Cordelia and the Oak Tree

Cordelia and the Oak Tree

A Short Story by C. M. Oguz

***

Cordelia, known to her friends and family as Cora, was by all means an ordinary girl, indistinguishable on the surface from all the others who attended Primrose Elementary. Much like them, she also liked to braid her hair, listen to the latest hit songs on the radio, and chase a sense of purpose hinged on heartthrobs and glitter and that ineffable energy of juvenile elation. But Cora was a highly sensitive girl. What would for others constitute nothing more than an elusive thought or an insubstantial object, for Cora prised open the most ephemeral doorways to such beautiful vistas and such enchanting, immaterial conjectures. She often paused in her tracks to consume these views much to the amusement of her classmates, who would notice her gazing out in deep contemplation at cows squatting in rain-soaked fields chewing circularly in absolute calmness, or at the arboreal flutters that animated tree-tops on those windy spring afternoons, or at the rolling fog that crept silently over the diamond-paned Elizabethan manors that lined the entrance to the woodland. On one such day, the teasing and taunting and general ruckus that her brief moment of inward calenture had aroused in the classroom really upset Cora and made her feel so isolated and lonely.

Walking home from school, she was unable to contain this nagging feeling of sadness any longer. Tears tumbled down her little cheeks like tiny beads of mercury, while the evening breeze rocked her golden locks gently back and forth. She walked round to the back of her house, approached the large oak tree standing in the corner of the small yard and sat down, leaning gently against its mossy trunk. She cried and cried. It was almost as if the tree felt her sorrow. Its leaves appeared just slightly less bright than usual, its branches ever so slightly withered, and its massive trunk a bit frailer. Despite making no sense, it subconsciously soothed Cora. She felt as if her sorrow was slowly being channeled into the tree, and from there via its massive roots into the soil, thence rejoining up with the very primordial substance of the earth itself. After a while Cora got up, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands, tried to prevent her nose running with a few sharp inhales, and went inside to greet her grandfather.

“Cora, you can choose not to be upset by this, just like trees choose not to move.” Her grandfather said that evening during dinner, after having carefully listened to every detail of Cora’s story. His facial features skittered around in the candle-light that animated the room with tall, mobile shadows.

“What do you mean? Of course trees can’t move around. They have roots for starters!” Cora exclaimed, not moving her eyes to meet his, instead mesmerized by the flickering fire.

“Trees can in fact walk Cora. But they choose not to.”

Cora laughed. “Oh, come on, what do you mean?”

“You’d be surprised. Most people never try things. Tell me, for instance, have you ever tried talking to one?”

“To what? A tree?” By now, Cora was gazing intently at her grandfather’s smiling visage.

“Yes.”

“No, of course not.” She said, indignantly.

“Well how do you know then?” her grandfather countered, in a matter-of-fact tone.

She had known him her whole life and at that moment she was almost certain that he was being serious, despite how incredulous it sounded. The way he’d emphasized the word choose affected her more than she’d care to admit. She blew off the conversation at that moment, like children often do, dismissing her grandfather’s words as nonsensical, but just like children with expansive minds often do, she also made a mental note to test this theory out later that night.

When darkness finally arose Cora quietly cracked open the backdoor and tiptoed outside towards the great oak, her favorite tree. The evening air smelled of nature. It was a perfectly warm spring evening, and the sun’s afterglow was vibrant. Cora approached the great tree, timidly.

Feeling awfully silly, she very meekly whispered: “Hello tree… can you hear me?”

She was about to turn around and go back inside when she heard the faint rumbling of branches, the soft rustling of leaves, as if a great ancient being was awakening at her behest. She reflexively began looking at the trunk of the tree, almost expecting a face to appear there amongst the intricate twists and turns of its outer bark.

“Cora. Yes, I can hear you. Welcome my child. It is nice to meet you.”

The voice was deep. She could not pinpoint its exact source. It seemed to be coming from the trunk and the roots, and also from each individual leaf, all simultaneously. It was a beautiful voice, almost like the wind itself. Its tonality was more akin to someone reciting poetry as opposed to simple prose.

Cora nearly fell over from surprise. Her beautiful eyes widened, looking all over the place for the source of the voice. To her disappointment, there was no face, in the human sense of the word.

“It’s me Oak, I am right in front of you Cora.”

“Well, hello Oak!” Cora finally said, feeling positively triumphant. Perhaps because she was a child, or perhaps due to her adventurous nature, the fact that this went against all her established normalities did not faze her in the slightest. Her reaction was akin to a child for the first time learning of the existence of aeroplanes – an immediate, unfazed acceptance of this as the new normal. Cora gave no regard for its stupefying implications on her normative order.

