The Lumberjack and the Arborist
Spring came and went, unfurling budding leaves as it passed. The untouched blades of grass chafed at a lonely lumberjack’s morale as he trudged up the path to his cabin. The cabin itself was a weathered, rough-hewn thing which squatted in the center of the glade he chose to call "home.” It mocked his attempts at serenity, surrounded by an endless forest of tight-packed, knotted, lifeless trees. He could not bear to be here anymore. The midsummer sun promised him further days exactly like this one. The forest still promised an ending. So he went.
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A lumberjack entered an endless forest and came out the other side. Before him was no longer a dense gnarl of bark and branch, but a tidy grid of maturing saplings, planted one in front of the next. Intrigued, the Lumberjack laid down his felling axe and began to walk past tree after tree, marveling at their uniform trunks beneath quickly reddening boughs. A strikingly thin man crossed his path, toting a cumbersome wheelbarrow of mulched dirt and wood, and the Lumberjack called to him.
The Arborist turned with a gentle smile that stopped the Lumberjack in his tracks. Surprised by his own timidity, he stammered out his question. The Arborist informed him that yes, it was his orchard, and, would the Lumberjack care to take this wheelbarrow from him, a meal would gratefully follow. Oh, they were fast friends, the Lumberjack and the Arborist.
He leapt to assist the thin man without question. With the Arborist by his side, he trod a tentative path through the glade toward a chimney in the near distance. The chimney was quite eager to be found: a tall, orderly brickwork, reflecting bright its ruddy, autumn glow to spite the sea of summer treetops. So too did they glow, awash in the setting sun at their backs.
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He thanked the Arborist for the meal as they tended to the dishes, and again on the doorstep as he bade the stranger farewell. After a short eternity, he turned away from the house to cross back into the woods. He stopped only once, as the half-moon at last peeked through the matted branches above. There is comfort here, he thought, and the thought surprised him amidst the twisted, blackened trunks so familiar. When he reached the glade, the Lumberjack took his felling axe and split himself some firewood for the evening. He slept soundly that night, knowing at last that he had a home to return to. And so they whiled away the weeks and months, growing and gathering side by side, and the Lumberjack developed a special fondness for the man.
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One day, the Lumberjack passed the tallest tree of the orchard, and noticed something rather strange. He stopped beneath slowly-crumbling leaves and stared up at its wide trunk. The Arborist appeared behind him and asked what caught his eye. Unable to admit that what had caught his eye was the Arborist himself, the Lumberjack instead hurriedly directed his attention to the curious tree, split
right
down
the middle.
The man replied with a coughing laugh that sent ripples through his ill-fitting flannel. He explained to his companion that no, this tree had not been struck down by the heavens. It had simply overgrown itself, and the old, dead bark had slowly come apart as the pressure of growth divided the husk in two.
"Is it dead?" the Lumberjack asked.
"Goodness no! It has merely lapsed in its restraint. Do not fault it for outpacing itself; it meant well."
Returning home, the Lumberjack took his felling axe and split himself some firewood for the evening. The lumberjack and the ever-thinning arborist whiled away the weeks and months together, but as quickly as their friendship grew, the Lumberjack''s restraint never lapsed. Do not fault him for this, either. He meant well.
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It was slowly atop that once-split tree that a bifurcation emerged: a moment of indecision within, which had divided its upward growth into twin budding trunks. Developing faster every week, the phenomenon had still taken many months to make itself known. The Arborist was elated.
"So what?" the Lumberjack asked over their dinner. The fireplace was well fed for the last blizzard of the season, and the chimney stood bitterly to spite the cold. The Arborist laughed at the question, but the Lumberjack persisted. After all, he continued, it wasn''t as if the Arborist suddenly had two trees where one once stood. No, the Arborist admitted, it was only one tree, but it would no longer have to grow alone. The Lumberjack had no response to this, and so he went home, took his felling axe, and split himself some firewood for the evening.
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They whiled away the thawing weeks, thinking and breathing far apart, and the Lumberjack grew ever closer to confession until at last he marched through the gnarled forest, through the orchard, past the bifurcated tree, through the Arborist''s front door and found him dead on the kitchen floor. There was no struggle; there was no pulse.
He buried his love beneath that tree: the monumental curiosity; the Arborist''s pride and joy. He stared up at pairs of budding leaves suspended above its solid trunk. The Lumberjack took his felling axe and split himself
right
down
the middle.
Now he would never grow lonely again.