Lost Fortune

For over two centuries, Fortune Oak had been asking to die. Jules felt the call through her toes every time she walked barefoot across the grass of the village green. Like most, she mistook the dire feelings for her own. Deep scars marked the great oak, and encircled its trunk, where others had heard the calling more clearly. But, drunks with axes are not the most reliable assistants. Burnt patches of bark mapped out attempts by other enterprising aids. Still, Fortune Oak lived on.

Fortune Oak wasn’t its real name, though it had been so long since that name had been spoken, that Fortune was all that was left. Jules was not her real name, but it had been so long since anyone bothered to say it. Even to her tongue, it sounded foreign, too long. She visited the oak nearly every day, before and after work. She loved the soft feel of the trimmed grass. Even more, she cherished the dark damp feeling that came over her the longer she stayed under its thick branches. Enjoyed the spiraling thoughts sucking her down into herself. Then, she would step onto the burning sidewalk and feel her heart lifted by the searing pain. Slipping on her scuffed sneakers, she would remember what little she expected of the world. A chance to live in it, despite what it had taken from her already. She’d thrown aside words like thrive, succeed, escape. Just to live was all she had left.

As she strode away, she felt something else, the burning of male eyes shrouded in shadow. Smelled the sulphuric testosterone of boys that wanted, but could not have. Fortune sensed them as well and stoked their rage, trying to twist their needs towards its own. But they carried no axes or even one of those wonderful chainsaws. Barely a switchblade between the three of them to carve heat another heart in its bark. Fortune pulled back into itself, its branches drooping a few inches. Had it become so weak that even such unformed minds would not heed its call? Jules slowly closed the door of John’s Cafe, to catch a glimpse of her would-be predators, but they had slipped back. Walking around the counter she tied on her apron and primed her best “give me a tip” smile before helping the next customer.

Hours later, feet sore and smile long since put away for the night, Jules flipped the sign to Closed and locked the front door. Walking past those shuttered shops, she stuck close to the street lamps. When she came to the shadowy edges she would lengthen her stride to cross from one of pool of light to the other, as if their electric halos would protect her. But desperate boys in shadows can not be held back by city-funded nightlights.

Teenage hands, smooth from the lack of work available in this worn-down town, grabbed her collared shirt and dragged her into their darkness. Fortune’s leaves shook at Jules’ cries like they were a soft breeze. Her body stiffened against their pawing, pulled her hands in tight against her sides, like a tree. She held her breath against the stench of their saliva. The pack grunted in confusion sniffed at her like she was playing dead. They wanted fresh meat that thrashed under their clawing fingers. They needed live prey to feel that they, too, were still alive. Inch by inch, her body slid down the brick wall, just a little bit more. She struck.

The leader sank to the ground, one hand holding the only thing he still prized and the other grabbing at her ankle, pulling off one shoe. Racing across the asphalt, small stones cut into the soles of her feet and the grass she loved stabbed into her wounds.

Climb. Jules stopped, looked for the voice. Climb. She saw the many-headed monster pursuing her in the dark, becoming a trio of angry boys in the streetlights before merging again into the beast they were at heart. Climb. She ran to the tree. Its crown was worn too high to reach its branches. Clawing at the bark she stuck her fingers into one gouge and her foot into another. Up and up, gash by gash, she pulled herself away from the ground and the beast. Each part of the beast tried to follow, but their fingers were too weak and their hearts filled with the wrong kind of desperation.

Jules straddled the lowest branch and hugged it tight. Breathe. The voice echoed in her head, a rumbling clap of thunder close enough to feel, but far enough that it did not shake the house. Breathe. In, one two three, out, one two three, just like her guidance counselor had taught her. In, out. The beast’s heads howled up curses and entreaties with equal fervor. Fortune’s voice and Jules’ thumping heart drowned them out. Safe, Fortune said. For now, Jules replied.

After half an eternity, the howls turned to angry whimpers and the beast made its way back into the shadows. Jules could still feel burning stares from the many heads, but Fortune made her feel safe. Sitting up, she scooted back against the trunk and looked out over the desolate downtown. Crumbling brick walls, cracked wood facades, and a few dying businesses that still struggled against the economic disease everyone else had lost too long ago. All that was left of the Town of Good Fortune. Or Good Fortune Lost as the more poetical citizens called it.

My fault. How? Bad promises. What do you mean? I will show you.

The town spun around the tree, faster and faster. The buildings began to pull themselves down and in their place wooden churches, hotels, and bars built themselves up, only to tear themselves down again. Again and again progress was reversed. Then the trees came and they grew and grew, stretching out into the horizon. And Jules could hear them. Words flowing on the breeze in conversation with birdsong, welling up from their roots in discussion with deer and squirrels. Jules faded away into the rays of light that broke through the canopy. She was Fortune. She was the forest. Each tree was one, each tree was all.

A deer, bleeding from the leg limped into a small clearing. A wolf followed, its mouth bloody. The deer lay down and licked its wounds, while the wolf cleaned its snout. Much of the forest was wild, where Fortune’s kind had not spread their seed, but here they reigned and peace was enforced. Edging his way towards his prey, the wolf looked up at the trees whose branches shook a warning. He yelped, stepping on a sharp root protruding from the ground. Warily, he backed away and headed back into the wilds where he could hunt at will. Peace reigned because peace was enforced.

