The Tree With Seven Branches | Teen Ink

The Tree With Seven Branches

October 14, 2009
By Drown_Me_In_Blue DIAMOND, Brooklyn, New York
Drown_Me_In_Blue DIAMOND, Brooklyn, New York
50 articles 0 photos 41 comments

Favorite Quote:
Labels? Okay, fine. I'm bisensual. Heteroflexible. And life-curious. That about covers it. ~Morgan Torva


In the darkness stood a tree with seven branches. Its leaves trembled, mirror-bright, as a cold wind blew through the forest.

Around the tree’s roots lay a pool of glass-smooth water, like ebony in the lightless wood. Every now and then, a single mirror-bright leaf would drop from the tree and drift down to land in the glass-smooth pool. It would float there for a moment like a shard from a shattered looking glass, then be caught by the wind and whirl away into the darkness.

Like spring banishing the last traces of winter, the breeze slowly warmed, and all of the trees but the one with seven branches trembled in joy. The tree with seven branches did not tremble, though. It drew its branches in, as though to protect them from that warm breeze, and it keened. That beautiful tree, in the center of that beautiful pool, having stood against the dark and cold for so long, could not stand the coming of spring to the lightless wood. And so it keened, heartrending in the darkness. And one by one, its leaves broke off and fluttered away. They did not drift on the breeze, but were borne upon it, as the wind bears the lamentations of mourners at dusk. And one by one, the tree’s seven branches shattered into a thousand splinters of moon-white, raining down into the ebony waters with a sound like a dying scream.

And in the lightless wood, spring had come.


The author's comments:
My imagination runs wild too often...It makes my head hurt.

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This article has 6 comments.


evie428 BRONZE said...
on Nov. 17 2009 at 6:30 pm
evie428 BRONZE, Ontario, Other
4 articles 1 photo 88 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination."

So good! I love how you made it read like you were just standing there, looking at the tree and watching this all happen! Love it!

on Nov. 15 2009 at 9:59 pm
Drown_Me_In_Blue DIAMOND, Brooklyn, New York
50 articles 0 photos 41 comments

Favorite Quote:
Labels? Okay, fine. I'm bisensual. Heteroflexible. And life-curious. That about covers it. ~Morgan Torva

If you like the Suicidal Vampire, try The Witch's Tale. It actually won 4th in the Science Fiction Writers of Earth contest. That doesn't make it good, necessarily, but I still like it. (I might be just a little bit biased, though. But probably not.)

on Nov. 15 2009 at 9:56 pm
Drown_Me_In_Blue DIAMOND, Brooklyn, New York
50 articles 0 photos 41 comments

Favorite Quote:
Labels? Okay, fine. I'm bisensual. Heteroflexible. And life-curious. That about covers it. ~Morgan Torva

Yeah, sorry...neither do I, really. :( But I'm glad you liked my story. Thanks so much for the comment!

on Nov. 13 2009 at 11:43 am
alchive PLATINUM, Fort Worth, Texas
38 articles 0 photos 58 comments

Favorite Quote:
The best cure for writer's block is...to write

I loved how easily you can personify. I truly felt the tree's pain, even though I don't know what it was.

Inkling BRONZE said...
on Nov. 13 2009 at 9:12 am
Inkling BRONZE, Cape Coral, Florida
4 articles 0 photos 20 comments
I love how you described this scene. It's like you took every detail of an instant that wouldn't seem worthy of notice and turned it into a masterpiece. I'm new to the site and one of the first stories I read was your "Suicidal Vampire." I thought it was great and after reading this I'm sure to check out the others. You're a great writer and keep 'em comin'! ^_^

on Nov. 11 2009 at 6:46 pm
Inkspired PLATINUM, Whitby, Other
26 articles 0 photos 493 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;If one will scoff at the study of language, how, save in terms of language, will one scoff?&quot; - Mario Pei<br /> &quot;I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn&#039;t, I would die.&quot; Isaac Asimov

This is really cute! Great idea, love the description. And I know what you mean about imagination making your head hurt, happens to me all the time!