The Lone Tree, The Four Seasons: Winter

Writer's Corner: Flash Non Fiction with Elements of Fiction; Part 1/5

Antonio Vivaldi - Winter (The Four Seasons)

Our noses are pressed against the window, and our palms are sliding down it in unison. We are eight years old, in the second grade, but we know there will be smudges all over the glass. Neither of us cares but I, unlike my blissfully unaware or shamelessly uncaring friend, expect to be wiping it clean in the evening. Opening and closing on autopilot, our mouths are now agape, now tight-lipped. We look like a pair of fish, whose artificial home is running on low levels of oxygen. The ragged pattern of our inhales and exhales steams the transparent non - crystalline solid where heat meets cold. Stunt silence has befallen the flat; neither the radio, nor the TV is on, the need for background noise dissolved. My parents are at work, and the apple of my eye is curled on the rug, hibernating; she is the colour of the outside.

The object of our fixated gazes and astonished, o-shaped jaws is the tree at the front of the other residential building.

It is the sight that greets anyone, who steps out onto the terrace or peeks through the windows of the living room or my bedroom. The tree steals the show, every time, without failure; my own and my mother’s desires to impress guests with our internal design know-how tossed aside like a used handkerchief. The attention of the new arrival is in a chokehold and, for the next five or ten minutes, we will not be able to regain it or redirect it to the pretty décor. They will ask a question after question, visibly annoyed at the level we are on. The apartment is on the tenth floor and offers only a limited view of this magnificent non-sentient being – it would appear, trees are not classed as creatures despite their long-term residency on this planet and infinite wisdom. The visitor moves around in the hope of securing a better watching position, exchanging pleasantries with us in the meantime. This game of tug of war can be frustrating, especially when I have an addition to the toy collection in the glass cabinet I would like to show off. In the end, I can never be truly mad, and resign to the fate of second best. After all, my friend and I, we are just as mesmerised, and we have the privilege of seeing the tree every day. Even though it is not an exciting discovery anymore, it always manages to attract the eye, magnet to metal. What chance does anyone else have?

Photo by Artur Stanulevich on Unsplash

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Regardless of the heavy mounds of snow, piled on its every branch, the tree rises to its full height. No one can miss it, even if it is not starkly outlined against the mass of white. Self-assurance unwavering, nothing seems capable of weighing it down. This is unlike the adult humans of middle age, or older, whose twigs are often loaded with groceries in plastic or tote bags, their trunks bent under the extra weight. Not the tree. Unwelcoming surroundings do not frighten it. It does not cower under the threat of blizzards. What damage can negative temperatures really do? An icy wind is only a temporary inconvenience. Mother nature has deprived it of its clothing -- leafless, bare and barren against the harshness of the terrain. Yet, it does not shiver, nor does it hug and fold within itself for warmth. On the contrary: a sparrow takes shelter in one of its many Y-junctions, ruffling its feathers and sprinkling snow dust below. Strangers stand underneath the tree’s naked crown, for a moment of reflection or to take a breather.  

For the past twelve weeks, the landscape has been nothing but a blanket of snow, spread far and wide. As we observe the gigantic tree -- the claws stretching out, its body set deeply into the earth -- we cannot help but think about this winter wonderland melting away, turning into nothingness for another year. In three months, the scenery will begin to change and, with it, the demands of our young lives.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash