There is Still Life

A meeting at the bench in a park in Wilmington, Delaware occurred every 28th day of the month out of a calendar year. They never arrived late. One man, sartorial and demure dressed in staid colors and kept a cane. The other wore loud, vibrant clothes.

They sat together in their nineties, men of color and status, retired executives from corporate America.

“I told you there was no finishing that game,” Reed Knotts chuckled. He breathed in the spring air.

“I had to shut it off. They had too many errors,” Wallace Gosman chimed.

“That team from twenty years ago would have run circles around them. I’ll tell you that much,” Knotts opined.

“Yeah, well…”

“You still looking after that gal from the club?”

“I sure am. White as rice and alright. She’s only twenty-eight.”

“I was going to get me one of those synthetic beings. I thought better of it. I’ll find myself a lady friend.”

“You won’t have time.”

“Who says I won’t?”

“I says it.”

“You old fool.”

“Hey, I might be old, but I ain’t nobody’s fool.”

“Where you going to find her? You don’t go to the club. You’ve never believed in Jesus so you’re not going to find her in church.”

“That’s alright,” Gosman sighed. “We’ll be going to nonexistence pretty soon.”

“That’s right. There’s still life in us, though. I could tell you about last night but I don’t want your heart to burst!”

“Haha, ain’t nothing wrong with some time with your little piece. She's a fine young woman.”

“You said it. ‘There’s still life in us.’ Life is long. It can be cut short, but it moves fast. And your brain can’t tell the difference. In my mind, I’m still twenty-nine.”

“You ain’t even close. I think I’m seventeen!”

They both shared a great laugh. It was a laugh without restraint but infused with regard.

They both stood to their feet. They walked behind the bench.

“Yes, it moves fast,” Knotts reiterated. They stood there and watched their hands. they elongated. Knotty roots grew where their feet once stood. branches and leaves shot up from their nostrils and they both grew to be sixty feet tall. The spring breeze seemed light and wondrous with their green leaves swaying.

The two of them towered over the other trees which remained almost stunted in comparison. Wood from their trunks kept them upright. When they covered the ground, it was to provide shade for art students traveling from China.

“These are not bowls of fruits, but there is still life here,” Jun Zhang announced. As the leader and head artist he guided them to the park to soak in the sceney for inspiration.

The students all started to pull out their weapons of mass creation. They sat on the grass and sketched and drew.

“I don’t like this!” Amy Wang uttered.

“What’s the problem Amy?”

“They look abnormal,” she mentioned. “Trees shouldn’t be this tall amongst the others.”

“So you want them chopped down a bit?” Zhang asked.

“More than a bit,” Jun Chen announced.

“It’s too distressing. We must have uniformity. No tall poppies, and no tall trees.”

“I must say, I’m taken aback by this dissension. These trees represent virility and might. They are tall oaks, the mighty oaks that produce for other trees.”

“Then they are selfish!” Chen declared.

“Yes, they are, they are concerned with their own individual well-being while still offering shade and they absorb pounds worth of pollution through their leaves, naturally.”

The students looked up and realized the veracity of Zhang’s words. They began to sketch.

“I still like it. We should be painting those bowls of fruit we learned about in the classroom. These trees don’t provide the same connection as other subjects. Not effectively,” Chen remarked.

“Why do you say that, Jun? Are these great pillars of nature not good enough for your tastes in creating art?”

“I’m saying I came all the way from Shanghai, and really back home for me, again, to just look at…trees.”

“These trees deliver a commanding presence among the others in this park. We ought to revere them and allow this to happen. Let the creativity envelope you. One day we will all be trees, too. We will be rooted into the soil just like these trees. Our souls will be encompassed in every fiber of a tree,” Zhang suggested.

“Is that the way?” Amy asked.

“It’s just the natural progression of life. Remember, we came from China and lived with families here in America. In Delaware. When we got back to Shanghai, it was, ironically, a culture shock. We had to reacclimate to our customs and courtesies of our own homeland. That’s what life is like. You just have to learn to adjust and prepare for the next phases of existence.”

Again, the students sketched and painted their towering models. The two oaks, close to each other, looked like friends leaning together. It appeared as if they had found some semblance of unity.

“So,” Amy wondered, “when I become a tree, I’m going to bloom and blossom and trade with the world and my many friends.”

“Of course. But that’s far off. You probably won’t be a tree until you’re at least one hundred years old,” Jun observed.

“That’s right, Amy. You’re probably going to outlive us all and be the subject of artists’ renderings,” Zhang smiled. “Let’s not focus on that now. We have these gorgeous trees to consider and we should remember that there are souls in this soil. There is a spirit at the roots of each tree. Tap into that. Recall what it was like when we first came here.”

The students looked around. A slight breeze shook the mighty oak leaves once more.

“Envision yourselves as standing tall and weathering the rain and the snow. Springtime often calls to mind life. But then there is summer with blazing heat and of course the autumn, when everything seems to wither and be cast into the wind.”

“That’s it!” Chen shouted and shot to his feet. “I’m not sketching or drawing these trees. It’s stupid. I’d rather an apple or pear. You know, the fruit from trees. Not the actual trees.”

“I understand that Jun,” Zhang said with a calmness that could tame a bear.

“What you must do is see the humanity—”

“Humanity?!” Amy asked incredulously.

“Don’t forget, we are all trees and that each of these flora are the embodiment of the man or woman who came before….” Sunlight glinted again through the leaves. It was like droplets of gold tickling the greenness of each leaf on the outer branches.

“It’s okay,” Zhang reassured. “We’re just going to have to delve into our own psyche and recognize the strength of these giant plants. Once we do that, we’ll be able to appreciate the beauty and lend ourselves to the art.”

Amy and Jun looked at each other and shrugged. They then put brush to canvas and crafted things of grandeur.