The Tree Commandments

From Tall Trees Short Stories, Vol, 20. Woodwide Works. Copyright © 2020, Gabriel Hemery. All rights reserved.

Thus, the heavens and the Earth were created. The seventh day was blessed and made sacred.

After resting, Gaia made rain, microfauna, and fungi, to nurture life in the dust and bring forth soil. Small plants came to grow out of the ground, and these bore flowers and fruits, and were pleasing to the eye. Oak was fashioned from the dust of the ground, yet he was the only tree on Earth. And so Gaia caused Oak to become dormant. While he slept, she removed one of his massive limbs and afterward, allowed his bark to occlude the wound. From that branch, Gaia made Ash, to become a companion for Oak. And so it was that Oak and Ash coexisted peacefully side-by-side in the forest.

It came to pass that an orchard sprung from the ground nearby to the forest, and in its sweet meadow pasture there blossomed bushels of Apple, Pear, and other fruitful trees. So fecund was the orchard that many beasts made it their home, including humans, the last creature fashioned by Gaia to walk upon the Earth.

Among the trees, the Apple held all knowledge, given to her by Gaia herself to keep in trust, for she was a favoured tree. All the trees which bore fruit shared their bounties freely among all beasts, but Apple became arrogant. She believed that if her fruit was eaten, her knowledge would be lost to those less deserving, especially humans. Apple let her fruit fall among the hollow shadow of her crown to feed only her own roots. Before long, the other trees began to follow the example of Apple.

Gaia was very angry with Apple, and disappointed with the other trees, for believing that trees were more important than other creatures upon the earth. She commanded that Oak and Ash would lose their leaves and fast for half of the year, becoming naked. And to Apple, she decreed that only via the faecal waste of humans would her seeds be spread upon the Earth. Only Fig had allowed humans and other creatures to feed upon her fruit, even providing a home inside its fruit for the tiniest of Gaia’s wasps. Fig escaped Gaia’s wrath and was allowed to keep her leaves, and humans were grateful to Fig for giving them clothes to wear among the other beasts.

The relationship between the trees and humans was forever changed, and so it was that…

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His youthful fingers pressed firmly into a deep crevice between the corky furrows of the old tree’s bark. Shafts of yellow light blazed out between them, before his hand disappeared inside and his wrist sealed the gap, or maybe it was the bark