That night was one of the best nights little Cora had ever had the pleasure to experience. She sat beside the oak tree and talked to him for hours. Their conversations ranged from her inquiring about all the little creatures that lived on Oak’s branches, underneath his leaves, and inside his bark. Oak told her about all the exquisite constructs of nature that could be found in the soil that his roots commanded so stoically in that little yard. It was such a fresh perspective for Cora. She asked more questions than Oak could possibly answer; an endless stream of consciousness vocalized without a mental filter. She was particularly interested in what midnight was like in the yard. She had never managed to stay awake until midnight despite once trying really, really hard. What did the night sky look like so deep into the night? Oak responded to all her questions calmly and carefully, thrilled to have a little human companion take an interest in his life.

Eventually it got so late that Cora had to head back inside; she was tired and getting a bit too cold. She found her grandfather already passed out on the couch. Turning off all the lights around the house, she smothered the large candle before quietly clambering into bed.

In the blink of an eye the sun was now pouring into her room, invigorating the little specks of dust that danced in the morning beam. Cora loved how the moment her head hit her pillow time magically fast-forwarded to the following day. Life harbored so many inexplicable mysteries for her. Every day was an exciting journey of discovery. She jumped out of bed and gamboled outside, for today was the weekend, she had all the time in the world to carouse and revel in nature’s delights.

An endless green canvas stretched out in all directions, glittering in the dazzling sunlight. The deep blue sky seemed to calm every living being beneath its caring dome. Tiny florets of pollen were taking flight from the carpet of dandelions dotting the meadow opposite the house, each one a product of astral exogenesis. Cora knew some astronomy, and she’d heard that distant stories from the stars live among us. The concept fascinated her; it just sounded so beautiful. And although she did not understand the process of stellar nucleosynthesis, she could feel it. It energized her.

Standing on the front porch with sunlight warming her cheeks and caressing her golden locks, she suddenly felt deeply upset that Oak was stuck in the shady, narrow-viewed back yard. She thus made the decision to somehow fetch a sample of this perfection for Oak. She wanted him to see how beautiful, how infinite the world truly was.

After a long day of searching, running, panting and rolling around in sun kissed meadows, Cora eventually felt satisfied with having found what she deemed was the most beautiful flower to ever exist. Oak had to see this. It was a dandelion, standing a bit taller than those surrounding it, with a perfectly symmetrical petal layout and glowing with the most pigmented yellow color imaginable. She very carefully picked it from the very base of its stem and tenderly clasped it in her small palm. She ran back home at full speed, eager to show it to Oak, absolutely certain that he would be amazed by it. She felt triumphant.

Dashing through the front gate and circling round back to the small yard, she found Oak standing in his usual position near the back fence. He was almost too close to the fence. He does not belong there, he deserves better, Cora thought, in juvenile contemplation.

“Look what I brought you!” She exclaimed loudly, bursting with excitement. She unclenched her small palm to reveal the dandelion. But it had already wilted a bit and just did not seem as impressive in her hand as it had appeared when strewn across the golden canvas that she had removed it from.

Cora felt frustrated, “Look, look here!” she exclaimed, waving it up as high as she could hold it. She wanted to make sure Oak saw it before it looked any frailer. But the flower’s face was already drooped in resignation, frail and powerless, no longer able to harness starlight.

After a few creaks and groans of his massive branches and the gentle rustle of his leaves, Oak replied in an encouraging tone: “It looks very nice indeed, wherever did you come to acquire this my dear Cora?”

Cora felt so happy that Oak had taken an interest. She immediately launched herself on a wordy description of all the amazing beauties and wonders of nature that Oak was missing tucked away behind their house like this.

After a while, Cora who had by now leaned against the trunk of the tree, looked up and asked; “Don’t you ever get bored here? Don’t you ever want to go somewhere else?” Her curious eyes danced around Oak’s beautiful leaves and the wonderful green canopy they were a part of.

“Wherever would I want to go?” said Oak, quite curiously.

Cora stood up and began enthusiastically re-explaining all the wonderful things she had just been reciting; the dandelion meadow in full blossom, the sun setting over the ocean, the massive obelisk perched upon the imposing cliffs near the caravan park, the spectacular waterfall her uncle had taken her to last month…

Oak listened patiently, with no expression, then responded: “Why but everything I could ever need, hope for, or dream of is already right here my dear child. My roots are deep within this rich soil, I share this yard with all sorts of interesting insects, birds, and little critters, I enjoy the sun and the rain, and all the elements, I salute the stars as they pass by on moonless nights. I have no desire to be anywhere else.”

