It Began in Black
It began in black.
Always black.
Something so dark, so empty, it was like the living embodiment of ebony itself.
That is where my dreams always begin.
From this expanse, I begin to walk until I see a single tree, standing tall within this plain of existence despite showing signs of battling some unseen element of nature.
Each branch looks as though even the mere whisper of a breeze will shatter it to pieces.
But I know better.
This tree that stands before me has stood here, ageless, since the earliest memories I have of this world and will continue to do so for lifetimes more before finally yielding its very last leaf to the inky depths of nothingness that surround it.
I reach out to stroke the weathered bark of its trunk, and flinch as a thin line of red begins to forge a steady path down my wrist from where my palm now bleeds.
No matter how many times I do this, I can never seem to keep myself from flinching.
As a single drop of blood falls to hit this expanse which one may try to call “the ground”, I awake.
The room is dark, just like my dream, only here the blackness is disrupted by the obnoxiously green neon light of the digital clock that sits at my bedside.
When I turn my head to look at it and read the time, I am not surprised by what I see.
2:46 AM
Not a minute off from every other night I awoke from the same dream. It is always exactly 2:46.
Throwing off the covers and shivering at the sudden chill at their absence, I shuffle to the end of my bed, swinging my legs over the side to stand up.
Still, within the dark of night, I make my way downstairs and out the door.
I do not change out of my thin pyjamas despite the cold, late autumn temperatures. I do not even stop to put on shoes to protect my bare feet against the growing frost that covers the ground. Winter will be here soon, and the night walks will become even less pleasant than they are now, once I’m forced to trek through the snow.
The moon is full tonight, providing ample light down the dirt track that leads to the forest’s edge. Upon entering the thick underbrush though, it does little to guide me.
It does not matter however. I need not see to know the way.
It calls to me on its own.
Guides my feet as if of their own accord, pulling me deeper and deeper into the forest.
I ignore the pain of my frozen feet. Ignore the scratches and tears in my clothes curtesy of thorny bushes and the occasional stone that lodges itself in my heel.
It would not be much further now anyway.
Rounding the last pine, I make my way into the clearing that grew ever more familiar with each excursion.
I stop just before I reach its roots.
Here is The Tree.
The ancient entity emerged from the black of my dreams.
It calls to me on nights when the moon is brightest, and I answer its summons without question nor hesitation.
To not do so, would be impossible.
This time when I reach out to touch it and the first drop of blood begins to slide down my hand, it truly hits the ground, and as it does so, The Tree awakens.
“You are late today” it bellows into my mind.
“Be sure to be quick of foot when answering my summons, I may be ancient, but I am nothing near patient.”
I chuckle lightly as I crouch to sit on one of its old and weathered roots that run along the ground.
“That I try to be, dear friend, but I’d remind you that your path is less than pleasant and your hour of conversation even less so.”
I can feel its amusement, though it bears no expression through bark nor leaves.
“If not this time, then when would you have me call upon you?” it asks, voice deep and clear.
“Why, waking hours in the summer season sounds lovely to me. But I know that that is a request you cannot fulfil.” I reply somewhat solemnly.
“Indeed, I cannot. But know that while it irks you so to answer my call, I ask that you come for yourself as much as I.”
“Yes, I know that too.” I say, leaning back against its trunk as I continue to shiver against the growing cold. It is a conversation we’ve had many times before and will most likely still have for some time until I finally learn to sleep with my shoes on.
It is silent for a moment before I begin to speak once more.
“Tell me, when I am gone will you still call on me as you do now? Or will you fall silent like the others here, never to call, nor sing, nor speak again?”
The Tree is thoughtful for a moment, seemingly surprised that I even had to ask such a question. It’s leaves rustle in a non-existent breeze which makes me think that it may be it’s equivalent to a sigh.
“When you are gone, you will see the world through my eyes. Call and speak and sing with my voice as you ask another to come and meet you in the dead of night out here in this forest old.”
I nod in understanding, almost amused at the thought of calling out someone to see me instead of being the one to make the journey. After so many years, the thought seems absurd in a way.
“And what of you? Where will you be?”
“I will be among our roots with those before, keeping company with the animals who seek shelter in burrows of their own and sleeping warm within the earth.”
As seconds slip by and turn to minutes, minutes run into the hour.
As the hour comes to a close, now 3:26 AM, of that I can be sure, I am released from this spell I seem to have fallen under and begin to make my way back home. Back to the warmth of my bed where I know my feet can defrost and my scratches will heal.
Yet as I do, I always turn back. To look at The Tree one last time before I leave to dream again.
We do not bid one another farewell. We never have because there has never been a need as we both know it won’t be long before I will make the trip again.
As I begin my walk back through the cold woods I look up and notice how the moon as shifted in the sky as the hour passed. I was lucky it was such a clear night. Making it back in the dark was often more difficult than the trip in. It’s why I always kept a small but strong penlight strapped to my wrist like a bracelet.
There had been times before when I had left when the sky was clear only to find that a storm had blown in by the time I was due to leave, and there was no light source to guide me back. No streetlight or car headlights close enough to be visible through the trees.
That had been a particularly unenjoyable night. I’d made it back only as the sun began to rise and with knees bloody as I managed to trip on ever root, stump and rock that the woods seemed to have.
Still, while I was loathe to admit it at times, I treasured my time with The Tree. It was something that I knew few others ever experienced and so as much as it could be a burden at times, I was grateful for it.
In the woods, there is a tree that bears my soul.
One day I will return and seek the child who walks anew in my place.
For now, I am the child, and the tree of me before seeks my company to learn from me, and I from it.
About the world around us then and now.
Until the hour runs out, I oblige and visit, if only for that single hour in which it calls me and I am helpless under its spell.
Like calls to like.
Soul calls to soul.
The tree and I, we are but one.
