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The real ceremonies of this world happen unexpectedly. The creep up upon us unawares
and we only really know about them after they have passed us by. They are chasms
across which we have made gigantic leaps and when we look back we are indeed aware
that the past is gone forever: it may be accommodated but it can never be renounced. Deep within the forest the was a tree, a beech tree, tall and strong in its prime with a huge girth and limbs as thick as ten men's arms. This tree was much taller and older than any of those surrounding it, standing on the top of a slope leading down to a stream. Because of its age this tree had long ceased to have any competition. Before the trees around it began to grow its canopy was already wide and thick and now, even on the brightest day, three million leaves filtered out the light so that the ground below was always dark and cool. Once upon a time, seventy years and two Wars ago this tree had been planted in the backyard of another Dentonsville Shopkeeper. That was when the town was big enough to accommodate three of them. But, over the years, as the population declined and the outlying areas fell into disuse the perimeter drew in by common consent and legal fiat. Gradually the wilderness reclaimed the land for its own, which had not been so for six hundred years. This was Carl's favorite tree. Here, he could climb up into its arms and be lost forever. As he grew older he climbed to the topmost branches and looked out across the forest towards a distant range of hills which on clear days stalked the horizon to the west. When we first encountered him, he was returning from this place. When the Sheriff's deputy caught him he was going to it. Here he came, on the night following his mother's death to weep for her. He stayed all night and the next morning, with the corkscrew, he carved his mothers name into the bark and, beneath her name, the word: Peace. Then he walked down to the stream, across a rotting bridge of logs, through thickets of young cherries and glades where blackberries and strawberries grew, across another stream and through the pines past the rock where we first saw him. On he went until, at last, he came out through the screen of trees and saw the gentle band of mourners gathered about his mother's grave. |
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