We have our moments in life. There are moments that make us happy, moments that make us sad, moments that take our breath away, moments that leave us appalled at the very existence of that moment, and then there are the ones that are a culmination of all such moments combined into one single point of infinity, that holds our entire universe in it. We’re left with no desire, no burning wish to do something more, no aching need to exist in this worldly world. That moment, when we realize that the ground underneath our feet isn’t concrete anymore. Instead, the heavy rain of our pouring heart has turned it into a quagmire, and we see ourselves sinking deep into it, with no wish to escape. We let ourselves get consumed by that moment, only to realise that all we’d been living for so far, was a lie we’d told ourselves to make us feel better. This is one such moment’s story.

He looked at the tree that he had once planted in his backyard. There wasn’t much left of it now, except for a few branches that were bent and broken in places. The neighbors had complained to him to remove that tree. They called it an abomination, an eyesore in the picturesque garden he had planted around it. He refused to cut it down and plant a new one in its place because it reminded him of all those times he had put up a swing on it and joyously played on it, breaking and bruising himself at times too, only to learn what not to do the next time. It was dead now, but something about it stayed alive in him. He liked having it back there. He remembered planting the seeds, seeing the shoot appear for the first time, seeing it grow into a magnificent structure, bearing its first fruits, tasting them. He remembered when the pollution around the street started eating it up, and he remembered watching it fall apart, leaf by leaf, branch by branch. The tree, that was a metaphor for his love. How could he cut it down?

He held the last letter he’d written to her in his hand. He’d finished reading it for the hundredth time and it still had ink stains all over it, caused by tears of a pain that only he knew of. Today, as always, he knew why he was sad, yet he didn’t want to face the harsh reality of the very existence of that letter. “Yours Truly” – those words hurt more than all the alphabets of the entire English Dictionary combined, for the truth was no longer true and what was his was gone. He looked up at the night sky, blurred up by the waters in his eyes which made it look like a lake, filled with stars. He could see the ripples of his past in it as the words of the letter passed before him, into its oblivion. “I love you to the moon and back”, he used to say to her. On this moonless night, he finally found out that somewhere on its path, his love forgot its way and was lost to the skies forever. He could look up at the melting skies all he wanted, but he would no longer be able to find the love that he had sent on its way to the moon. He’d read that letter many times before, he’d shed those tears many times before, but today was different. Just yesterday he’d told himself that he was fine, he was moving on, that he had moved on, but today was different. He’d erased her from his memory a hundred times before, but today was different. Today, she lit up his heart once more. Today, he had loved her once again. She stood right in front of him, clear as the sky after a rainfall, with her vastness extending from his heart to his soul, filling up his entire body with love. How he wished he could just see her once more, say those words that always failed to convey his love to her, spilling out of his mouth like water out of a storm cloud, filling up the entire ocean of his heart.

He looked at the axe that he had tried to pick up and cut down the tree with. It was now rusted in places and its handle had blisters on it. “The axe forgets what the tree remembers”, read a saying he’d seen somewhere once. That didn’t apply in this case. The tree was dead long before the axe had even touched it, only he was still alive to remember it all. He picked it up once more today and began swinging it in the air. He felt the blisters on the wood hurt his hands, but he kept swinging it as it didn’t hurt that much. Finally, he reached the tree and took a swing at it. He felt the pain increase a bit. He swung again. The pain began to intensify. He kept swinging at it, with an intent to cut it down today. His hands began to bleed, but he swung, and he swung hard. When he was done, the saying had changed for him forever. The axe would always have his blood on it, the tree was already dead so it didn’t even feel the axe hitting it, only he remembered now. His bleeding hands were a testament to all that he’d endured to cut that tree down. He picked up its remains and there, in its ruins, he found the last leaf it had ever produced. “We had a good time, didn’t we?”, he smiled picking it up, and walked back into his living room.