He had just found an old shoebox filled with photographs, mostly of landscapes, remarkable trees or architectural details.He had also photographed religious buildings and statues. Apart from a few easily recognizable buildings, most of the pictures did not bring back any memories. However, he felt invaded by a feeling close to nostalgia but indefinable. How can one be nostalgic for what one does not remember? In reality, he understood that it was a nostalgia for himself, for the eclectic and tireless traveler that he had been. He spread the photos on the table and grouped some of them together, forming constellations of associations. His personal world had shrunk and was now mainly reduced to one room, a bed, the stove that purred like a pet, the kitchen area, his turntable, the bookcase and the desk, near the window, where he was standing at the moment.
From there he could see his courtyard, his cloister as he liked to call it, and an old tree. He could at leisure observe the passerines and the sun's course, the reassuring and benevolent mountains in the background. His outings consisted of getting supplies from time to time, walking around his garden and visiting his old tree. Sometimes he would push the little door at the back to escape to the nearby woods. But as time went by, his circuits became smaller. The day would come when he could no longer go so far.
Early in the morning or in the evening he would sit at his desk and fill in the pages of his notebook. When he had finished one he would put it on top of the pile of previous ones. He didn't get drunk to write, but wrote because it was exhilarating. It was not an addiction, however, but rather an impulse, for the words came to him and not the other way around. A kind of euphoria accompanied the moments when he was possessed. It even went beyond that. In those moments he was no longer aware of his body or his surroundings. In fact, he was one with the words that flowed through him. He was not inventing anything, he was hurrying to capture on paper this world that was emerging from the waters of his unconscious. Of this initial matrix, he mastered nothing.
Apart from this writing activity, he lived as a solitary monk, a recluse by desire, by force of circumstances and time. His abbey, modest, consisted of this small house. Sometimes he read poems, so as not to forget that he was a man, while turning counter-clockwise around his tree. He wasn't trying to go back in time, but the idea amused him. When you live alone, you end up finding subterfuges.
He was not afraid of death. One day the ticking of his internal clock would stop, preferably suddenly in the night, ideally while listening to Chet Baker's Alone Together. He looked up and saw the tree in the middle of his yard. In the background was the door to a path leading to the forest. He still had the strength to go. Then he would have to be content with his yard, his tree. And then the day would come when he would no longer have the strength to hold a pen or turn a page. But even then he would always have the image of his tree inside him, and the silence. What is a life but the slow acceptance of silence and stillness?
He smiled because this tree was his Holy Grail and he had it in front of him. He was the only human being for miles around but he did not suffer from loneliness. Life was everywhere, swirling and bubbling. By dint of observation he ended up having a close relationship with everything around him. Reality appeared different to him and he no longer experienced the torments of the soul. He was at peace. The tree soothed him. The plants had chosen another strategy of development. Unlike humans, they had chosen to put down roots, renounced movement and attained immortality. Human beings, on the other hand, were constantly on the move throughout their lives, which were quite short. History seemed to prove humans right, in appearance. But who was more resilient?
At the bottom of the garden there was an old outbuilding that was falling apart. He had not been able to maintain his garden properly for years. Ivy had colonized the stone from the ground to the roof. Year after year the ivy had grown, feeding on the stone, lifting the webs, creeping into every crevice. The rain and the frost had caused stones to shatter. He had watched all this, first with some fear, then with fascination. One day the roof would collapse and the plants would take over. The force of nature is far superior to that of man, he thought. If man were to disappear, it would not take long for nature to swallow and digest everything that had been built.
So the biggest decision the old man had made was to decide that when he died he would be buried at the foot of his tree. If he didn't know what would happen to his soul, at least he would donate his body to nature. Every molecule of his body would be usefully harvested by roots, fungi and insects. The idea of being absorbed into the tree comforted him, as did the chirping of the sparrows in the boughs.
In the early afternoon he sat on his bench with a stump of bread. The sun caressed his face and warmed his body. He fell asleep and the piece of bread rolled onto his lap. When he woke up, he saw sparrows all around. One of them was sitting on top of him, busy picking up some crumbs.
They flew away and landed in the tree. He took out his camera and immortalized the moment. One more picture to add to his shoebox, a picture that would symbolize the end of the story.
