The tree of hell.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A tree loomed over a restless street in the center of Yokohama.
It demanded with silent grace the attention of all who came across it, as its crooked fingers seemed to control even the sky. Many were intimidated by the nature of the thing, and yet submission in the presence of such a wonderfully tall tree, a tree which encouraged one to feebly crane his or her neck and admire the extent of its outstretched arms, was enough to leave the observer glowing with humility comparable to that of a praying man's. Its lush, vibrant leaves were a pleasure to observe during the day when the sun was courteous enough to kiss them bright green; the same leaves were nearly black during the night with only the faintest trace of how they appeared hours before.
To those who simply passed it by, the tree was deceivingly beautiful. Little did they know that behind its hollow cage of wooden ribs, the tree possessed nothing worth earning their gaze; in place of a beating heart, a piece humans thought necessary to understand why people do the things they do, was poison bleeding carelessly through selfish veins all the way down to stubborn roots. This was far from apparent in anything but the tree's solitude.
In their ignorance, they called the tree "The tree of Heaven".
It was the more troubled youth of Yokohama- innocent children orphaned, outcast, or terribly neglected- who understood the cruelty of which the tree was capable. They desperately sought escapism or perhaps one small moment of serenity beneath the Tree of Heaven. Whether they slumped over in exhaustion, wiped tears from their sore eyes with the crooks of their elbows, or clutched their chests to comfort their worn-out lungs, each routinely placed his or her empty hand upon the seemingly friendly bark of the tree- and each was subject to the same exact outcome. They were cursed to peel practically down to the bone the blushing skin of their hands and arms, virulent sap clinging to the hairs protruding from their pores. One wrong touch of the tree was enough to leave several scars.
They learned to stay away, and some grew to deeply despise this very tree. However (or so it was said when the terrible scratches that ruined the flesh of the young were unnoticed or perhaps ignored, if it was remotely possible to ignore moon shaped indentations with long reddish tails), the street was a lot more beautiful with the Tree of Heaven watching over. "Children are stupidly careless. It cannot be helped," declared those who knew nothing of the tree's poisonous blood. So, to the misfortune of many, the tree pridefully remained.
One day a seed fell not so far from The tree of Heaven.
The seed dropped into a gaping wound in the asphalt where the street met the dirt, an opening so snug it was as if the earth and pavement were holding hands; it was a crack far too deep and dark for anyone merely passing by to notice anything growing inside, as the sun could not pry apart the soil and the tar to tend to the starving seed, nor could it call awareness to the seed's hopeless situation. Consequently, the seed should never have sprouted. It should have decayed six feet under the ground before it saw the light of day.
Alas, it was a miserable mistake, and miserable mistakes tend to disappoint expectations of miraculous death. The seed did not particularly desire to live, as it was not human and therefore couldn't feel such things; nevertheless, it leeched on the parent tree instinctively, for the urge to survive was programmed in its DNA, and that was something impossible to resist. It clung innocently to the Tree of Heaven, intricately intertwining itself into roots that should have poisoned the seed the same way the tree mercilessly tainted everything it touched; roots that should have sucked the life out of the seed but chose to gift it life instead; roots that offered a foundation for the seed to experience light when it was surrounded by nothing but the hole in which it fell.
Thus, the seed twisted itself free from the shell that held its soul, and the young tree ascended with such rapid determination it could have left the sky (the same sky capable of enduring the almighty Tree of Heaven) afraid of the tree's needy arms that stretched as far as the eye could see. Never had a tree grown so quickly in all of Yokohama as the successor of the Tree of Heaven, which had appeared seemingly overnight on a restless street in the middle of the city, and it was appalling how something as obvious as a tree could suddenly exist .
It was more appalling to whom it concerned, though, that the tree wasn't beautiful like the Tree of Heaven; it was a nuisance and everyone wanted it to disappear.
The tree mortified all who came across it with its insufferable arrogance to so much as take up space. It possessed hideous limbs far too long to appear natural protruding from its slim trunk, as the tree was so thin that any ridges resembled bones beneath human flesh, and its leaves were so thick it rendered a certain part of the street dark and cold. Its bark was sickly grey, and sap oozed from its crevices like blood half-heartedly seeping out of open wounds. The tree smelled burnt, and it looked burnt to a certain extent with its leaves slightly darker than the Tree of Heaven's. One should have felt humble in the presence of such a wonderfully tall tree, but no one did because the tree was a terrible eyesore that somehow turned out worse than the Tree of Heaven.
With their newfound annoyance, despite it being next to identical to the tree they admired so much, people called the new tree the "Tree of Hell".
The Tree of Hell was condemned by all who passed it, purposefully avoided the same way people who are displeasing to the eye are ignored, but there were some who were so bothered by the tree that they attempted to cut it down. They were left with great rashes on their hands but even greater exasperation (at which the young misfits of Yokohama secretly sneered, coddling their own scars in the case they were victims of the Tree of Heaven). Similarly, attempts were made to cut the Tree of Heaven for producing an annoying thing such as the Tree of Hell. These attempts were rendered futile and met with retaliation as both trees regrew at full tilt from their respective stumps within days of what could only be described as bitter decapitation.
Heaven and Hell returned hand-in-hand; passersby scorned them and declared that the trees were even uglier once they grew back.
If the Tree of Hell was capable of pondering the actions of humans who wished suffering upon it so much, surely it would pose possibilities of why it was disregarded so thoughtlessly whereas the Tree of Heaven was treated as a symbol of beauty. If it could, perhaps the Tree of Hell would assume it got in the way because it didn't stand off to the side or blend in like the Tree of Heaven did, which was something truly out of its control and might have made the tree upset. Perhaps the Tree of Hell would believe humans found its mere existence, an existence far out of anyone's dictation, alive or dead, offensive solely because they couldn't get rid of it no matter how hard they tried, and this might have made the tree widen its (imaginary) eyes like a child before it cries. Perhaps it had nothing to offer to them, so they had nothing to offer it back, which may be the most absurd hypothetical of them all, but it might have made the tree want to simply take its own life.
Perhaps yet, there was no perhaps, and the Tree of Hell would never feel no matter how hard one wants it to. There is no good sense in anthropomorphizing a tree to such a laughable extent, especially not this one, for this was a tree that would forever have one unchangeable impression on others, as it was one small yet negative part of the world around it. In the end, this tree was irredeemably, befittingly, and irreversibly called the "Tree of Hell". It was never worthy of sympathy even if it never asked to exist as it did.
Sadly, there were nothing anyone could do. Nothing
Thank you for reading <3