Cora felt perplexed. “But what if over there the grass is much greener, the angle of the sun sharper, the view of the stars clearer and the water wetter!” She exclaimed, gazing up at the large branches creaking ever so slightly in the evening breeze.

“There is nothing I seek. Remember, desiring something and the feeling of lacking that thing are identical to each other. Without the former, the latter does not exist. This is a basic calculation that us tree-folk take for granted.” said Oak, with a deep and calculated voice emanating from his branches and roots alike.

Cora was not satisfied with this response. She desperately thought of a better way to word what she was trying to say, assuming that Oak had not quite understood what she meant.

“But are you really happy at this exact spot? Wouldn’t you rather, for instance, be at the front side of the house instead, if you could? There are much better views from there!” insisted Cora.

“Here, come, sit on my branch over here” Oak replied, ever so slightly lowering one of his massive branches for Cora to reach up and climb onto. She obliged. Oak continued: “Have you ever wondered why us trees never move, even though we are perfectly capable of walking?”

“Yes! I am wondering that now! Why? Most humans just think that you are unable to move at all!” Cora said, very frustrated and incredibly curious at the same time.

Oak did not immediately respond to this. Cora gazed up towards his higher branches, waiting curiously. She felt like he was probably trying to find the right human translation of his internal tree-logic to be able to explain things to her.

After a short while, a deep voice emanated: “Happiness has nothing to do with the external world you see my dear Cora. Us trees cannot be conquered. When our ancestors realized this, many aeons ago, all tree-folk realized that there is no need to ever move anywhere or seek anything aside from what is already beside us and within us.”

Cora’s eyes widened, she fell silent for a short while, trying to process these words. “So, trees never move anymore?“ she finally managed to say, emphasizing the word never

“It is exceptionally rare that movement ever be necessary.“ Oak responded, cryptically.

“But don’t you ever get bored here?” Cora immediately replied back, feeling frustrated.

“Bored? Why ever would I? Every inch of soil beneath me is teeming with life, my leaves are home to many, my trunk to many others, my branches home to the most beautiful of birds, and here you are conversing with me! How could I ever be bored with all this?”

“Yes, but those things aren’t you. They are different beings. You just… you just sort of sit here doing nothing all day. Don’t you?” Cora countered immediately. She then straight away began regretting how she had phrased that. She did not want to offend Oak, she really cared for him a lot.

“Ah, Cora, now I understand you. But before I try to explain, let me ask you a question first. Tell me have you ever seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person?” Oak said, fanning his leaves out slightly over Cora’s head to prevent the evening sun from getting in her eyes.

“Yes, I have! My brother is often very happy when I play with him in the garden!” Cora exclaimed, smiling as she thought of all the silly games they would invent together.

“Well Cora, then you know that living beings can have no vocation but to awaken that glow on those surrounding them.” Boomed Oak, happy that Cora had responded with such an example.

“What do you mean?” Cora asked, as her eyes widened.

“Us tree-folk respond to the joys and sorrows of others as though they are our own. There is no difference for us. We are in absolute spiritual union with those around and within us. How could I ever be bored when I feel so much within me.”

Cora fell silent, thinking and daydreaming in unison.

“Let me tell you something related to this.” Oak began, quietly. “Over a century ago, in your house there lived an intensive care nurse. She was young, very intelligent and filled with such passion for life. Well, years passed, then one day she sat beside me weeping and weeping. Listening carefully, I found out that she was so incredibly upset wih the process of passing away. What frustrated her most was the final regrets of dying people. You see you humans only really contemplate your entire existence during the catharsis of death. Only then is there a tendency in your kind to gaze back and contemplate final regrets. Well, this nurse, hearing so many of these such instances, realized that, regardless of the patient’s economic or social background, the overwhelming majority of dying people state that they wished to have expressed more compassion, love and forgiveness during their lifetime. It is always the same. It’s never about fame or glory or traveling the world or any of that stuff.”

Cora was intrigued and felt upset at the same time. “Was the nurse crying because of being surrounded by so much death?”

“No, on the contrary, she was crying due to how simple it actually all was.” Oak continued.

“How simple what was?” Cora interjected.

“Life.” Oak boomed. “You see, the dying regrets of you humans are always so very simple, as opposed to your ambitions during life. You are so distracted during life, so high and lofty, that you forget the true nature of us living beings. You seek and seek to no avail, while what you actually seek is already within you. You are like a person dying of thirst while standing in the middle of a vast, vast lake. You do not see the water because you are always looking up. This is why us trees may appear to not be doing anything to you humans, but that is merely a matter of perspective.”

