The Tree
The road was a muddied stretch, a sponge soaking in the rain. The children from the slums ran naked in the mud. I watched the water glide down the brown, sun baked skin of their backs. I heard them whoop and laugh and shriek, saw them swim like silverfish. I was young then. Tall and proud; my trunk smooth as silk, untouched by time’s gnarled fingers. I was the tallest, the greenest, the most stately tree in town.
Time changed me, time changed the town. The slums vanished overnight. Bulldozers rammed into them like an army of aliens, forcing mothers, fathers, grandmothers, wailing babies and cocky teenagers out of their homes. By morning, the shanties were rubble. The stretch of land on either side of the road looked like a desolate bombing site. Gone were the rows of makeshift homes, the chattering children, the sound of their laughter and their tears.
Gangs of workmen descended on the strip of land. They worked like a colony of ants – clearing rubble, mixing concrete in giant vats, laying the foundation for a monolith. They worked all day and night, never tiring, never laying their heads down for a night’s rest. They were thin, spectral people. They moved like shadows without a sound.
The apartment block was ready in a month. It was a very tall building, all chrome and glass, glinting in the sun like a mirror leaning against the sky. It’s shadow fell on me and I shivered. The giant hid the sky from my sight.
The day after the workers left, a truck came trundling down the road. I watched a dozen men jump off the truck and unload an electric saw from its insides. The road leading to the new building was an eyesore. They had orders to build a smooth, elegant driveway instead. The saw sunk its teeth into my gnarled trunk and a searing pain shot through me. My branches trembled. Leaves rained down like tears. The whirring grew louder and louder and the pain numbed my senses. I swayed like a weak sapling and snapped into two. The earth split wide open and swallowed my cries. The sky darkened and turned blood red.
Vineetha Mokkil is a fiction writer and reviewer based in New Delhi, India. Her short story titled 'Nirvana' was published in Why We Don't Talk, an anthology of contemporary Indian short fiction (Rupa and Co, New Delhi, August 2010). Poems translated by her have appeared in Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Everyman's Library, 2005).
The road was a muddied stretch, a sponge soaking in the rain. The children from the slums ran naked in the mud. I watched the water glide down the brown, sun baked skin of their backs. I heard them whoop and laugh and shriek, saw them swim like silverfish. I was young then. Tall and proud; my trunk smooth as silk, untouched by time’s gnarled fingers. I was the tallest, the greenest, the most stately tree in town.
Time changed me, time changed the town. The slums vanished overnight. Bulldozers rammed into them like an army of aliens, forcing mothers, fathers, grandmothers, wailing babies and cocky teenagers out of their homes. By morning, the shanties were rubble. The stretch of land on either side of the road looked like a desolate bombing site. Gone were the rows of makeshift homes, the chattering children, the sound of their laughter and their tears.
Gangs of workmen descended on the strip of land. They worked like a colony of ants – clearing rubble, mixing concrete in giant vats, laying the foundation for a monolith. They worked all day and night, never tiring, never laying their heads down for a night’s rest. They were thin, spectral people. They moved like shadows without a sound.
The apartment block was ready in a month. It was a very tall building, all chrome and glass, glinting in the sun like a mirror leaning against the sky. It’s shadow fell on me and I shivered. The giant hid the sky from my sight.
The day after the workers left, a truck came trundling down the road. I watched a dozen men jump off the truck and unload an electric saw from its insides. The road leading to the new building was an eyesore. They had orders to build a smooth, elegant driveway instead. The saw sunk its teeth into my gnarled trunk and a searing pain shot through me. My branches trembled. Leaves rained down like tears. The whirring grew louder and louder and the pain numbed my senses. I swayed like a weak sapling and snapped into two. The earth split wide open and swallowed my cries. The sky darkened and turned blood red.
Vineetha Mokkil is a fiction writer and reviewer based in New Delhi, India. Her short story titled 'Nirvana' was published in Why We Don't Talk, an anthology of contemporary Indian short fiction (Rupa and Co, New Delhi, August 2010). Poems translated by her have appeared in Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Everyman's Library, 2005).
