A Cottonwood's Answer (Short Stories Begin Here)

a man ponders the decisions in life

A Cottonwood's Answer

          The man sat exhaustively down upon the ground. He had been walking, and walking, searching for an answer. Nothing had yielded itself yet. Nothing.

          To be sure, the walk had helped. He had seen some warning signs. Like the rich deep, blue dome overhead. Or the pair of hawks he had seen high in the sky. But, yet, their normally quieting presence hadn't held their old satisfaction. They hadn't driven the trouble from his mind as they had of old. They had only soothed him momentarily.

          He was near home, the man had told himself. He was near home and he hadn't resolved his question, that no one he knew would be interested in. Not that he blamed them. No, a man who wanted to know what everything was all about and would go on long walks in the country and the woods, trying to probe into life's secrets, was decidedly different. He couldn't expect anyone to understand his philosophizing, for a man was supposed to be content with life. He was not supposed to question it. He was supposed to sit back placidly and gather his knowledge about life from his life's experiences. And he was not supposed to yearn so deeply for wisdom that he would be on constant quest for it.

          The man laid himself back into the weeds he had been sitting in. He had always liked this part of the forest. In a way, there was no describing the thing about the area which made it feel so comfortable. Perhaps he liked the way the knoll he sat on rolled lazily downward. Perhaps he liked the narrow creek with it's low banks. Perhaps it was the thick tufts of grass here and there. Or, perhaps it was the whispering way of the large, aged cottonwood. ---The cottonwood.

          He turned his head toward the tree. His hazel-colored eyes followed the outline of the tree in an upward movement, from ground to sky, from trunk to apex. They took in the way the large rounded trunk rose up in a straight line, and they took in the way the many boughs spread themselves outward. They took in the numerous branches that spread out from each bough and they noted the many twigs to each branch. They noted the large, toothed leaves on the twigs and they observed the great furrows in the grayish bark. The last thing they noted about the cottonwood was the gradual descent of size in everything as one went upward. Trunk, boughs, branches, twigs, leaves, everything. Even the furrows in the bark.

          Somehow, as he looked at the tree, the man was reminded of the reason of why he had been walking that morning. - What had been the question? Oh, yes, man's decisions. He had been wondering how deeply a man's decisions affected his life. For instance, were decisions so heavily important, that, if a man decided on one course, would he end up in a much more worse state of mind, than if he had chosen the other? Or, really, did decisions matter? Suppose a man had chosen one answer to a decision - like his life's work. Would he - would he find the same deep, meaningful things in life, as he would have if he had chosen an alternative? That was what had been disturbing his mind; that was there such a thing as all people finding the bright side of life, despite the way they lived? Or - was it - that there were different levels of realization in the end? - Where some people, when they are dying, would feel that life had been nothing but coldness, nothing but people living the wrong kind of way.

          The man's eyes went back to the cottonwood. He had always deeply admired trees. And to him, things that he admired represented life. Of course, there were ugly things in life also. They could be said to represent it too. But the things a person admired were the things that kept him from turning sour on life because of the ugly things. For that reason, it seemed to him, the beautiful aspects did represent life much, much more so than the distasteful aspects.

          A sudden thought struck the man. Why had the tree reminded him of his question? His eyes traveled over it once more.

          He saw then. He saw why it had reminded him of his thoughts on man's decisions. He saw that the trunk represented to him a man's first major decision - his profession. That the branches on that bough represented a second - his love and marriage. And that the twigs represented a third - his way of life. The leaves could not be said to count because they were not there in the cold blast of winter; the cold blast of life. The bark's furrows? Those were man's understanding. The further they went, the more shallow they grew. The further a man went, the less he was in the deep ditch of not knowing.

          Yet, there were many boughs. There were many branches. There were many twigs. They all came out to different heights. Did those numbers, did that elevation mean something? Were those numerous boughs along the trunk saying that, of a man's choice of professions, there were many decisions? And weren't they indicating by their elevation that there was only one right decision - the highest bough? For the highest bough was at the greatest height, and that could mean it was the highest achievement of understanding life. That could mean there were different levels of understanding life at the end, for there were boughs, or decisions, or choices of profession, or different levels of understanding, that were lower than the highest bough. That could mean also that there were dying people who departed, believing the world to be cruel.

          The man was stunned. Could it be so? Could it be that the world was so cruel, that it didn't let everyone find happiness, find realization, at the end of their lives? The tree seemed to say so, for there would be no lower boughs, if there weren't people who took decisions that weren't as high and wise as another one. And it was height that counted, for a high understanding was more desirable than a low understanding.

          Again, the man's hazel eyes went over the trees. Was there not some mistake that he might have made? Was there not some detail that he might have overlooked?

          Some faint, wailing cries caught his attention. Looking up, he saw the pair of hawks again, far in the distance. One was higher than the other. Soon, he only saw the higher one, for a branch of the cottonwood blocked his sight of the lower hawk. Another moment, and the other hawk was blocked from view too.

          The man knew he would see the hawks again as they would emerge in sight from the other side of the cottonwood. But he did not look to the other side. He looked at the tree. The one hawk had been lower than the other, but it had vanished from sight first, because the branch that had blocked it from sight was longer than the one which had blocked the other hawk. And that longer branch was lower than higher. Lower, but longer.

          Length, it had been the last detail he had noted. Length was the answer. Length was the compliment of height. A person might not choose so high and wise a decision, but what he lost in height and shortness, he made up in length.

          Yet, the man acknowledged willingly, he was not willing himself to be patient with length. He was not willing to be a man to sit back placidly and gather his knowledge from life's experiences. Perhaps, length was wrong after all.

          He saw the hawks emerging from the other side. The sky behind them was still the rich vivid color it had been. The sky was one big blue dome. It framed everything. It framed the woods, the cottonwood-

          The man jerked. The cottonwood was on top of a hill facing him. It was so situated near the crest, that every twig was against blue background. Only the base of the tree trunk was surrounded by brown.

          The sky surrounded the cottonwood then. Every twig ended against the sky. And - there was no such things as elevation in the sky. There was elevation to the sky, to the universe, but there was no elevation in it, for the sky was that which surrounded everything, that which was eternal, that which kept going on forever.

          He saw again, but he saw at last. The boughs, the branches, and the twigs might be on different levels but they all ended in the same eternal sky. They all ended there. Everyone, then, everyone, despite the decision he chose, came to the same big deep thing - the eternal.

          The man rose, and turned to go home. He had answered his question.

-end-

Raymond Lee Collins

date unknown

Copyright reserved by publisher

Cheryl I Collins

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

What a story, what thought created it, how much one could focus upon, learn, understand, query, follow, remember.

This work to be read, to be slowly read. Then returned to as a tribute to its incredible writer: a man who wanted to know and perhaps, who knows, might have learned that sharing is what makes thought turn into more than more for ever
more.