Cora fell quiet upon hearing this. She began playing with her hair, twirling it around her finger as she contemplated Oak’s words with dilated pupils.

Oak noticed his words had caused Cora to enter a state of lamentation. He realized he had spoken too pessimistically for such a young species. He knew humans needed encouragement, not encumbrance, thus quickly adding: “Us tree-folk have been around much longer than your kind though Cora, I’m sure your lot will realize all this soon enough.”

Cora did not reply. She was drawn to thoughts of how Oak had comforted her the previous night when she had been weeping uncontrollably. Was she the nurse in Oak’s story? Ruby knew this was a silly thought, for Oak was old. He’d indeed been here a century ago. She decided to ask her grandfather about the past inhabitants of their home.

“Were you sad when I was crying here last night?” Cora finally asked, looking up towards the higher parts of Oak’s central trunk, subconsciously assuming that if he did have a face then it ought to be somewhere around there.

“Why yes Cora, I was completely devastated. I felt and shared every single shred of your sorrow. We were together at that moment, just like we are now, and how we will be tomorrow.”

Cora fell silent for a while, rocking her little legs gently back and forth over the branch as she reclined back slightly. She listened to the rustle of the leaves and gazed at the way the sunlight glittered through the movement of the leaves on Oak’s upper branches. Tiny motes of dust and pollen appeared to be suspended in the beam of sunlight that breached the canopy. It really was a mesmerizing sight. They both evidently decided to share the mutual silence and appreciate the waning sunset.

After a while, Cora suddenly sat up, having thought of something to ask. She then spent the next few minutes formulating how to word what she had just thought of, despite having already sat up.

“What if you were a house plant? Isolated from all other beings. What if you were eternally lonely? Or what if you never again saw the sunlight or felt the rain on your leaves… What would you do then?” She said in a single breath, eyes resonating in anticipation of an answer.

Oak took a deep breath causing his branches to buoy up and down slowly. “Tell me Cora. If I acted angry or upset right now, would you not inquire as to why I was acting so?”

“Why of course I would.” She replied without hesitation.

“Yet, if I acted compassionately, you would not think of tying this to a causality, would you?”

Oak noticed her puzzled, enlarged pupils and quickly added: “You wouldn’t ask me why I’m not angry, would you? Your kind usually only inquires when the opposite is apparent. That is your answer right there.”

Cora did not reply straight away. “But what has that got to do with what I asked you?” She eventually added, feeling as if Oak was attempting to avoid her original question.

“Well, you see” began Oak. “What you asked about is moot, for the internal default of sentient beings does not contain anti-emotions. Whether or not I see the sunlight is immaterial; I know it’s aflame regardless.”

Cora both loved and hated that Oak always spoke in such a cryptic, riddled sort of way. She hated it because it was not always immediately obvious what he was trying to tell her, but she did also quite like going over their conversations later on and trying to comprehend it all. She fell silent for a while, contemplating things. By then the sun had almost completely set and it was getting a bit chilly outside. She clambered down from the branch that she had been perched upon for the last hour or so, and turned back around towards Oak: “Can I ask you one last question before I go inside?”

“You can always ask me anything Cora.” Oak beamed back.

“Why is it that trees do not move or interfere when being cut down?”

“Ah!“ Oak exclaimed. “That old question again. It is not the first time it has been posed to us tree-folk. Why the answer is actually dreadfully simple. If we avoided being cut, the person trying to cut us down would be quite upset.”

Cora felt like this response bred one final question. So, she carefully worded a follow up: “What about something like a fire? Why don’t trees run from forest fires? A fire isn’t even a sentient being!”

Oak’s branches creaked a bit. Despite him not having a face or anything of the sort, Cora knew that he was smiling – or harboring the emotional equivalent of a human smile. For she knew that he knew that she thought she had cornered him in their argumentation finale, and she was sure this would be making him smile.

Oak was indeed smiling. Seeing Cora’s face all lit up, it was simply impossible for him to not mirror the emotion. He replied: “Tell me Cora, if you were to sail out into the ocean, knowing that you were destined to sink no matter what you did, would you really be concerned with whether you sank an hour earlier or an hour later?”

“I probably wouldn’t. But what a silly thing that is, to sail out to sink.” Cora said, chuckling ever so slightly. Her little face was blushing from the smile pulling her cheeks taut.

“Trying desperately to sink an hour or two later may cause you to miss out on the view.” Oak said, ever-stoically.

