Christine Phillips | + Follow Poet |
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The Foot of the Tree

They met at the foot of the tree when the temperature was minus zero degrees, the wind was blowing, the trees were shaking, and her body was subdued in the cold. She has been living at the foot of the tree since she was sixteen years old, and time passes swiftly and watch her body grows old. The moisture has gone out of her skin and the hair on her head had fallen out and the melanin in her skin began to die and not one tear was left into her eyes.

The foot of the tree is where she got her nutrition, the foot of the tree was where she got her maintenance, I couldn’t figure out why she goes there and why she spend all of her time there, but the mystery was about to unfold when winter came, and she almost frozen in the cold. The ambulance came just in time to save her from the golden shrine.

It was February in the year 2017 when the leaves had fallen off the trees and the temperature fell to minus six degree, the earth had gone dry and the moisture had saturated in the sky, the feeling of uncertainty was lurking in the town and the travelers were moving all around.

 I planted myself inside the little space trying to figure out how to live out my final days, I was not satisfied with my present life and what was transpiring on the outside, so I set up a daily plan of how to escape from the land.

I completed some work inside and went directly outside trying to find comfort for my heavy soul. I walked around for a while and my spirit suddenly came alive and for a split second I felt the spirit of hope moving up my spine and my lungs was filled with the divine. I cherish that moment and everything that came with it and open my heart and welcome the bliss. I stare directly at the sky and watch the clouds fade in the cold.

The trees in park beside the cemetery were broken; the snow had dragged them to the ground and litter was all around. It had snowed up to the root and ice was forming on the branches and they start to break one by one. I wandered around the park, and something caught my attention. A pile of snow mounted at the foot of tree, and something was moving underneath, so I walked over and start looking.

A few people were walking their dogs, and no one was coming across, so I shout out to a woman with her dog, and she came across immediately and I pointed at the pile of snow at the foot of the tree. The dog start sniffing around and start digging, suddenly a drooped lifeless face appeared from under the snow and the woman with the dog start screaming, “Someone get the ambulance”, she said, “a woman is lying on the ground, and she is dead.” Her voice got louder as she speak.

We cleared away all the snow and this beautiful face began to glow; she was lying there with her eyes closed and the woman with the dog gave her CPR and revived her; the ambulance came just in time to save her from the slime. We followed her to the hospital and took care of her.

The following day I went back there to get a deeper understanding of her fears. I learnt that her mother had died and left her a home in the town and her stepfather sold it took all the money and left her out in the cold. Her mother was buried at the foot of the tree in the cemetery next to the park.

She said, "I go to seek solace for my soul and hope to meet my mother there, but she never came but I can feel her presence near me." Tears rolled down her eyes and I started to cry. I embraced her and told her that someone will help her.

She got well and left the hospital and move into a beautiful home similar to the one that her stepfather sold, and the lawyer on the case recover the stolen account and found the money her stepfather had buried in the earth.

 I went to see her in her new home, and we had a cup of tea and she told me that she was extremely happy we, embraced once more and I walked through the door and later that evening, I bought a bouquet of flowers and left it at the foot of the tree to appease the young woman’s buried dreams.

Copyright © Christine Phillips | Year Posted 2024

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