Short Stories

The Lost One

"It’s the moon.” I pointed from under the tree to the vast sky that stood before me covered in utter darkness. There was no one next to me or near me though. I was in my own stretch of isolation. I had been for years. I often asked questions about my isolation. Where had everyone gone? Why was I all alone? This world was so alive, yet beside this tree I was the only alive thing in it. What is the point of only one living being with only one tree on a planet with nothing? I have often walked around the planet, it took me ten days and ten nights, I did not grow tired, or hungry, I have never been tired or hungry. But I decided to stay with my tree so I didn’t walk around my world that often. I just talked to the tree, I took shelter under the tree, not from the rain, or the wind or the storms we didn’t have that here. My world was so beautiful but in my eyes it had become bleak and bland. I wanted more than to lie under the tree and look at the stars and the sun and the moon. I wanted to meet someone I wanted to play and have fun with that person. I would often consider my tree someone else like me. I didn’t have secrets so I made my own up to tell the tree.
“Meridiya said that to me, isn’t she cheeky.” I would say to the still less tree. Its branches quivered with the slight breeze. Had it understood? No, it was only a tree.

“I want to leave.” I told the tree as I leant against its furry bark. The tree did not reply. “I don’t want to make you lonely. But I don’t want to be here. I don’t know how I got here, or what would torture me with loneliness to be here, but I want to go somewhere with life. With beings that respond to me when I tell them something. With creatures that smile at me and not just wave like you tree. I want to run with people and play games. I don’t want to be lonely anymore. I am sick of it. But if I can’t leave this place. I want there to be someone else here for me to play with. I have explored this whole planet and I have found no one. I think I will leave again, tree. Maybe the moon feels sorry for me, so he has given me someone to play with, to talk with to lay with. I don’t want to be alone. So farewell, tree, I will see you in a few days.” With that, clouded by the morning and the day I left the tree once more in search for someone that could talk like me, and run like me, and be near me where ever I went. I didn’t stop to rest at all in the ten days that I walked, I just listened to the music like sounds that the breeze carried to my ears. My eyes wandered over the open grass plains. At times I convinced myself that I wasn’t the only person on this planet, at any minutes someone would start running toward me and embrace me. I longed for someone else’s touch besides mine. I followed the grass path, there were never any flowers as I walked. Where had they all gone? Where there ever any flowers here? I found no one in those ten days. When I saw the tree, I raced toward it and gave it a hug.
“I was foolish to leave tree. There is no one here for me. Not even you, tree are my companion. That is why I have decided to leave for good. I cannot hold my breath, or jump off the planet, you tree are here for one reason alone.” I climbed up the tree and took hold of one of its branches and with a mighty pull I released it. It snapped off.
“Tree, I know what it’s like to feel alone. I can bare it no longer. I do not want to live forever. So tree, I thank you for being here. I will go now tree. I will fly away from here and leave you all alone tree. There is nothing here for me tree. There never will be.”
I was foolish to leave so quickly. I didn’t want to wait anymore, but I should of. Silhouetted in the dark was someone like me. They watched me fall from the tree. I wasn’t alone on the planet. I just didn’t look hard enough. There is someone alone on that planet now. I don’t know who they are or how long they have been there. I want to go back there now. I don’t want that person to suffer how I suffered. I don’t want that person to be alone.