The Old Man and the Birch Tree

The autumn leaves crackling their way through the mildly cold breeze falling gently on the ground were as melancholic as Z, reading the newspaper. The headline read,’ 3 years since the earthquake that shook the country’s soul. Still repairing broken lives and hearts.’ Z remembered. He remembered sitting in his office a 100 miles away getting a call at 10 in the morning, he had just started with his day. He remembered hearing his niece’s broken voice. He remembered telling her to calm down, to leave her mother lying silently on the floor covered in red and rubble, to find shelter under the dining table, to stop crying, to slowly breathe and close her eyes. He remembered telling her it was going to be okay until it wasn’t. Until the sound of heavy panic-induced breathing turned mute. He had lost the only family he had. Three years later he sat on the bench of the park on which he had spent the last 10 summers before the earthquake watching his only family grow with a glow that made life itself blush. The park never felt the same again. There was no glow. Only a silent shade of cold remembrance of the bliss it used to be.

Sitting with his elbow tilted on the right corner of the bench with the equally lonely newspaper sitting beside him he tried to picture the days of a happier past. Failing miserably, the only vision he could manage was one of tired memories. Z couldn’t help but notice an old man sitting alone on one of the chess boards playing a game of two alone. Tired of his own company Z decided to walk up to him and strike a conversation. ‘umm, do you mind if I join you, sir,' Z said. ‘oh, of course not, son. Please be my guest.’ replied the old man. ‘ I couldn’t help but notice that you're playing a game of two all by yourself. Must get boring when you know the result already,’ said Z as he sat himself on the stool opposite to the old man’s stool. ‘And what makes you think I know the result?’ asked the old man. ‘Well, isn’t it pretty obvious? Either you win and you loose or you loose and you win,’ replied Z. ‘Yes, but the mystery lies in which side of me triumphs over which,' said the old man looking right at Z for the first time through his Gandhi glasses. Z’s face muscles contracted into what could simply be described as a display of an emotion commonly known as confusion. ‘Sir, you already know. You and only you control both the sides,’ said Z. ‘Look at the ground, tell me what do you see,’ said the old man. Looking down with a tinge of disinterest Z said,’ umm grass. leaves. dust.’ ‘Very good. Now pick up a leaf from the ground. Pick any,’ said the old man. ‘I am sorry if I’ve disturbed you. I really don’t see the purpose of this. I should probably leave.’ said Z while getting up from his stool. ‘Well, doesn’t matter now, does it? whether you’ve disturbed me or not. We're both here now. Indulge an old man for a little while. Pick up a leaf. You can do it, it’s fairly simple,’ said the old man. Z in an attempt to not be rude picked up a random leaf. ‘Put it on the table here.’ said the old man. Z did what he was told. ‘Now, look at this leaf and tell me why you chose this particular leaf.’ asked the old man. ‘I had absolutely no reason to chose this leaf. It was as random as it gets.’ answered Z. ‘Excuse me if I am being rude, sir but where are we going with this?’ Z enquired. ‘You’re not being rude, you’re questioning whether the time you’re spending talking to a stranger about a leaf will bring any valuable output in the progression of your life or not? And if not, then what’s the point of this conversation? I don’t think that is rude, I think it is very healthy,’ answered the old man. ‘Coming back to the leaf though,’ he continued,’ nothing we do in our lives is random. We always have a choice. Always. You chose to pick that one leaf up from a dozen others lying on the same ground. So, tell me, son, why did you pick up that leaf?’ asked the old man. Z sitting back down stared at the leaf for about half a minute and then looking up he said,’ maybe because that's the one that caught my eye first.’ ‘Yes, that is a very plausible theory’ said the old man. Holding up the leaf in his hand, the old man positioned the leaf at an angle that eclipsed the sun. The veins of the leaf shimmered under the sunlight blurring the pastels of the leaf. ‘Tell me what do you see.’ asked the old man. ‘Um, I see a leaf blocking the sunlight.’ ‘Yes, that is exactly what it is doing.’ said the old man while curling his lips into a polite smile. Continuing, he said,’

Now tell me something, if a dead leaf can have the power to block light emanating from the largest celestial body in our solar system then can’t our brains have the ability to contradict its decision and play against our selves? I think as a species we have evolved enough to do that. To maintain mystery through self-contradiction. To clarify your doubt, I do not know which side of me is going to win because I don’t shadow either of the sides with any dead leaf. I play with equal conviction on both sides and let myself contradict the decisions I make. I firmly believe everything in our lives happens only if we are willing to let it happen. To keep the leaf from blinding us into denial of so many possibilities that emanate from the sun that our brain is.’