Jules felt the tiny feet of mushroom capped gnomes saunter out of their hovels at the base of a tree. They lay hands on the deer until its flesh knitted under their dancing fingers. Moss dresses swayed along with their jaunty steps as they returned to cover until needed again. A large brown bear lumbered through, ignoring the small deer both because she was a stickler for the rules and because she was in no mood for such a tiny snack. She was on her way to a glut of berries she’d heard about from one of the trees.

Years passed and Jules watched the congress of animals and. oversaw generations of bluebirds and robins. Trembled in fear as lightning struck and stretched out to the sun under cloudless skies. After a time, it was not just animals that passed through, but men and women who quietly walked the woods. Like the wolf packs, they stood at the edges of the glade, but they listened to the laws of the trees. At times they took from the edge of the forest, but none of Fortune’s kind, and still they thanked them for this kindness just as the beavers had for centuries. And the red capped gnomes danced in the moonlight.

But then a new breed of men came with gnashing teeth that were sharper and more insatiable than any beast Fortune and its siblings had encountered. Grateful only to a God that encouraged their greed, they tore down tree after tree, carving their way towards the protected glades. The forest fought back, encouraging the wolves to prey upon the interlopers, bribing dens of bears to protect future feasts of berries with their own gnashing jaws.

In the dark of the new moon, red capped gnomes stole into the men’s camps and betrayed their own hearts. They danced with stomping, muddy boots in the drinking water. Tiny fingers pulled open scars and turned them into seeping wounds. Thorn swords cut holes in socks and were left behind in shoes. Decaying food was buried inside the men’s stores of flour and grain to rot them from within.

As men ran from the forest, the trees shook in relief and joy. All too soon, they discovered, that men could be scared away. They could kill men, if need be. But they could not stop Man. Wave after wave came to the great forest to seek their destiny, their fortune. Fortune and its siblings watched as the animals fled deeper into the wild forests. For them, even without the rule of trees, it was safer They watched the red capped gnomes pack their leaf bags and follow suit. The birds stayed as long as they could, but nests were built elsewhere and their song grew ever quieter.

And the great trees fell. Jules shuddered at their silent screams, weeped with sticky tears of sap. Each tree was one, each tree was all. But what is all, when there are so few. And they came for Fortune who cried out with all his might SPARE ME. Why the men asked? For riches that would pass on through their generations. How? Each tree is one, each tree is all - you have cut most of my siblings and so what power we shared is now within the few of us left. Spare me and I will grant you everything I can. And the others? Let them make their own offers.

Each tree was now one and all was lost. Fortune stood tall over the great clearing as the men built their homes, a cemetery with headstones made from the bodies of the deceased. They named it the Town of Good Fortune, and it was. The families prospered and they passed on the legend of the great oak in the center of the town through which God had spoken and promised them prosperity. Fortune, for its part, followed through with the promise by granting these men peace to work with each other, to solve problems through dialogue instead of guns. Such magic is potent, but not enough to stem the tide of industrial and technological revolutions. Such magic is powerful, but not enough to make peace with the betrayal of everything you have known.

Over time Fortune came to understand what its final siblings had known so long ago. Each tree was all and one is nothing. So the calls for death began, dark whispers in the air and the decaying town started to rot eve further from the inside as the peace they had been promised finally crumbled under the weight of Fortune’s sorrow.

Jules wiped away the tears from her eyes. Fortune had just wanted to live. The word “just” echoed in her mind. As her town rose back up before her in all its faded, dying glory, she thought, I’ll do it better. No more Just. She climbed down and stood with her back to the tree and called forth the beast. It came sneering, blade in hand. She offered a trade. If they took her body, she would take their freedom, let them grow old in a smaller cell than the one they had already grownup in. Or, they could help her blow up the tree. Like all beasts of its kind its most simple want was to destroy. Whether a life or an object, and that is all a tree could be to it, the beast just wanted to destroy so that it too could feel alive. They accepted this offering. Two parts of the beast were sent to collect the necessary tools of destruction from an uncle who worked in the mines and harbored cold fantasies of revenge against the company that left him with little money in the bank and a lot of black tar in his lungs.

Jules directed what remained of the beast to search the roots for the former homes of red capped gnomes, though she did not use such words. Fortune felt the blade nick his roots and dirty fingers rip away clods of soil and break tiny sticks that once gave structure to the warren of tunnels its friends had lived in. The rest of the beast came back and lovingly stuffed the holes with the few sticks of dynamite they could liberate. Jules helped the beast tie the detonation cord to each stick and they rolled away across the green. The smallest member of the beast produced a butane lighter and lit the cord. With whoops and hollers of anticipation, Jules and the beast ran away from the rising sun as Fortune was ripped from its moorings.

As Fortune fell, it heard the song of its siblings echoing down through time. A gusting chorus welcoming Fortune home, asking not why did you do it, but simply where have you been? Jules and the beast felt the love in the breeze that whipped through their home. The best became a small gaggle of teenage boys who looked everywhere but at Jules, settling on their own feet kicking at gravel dust. Without a word, they shuffled away. At the end of the alley, when Jules could barely see them, she saw the blade tossed in can before they disappeared around the corner.

Stepping out of the shadows, she closed her eyes against the radiant sun and felt it wash away her malaise, the shade that Fortune’s sadness had put over her and the town for so long. Without the great tree, her sad town seemed even shabbier. Maybe it could make a come back someday, but she would not be there to see it. Fortune was free of the fate it had set for itself. Now it was her time to escape. Her time to find a new place to set roots and not just live. It would finally be her time to thrive.