forest talking to a tree isn’t the typical behavior of the majority of your race. He explained to me that he wandered these woods as a child, and that I had always been his favorite tree. How he had nobody else to go to. Nobody to listen, understand. How this was his final option. Speaking to a tree… then… Then he told me the way he viewed me. He said,

‘So serene, thoughtful. Standing alone in this clearing, seperated from the rest. Branches waving, life just radiating out.’

He told me then that for these exact reasons he had secretly come up with a name for me in his head. That secretly he had been calling me “Serento”. And I repeated the name over and over. It fit so perfectly. Sliding into an open slot that I didn’t know was there, filling a hole where I never knew something was missing.

He leaned close after that, as though he was going to reveal his darkest secrets. Instead, he told me,

‘I’m invisible. I want nothing more than to be in her life, but she has never seen me, and I fear she never will… but I love her…’”

Closing my eyes I take a rest. The memories flooding back to me in a rush so sudden I was lucky to have been sitting down. When I continue my voice is smaller, more hesitant to reveal such secrets.

“Zoe… he gave my life meaning. He gave me an existence. Before I just was. Just a drifting form wandering the planes of thought and consciousness. Now I was somebody and because of this there was nothing on earth that I wanted more than to help him. I focused all my energy, my thought, my power into a single phrase, from me to him. A single phrase to help him understand.

‘To be viewed by the painting you must paint yourself within.’

I was worried at first that he would misunderstand. As a tree I could fully comprehend the feelings of never being noticed. I had learned over time, and through various observations that the only way to truly input yourself into someones life is to take risks. To remove yourself from your comfort zone, extend your boundaries, and work in favor of their wishes. To truly become who you want yourself to be, you just have to go for it.”

My words fall meticulously into the space between Zoe and I, quickly fading into nothing. I wait for my words to be absorbed by Zoe before continuing my tale.

“He left then, pondering my advice, questioning his sanity. Many years passed before I got to see him again. A decade at least, though it was all a blur to me. The presence of his mind awakened me from my haze, just as I realized his physical entity was barreling down towards me. His shouts resonated within the wood of my trunk. He called my name, and praised me, approaching fast he thus launched himself on to me, embracing me with his full strength. Tears rolled down his cheeks as his intense emotion of undeniable bliss entered my soul. I knew then, that I had done something right. That I had fulfilled some unsaid purpose to my existence. Married he told me, and with child. The purity of his joy was unprecedented, never before had I felt anything like it…”

Zoe lies with her eyes closed, content in the cool shade. I almost begin to believe she is asleep when she questions me, eyes still unopened.

“What about the third time?”

Immersed in my fragmented remnants of now diluted passion I prepare myself for the final chapter in my story. Staring intently at Zoe, my voice is a speck of dust carried away on the light breeze.

“Our last day together… was shortly after the second. He was void of any energy he contained previously. Quietly he came, and sat by me on the grass. For the longest time he said nothing, just breathed, but his thoughts spoke clearly to me, of broken hearts and overwhelming sadness. When he finally did speak, his voice was shaking, defeated.

“She’s dead…”

He said no more than that but it was all that was needed, his mind told me the rest.

It was his daughter.”

I look at Zoe before proceeding, her huge globes meeting mine as I complete the thought.

“He murmered her name for a while, over and over: Zoe, Zoe, Zoe.”

I watch her eyes widen, and questions pass over her lips, unasked, as she makes sense of what I just told her. She decides upon her next question carefully, her hazel eyes gazing into mine.

“How did you find me?” she asks, with calculated calmness.

“Zoe, he came to me that day, not asking why, or questioning fate, but simply to ask a favor of me. He told me softly as night creeped over us how much you reminded him of me. You were serene and thoughtful. Full of life. He knew you were not like the rest. Not like the humans. He sensed that your soul existed as mine does, though he didn’t know the exact terms. Your soul is that of a tree like I am, though somehow you were born as a human child. Your father did not know this, but he did what his heart led him to do. He took you to me, and buried your physical form near my trunk. Asking me to promise I would find you, because he just knew he would be unable. Weeping, he fell to his knees, and I watched, ever conscious of my lack of ability when dealing with humans. I consoled him in the only way I could. I transferred to him the most powerful phrase in the English language. ‘I promise.’

Before he left, he stooped down near your grave and dug a small hole with his hand. Within this little hole he placed a seed. He planted a tree. Then looking back at me, he left, for the final time.”

Glancing at Zoe, I quickly come to the conclusion that for an eight year old girl coping with the details of her own previous demise, she’s doing quite well. No panic, tears. She remains completely composed, internally balanced. The tree in her is obvious.

“What was my tree like…?” her voice so innocent and pure. So soft. A gentle caress against the air.

Tearing up, I choke back my emotions. “It was a glorious tree Zoe. Growing so tall it dined with clouds for dinner. Impressive to all who were honored enough to see it. A magnificent tree was yours Zoe, truly magnificent. I watched your tree grow and die, and then I came to find you. You asked me how I did this. Well, when I was killed, my consciousness was freed from its physical domain. There was no bright calling light however. What I experienced was almost the equivalent of being cast out into space. Darkness surrounding me, littered everywhere with sparkling dazzling specs of flaming light. This flashed against my mind’s eye, alternating in milliseconds with the opposite image of infinite white space speckled with burning black fire. I think of you Zoe, of all the emotions your father associated with you, and our connection through the continuum of realities. We had become tethered together by your burial and rebirth as a tree by my side, my relationship with your father and lastly my promise to him. There is no way on heavens or Earth Zoe, that I, Serento, would break a promise. Within moments there is an overwhelming coldness. As though liquid nitrogen had been poured down my throat. I found myself numb, but with physical form. I was in a meadow, one exactly like the one where I spent my life previously. I could being to feel the first tendrils of warmth on my skin, my heart beating im my chest. My toes were submereged in dirt and fresh air filled my lungs for the first time. Looking up, I saw two trees, and between them a little girl in a dress every shade of forest fire, her curls frolicking wildly in the breeze.

********************

A tall middle aged man with crisp sunset orange hair and eyes the color grass seas saunters across a field of flowers. Physically he now exists as a human, but his soul shall forever remain a tree. Existing is more of an opinion anyways considering the reasoning behind his current location. The target of his progression is a small human girl, resting between two gloriously huge trees, standing parallel in the midst of the meadow. As the man nears the girl’s ridiculously large eyes flicker open. Sunlight sparks against her dress like candle light dances on walls as she asks what surely must be the question of greeting in the afterlife. “ How’d you die?” sighing deeply and pausing momentarily the man, who is in truth a tree seats himself beside the young brunette. As though preparing himself for a journey he takes a deep breath before beginning,

“It was winter…”

 

 

Author's Note

I'd love to hear anything you've got.

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

Yu have put a lot of imagination gone in to this. I have the feeling that there is some deep spiritual feeling underpinning this and perhaps in todays environmental crisis you might have touched on this. What you have written is quite unique and works well.
Well done.
Alan