The city that spread out before the oak tree was ridged by large buildings towering over gray slats of cement. Wires hung between the towers like necklaces, carrying gondolas two and fro between the stations at the peaks. The towers made glass walls, reflecting a display of colored clouds on the streets below: large swaths of pink, blue, orange, and green that covered the city in a rainbow glow.
And there was Wroth, arched over a withered park encroached by cement, with his branches splayed out to provide shade that no one wanted or needed any longer. When Wroth had been only twenty rings old, families crowded this park for picnics and mid-day getaways, all gaping up at him in awe. The oak tree had held lovers retreating for time alone in his boughs, watched young men stroll with beaming smiles and letters of acceptance, and rarely, a woman coming to grieve beneath his shade.
He had been their joy, a sight to behold, a beauty. But that was nearly one hundred rings ago, and Wroth was growing old. Some of his branches had been sawed off to make way for a shiny new swing set, and his leaves were half the green they once were. He was feeling old, too.
Sometimes, when he would blink and sunrise would turn to sunset. Time passed him by; every year cement marched closer and closer to his trunk.
One thing was constant, one thing that stayed the same: the woman. Since ten rings ago, she had come once a year to sit on a small bench just outside of his canopy, stare up at him, and sketch something on her pad. She had long brown hair that danced in the wind and clothes of every style and color. If Wroth were asked—which no one really did of a tree—he would say that she rivaled the colored clouds themselves with her beauty. As she grew older, confident, mature, Wroth wilted.
There came a time where he wondered why she spent so long staring at him, dragging charcoal across paper for something like hours. So Wroth caught a brushing wind and leaned out over his little area to catch a glimpse of the woman’s paper. It was…him! There lay on her page a large sketch of Wroth in charcoal, limbs spread out like he was reaching for the sky. As the wind settled him back to his spot, Wroth contemplated.
Why would such a beautiful woman spend her time drawing him? And what did she see that made her return each year? He was perplexed, which is a lot to say for a tree over 120 rings old. Yet, she kept visiting. Wroth realized that every time she came, she drew him anew, and every time it made him feel something different. First shame that a woman of her talents would waste time on him. Then, interest as he saw her dedication. And finally, whenever the woman approached with charcoal in hand, he felt pride.
This woman, a masterpiece in her own right, had decided to draw him. So, Wroth could bear the little children clawing at his bark, and teenagers taking their rage out on his bent limbs, and the silent, cold nights alone just so that he could see her again next year. Every day in between was one spent looking forward, waiting, wishing, believing.
Now when he watched the colored clouds rushing past, he did not fret over their color. The cement could get closer, but it could not stop the woman’s dedication. The people who used to crowd around him could leave, and it did not bother him. He was Wroth, and even if there was only one woman in the whole of the world that cared about him, he would be okay.
He let some of his leaves be snatched away by the wind, and dug his roots in a little deeper, and positioned himself to create the most appealing image for the woman to draw. But one ring, she stopped coming. One ring turned into five, then ten, then one day Wroth awoke and realized he had been waiting for forty rings.
People, such as they were, die. Wroth watched his leaves fall, less and less of them growing back each ring, and thought of her. Thought of her breathing her last and wishing that she were buried beneath him so he could be with her for the rest of his life. But he was alone, and his leaves fell and fell, and soon Wroth had little to show for the majestic oak he once was. His heartwood was cracked, his bark was gray, and almost no one came to the park anymore.
It was winter, snow piling on him like a horrible weight, when three figures approached him. There was an old woman, long gray hair peeking out from her winter coat, and two little children with ruddy faces shivering against the cold. Wroth watched as they sat on the bench and felt a flare of anger in his age. Who were they to sit there, on her spot, on her day. How dare they taint Wroth’s memory of her?
Then the elderly woman looked up, and he saw the artist’s face. She smiled and took out her pad and charcoal. Wroth was perfectly still.
The two children ran around him, playing tag, squealing, until the artist woman called them over and handed them crayons and paper of their own. They sat on either side of her, sketching their own tree.
If Wroth could weep, he would. It had been years—decades—since he had seen her. In that time, he had grown old, pale, and gray. He saw on her face wrinkles, spots of age, and countless stress marks all accounted. Yet she was as beautiful as the day he first saw her. Now they made a pair. And all the pride she had instilled in him, he gave back to her.
The children were drawing. Wroth leaned one more time, using all the strength in his roots, and watched as they painted him in every color they could manage. Blue for the trunk, red for the limbs, and thousands and thousands of green leaves. How…? How did they see so many beautiful colors in him, old and decrepit?
Then he saw the woman, smiling up at him in that way she always had, and Wroth realized that never, even long after she passed away, would he be alone.
This has to be one of my favorite short stories that I’ve ever written. Even in re-reading it for some editing before posting, it brought me to tears. And I mean ugly tears.
The prompt for this was to take a world that another writer had made (my wife’s: an urban rainbow city with towering skyscrapers and gondolas), and pair it with a character a different author designed (Wroth, a Treant whose wife was cursed to be human).
Thank you for reading. Please, if there’s any creative hobby you’re pursuing, keep going. Take the next step. Just start. I promise you that you’ll find beauty along the way.
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