“If you were trapped in a burning room, destined to perish, does it make sense to be concerned with whether you exist for 2 hours or 4 hours? Without such inhibitions that fleeting moment may have led to the most exquisite of ember-lit banquets. Just maybe, then, the eventual inferno would be worth it; worth the journey, worth the ending.” Oak added, unfazed by the unsavory expression slowly unfolding across Cora’s face.

Her eyes widened. The smile that had been so gracefully decorating her visage had all but vanished. “Oh Oak, what a grim description of life that is!”

“On the contrary Cora, time is simply a misunderstood entity. Do not shackle yourself to it. Remember, some seconds are longer than years.” With these words Oak retreated into what would appear to be a deep slumber. His branches sagged down lower as his leaves seemed to shrivel a bit. Cora assumed he must be going to sleep. She quietly bid him goodnight and was about to return inside when she noticed one of Oak’s leaves falling towards the ground. She tried to catch it but failed. Mildly annoyed, she bent down to pick it up off the grass. It looked so beautiful. She brought the leaf close to her face to examine it in more detail.

While kneeling on the floor staring at the majestic Oak leaf, Cora felt something strange happening. She began to see things in it. Little patterns, tiny movements, the whizzing around of … life? What was this? Her vision had seemingly gained some form of molecular clarity. It felt as if for the first time she could truly see Oak, properly see him. It was a magnificent sight.

What she saw was a vast, boundless leaf-scape stretching out in all directions. Each fraction of a thought was meandering freely among the slivers of reality inhabiting it. And there were billions of these thoughts. It was an unfettered, unordered society with no differentiating factors between those which Cora would normally consider thoughts and emotions, between reality and dream-state. Everything was a part of one another, like a polygon of infinite color unfolding across a crystalline matrix. Evanescent plumes of indecision mingled among unfettered abstractions of reality. Cora had never felt such a thing before, she could not understand it. It was an inland empire, infinitely expansive, yet simultaneously sheltered from all. It was a fleeting infinity, an explosion of un-meaning, an accelerating expanse. It indicated a form of volition far beyond Cora’s understanding, a resplendent sunrise blinding everything external. Nevertheless, she felt enchanted by what it implied, by its absolute beauty. She felt that she ‘sort of’ understood what she was witnessing, even if just a tiny fraction of it. Yet there was a gaping maw in front of her, inhibiting her. Her mental blockage was similar to a solar eclipse, where darkness is not brought on by the sun, but by an obstruction – essentially a matter of perspective. It was not yet possible for Cora to truly understand Oak.

After several long minutes, Cora placed the leaf back down on the ground, ever so gently. Oak was still in a deep slumber, his leaves fluttering almost silently in the evening breeze, each one a gossamer prism reflecting eternity.

Cora turned around to head back inside. It was quite late already. As she moved out from under Oak’s canopy, she noticed the stars. Of course, the stars were always there, Cora knew this, they twinkled away all night. But it was the first time in a while that she had gazed up at them in contemplation, fully focused on them. With this newfound intensity of thought, Cora felt sure that their quiet scintillation was some form of communication that could only be understood by other stars. Right there in the sky’s zenith were sparkling entities that lay behind non-communicable cleavages of experience and existence. She was determined to crack their twinkling code, to breach their secret experience, and partake in it. But not tonight, it was getting very cold, so she headed inside and went straight to bed, lulled by the colorful stars dancing in and out of existence across the insides of her eyelids.

Days became weeks, weeks became seasons, all the while Cora’s dendritic conversations continued unfazed by the passage of time or the change of temperature.

But one morning, during the dark months of winter, Cora noticed that Oak was gone! There was a massive crater in the position he used to occupy, as if he had been completely uprooted. Cora rushed outside to the backyard, tears pouring down her cheeks. Snow had already partially covered up the strange twisting hollows and coils that Oak’s roots had left across the ground. She looked around in desperation, searching for a clue, anything.

Finally, she approached the small cherry tree by the side fence in resignation.

“Oh Cherry!” Cora cried. “Wherever did Oak go? I thought you trees never, ever moved!”

Cherry was startled from the energy and loudness of Cora’s voice. She calmly postured her trunk towards Cora, elevated her branches a bit and fanned her leaves out to speak. Her colors were glorious.

“Yes, Cora, you are right. This is very rare. It only happens once every few aeons. You see this winter is exceptionally cold and Oak was scheduled to be turned into firewood by you humans. This is normal, so far. But Oak decided that it would cause less sorrow for him to move away than for him to be cut down by the woodcutters. This is because of the deep bond he has cultivated with you. Only a few times since the great awakening has this ever happened. Yet, we do not condemn Oak. He was gladly conquered. Go now my dear child, enjoy your fleeting time.“

**

Cover Image: Angelica by Gustave Dore