Z almost lost in the words of this old stranger he just met manages a reply after a minute of deep thought, ‘ But what happens when the sun itself stops shinning? When the very core of your existence is taken away from you?’ The old man deeply intrigued by this young man said to him,’ The sun never stops burning, boy’ ‘But I have seen loss. The kind that kills your inner light forever. The light does dim, even the sun's. After a while, you get used to the darkness and then slowly you learn to walk in it. There is no other option left. Because the light hurts your eyes now. It reminds you of the happier days you’ll never get back, the one’s that are gone forever.’ says Z with the sound of deep resignation in his voice. ‘And who exactly says that the happier days are gone forever? They are still in there somewhere,’ the old man said as he placed his right hand on his chest above his heart.’ He continued,’ no one has to get them back because they were never gone. It is we who have to make a choice whether to let these memories that we hold so dear to our hearts scar us for life or whether to let them fill us with joy and love every time we think of them.’ Z almost immediately replied,’ but how do you find joy in loss?’ ‘To despise loss and sadness is almost disrespectful towards everything one does have in life. The universe has its ways to protect the balance of nature and who are we to question the fundamental laws of the universe. It sometimes gives us hope and other times renders us hopeless. How magnificent is the fact that we can feel both ever so deeply? To allow ourselves to feel the joy of life and not the sadness is unfair to our own self’ said the old man. ‘I lost my sister and niece in the earthquake. My niece was just 10. I told her everything was going to be okay but it wasn’t. The last words she ever heard were a lie. How does someone let sadness like that sink in ever? how? does the fundamental laws of the universe state that its okay to be unfair with the life of an innocent kid?’ asked Z with an almost crackling voice. The old man got up and asked Z to take a walk with him. Z followed the old man’s lead. Without a word, they walked through the city. The sky had almost dissolved into a darker shade of dusk. The roads were wet with water and shimmered like diamonds under the street lights. The city seemed so different. He remembered the city with a brighter hue. He had walked past these lanes with his sister and niece. They had walked down to their favourite Chinese place down the 17th street on weekends every summer, to the park countless times to have their favourite ice cream, they had driven down to the amusement park and picnicked on the hills on the outskirts. He had always remembered the city filled with voices. The voice of his sister cribbing about how her 10-year-old hadn’t already been proven to be a prodigy of something and the voice of her 10-year-old, more interested in having a baby dinosaur as her pet just like her favourite cartoon. For the first time, the city seemed so still. So quiet. And so beautiful. There was a comfort in the silence. The noise of traffic and people talking in the background almost seemed mute to his ears. It was just him and the old man walking. And Z for the first time in 3 years felt a feeling of peace. He did not dislike the city in its silence. He instead found comfort in it. After walking for almost about 30 minutes Z realised they had walked towards the outskirts of the city to the old rail tracks. The old man, breathing a little heavily now, sat down on one of the broken rail tracks.

‘Well, I clearly cannot brag about taking long walks without getting tired anymore. This is what they call old age, I guess.’ said the old man while looking up at Z with a gentle smile. Z sat down beside him both looking at a magnificent silver Birch tree with its leaves glimmering in the little sunlight of an almost asleep sun. ‘It’s beautiful’, said Z. ‘Yes it is. I and my daughter used to walk down here to watch the sunset over the rails behind the birch tree. We saw the tree shed all its leaves, allowing itself to feel the cold. Leaf less, it still looked as beautiful as ever. when spring came it birthed her like an infant, and we saw it grow and bloom until it shed the very thing it gave birth to only to harbour spring once again in its womb. And such is life, we have to allow ourselves to feel the gloom and bitterness of cold when it does get cold. Only when one allows themselves to do that does one realise that there is beauty in this cold we fear so much and run away from. That spring comes only when winter makes way for it.’ said the old man. With a cracking voice, Z said,’ I had always been so afraid to let their loss fully sink in. I was afraid I might not be strong enough to survive it.’ ‘Well, if a tree can I think so can you,' the old man said almost immediately. ‘I guess I can. I loved them deeply and I always will,' said Z wiping a tear trickling down his cheek. continuing with a soft tearful smile he said,’ I hope your daughter doesn’t mind you sharing her spot with a stranger.’ The old man placing his hand on Z’s shoulder replied,’ I don’t think she does. She’s buried beneath the silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn. Not more than a little pile of stones, really. I didn’t want to draw attention to her resting place, but I couldn’t leave her without remembrance. She’ll sleep peacefully there, no one to disturb her, no sounds but birdsong and the rumble of passing trains.’ Z broke down completely this time, releasing that for the first time he had

found someone who shared his pain and had taught him to find peace in it.

Z sat on the broken rail tracks in the fatherly embrace of the old stranger he had met this evening and simply cried as the sky merged purple with black and the stars shown upon them and inside them.