Tree
Far below the dark windows, silent as death with their sleeping inhabitants, the ground was covered in snow. Snow so pristine and glistening saves for the tracks of an animal, a fox perhaps. But the people in their cozy beds did not notice, for a fox is more of a threat to a mouse or a rabbit than the powerful, strong humans.
On this street, one light was on, my light, a dim candle shining through a small dirty pane into the snow. It was I who watched the spectacle of tracks in snow, tracks that would disappear by morning. Yet whatever the fox ate on that snowy night would never return to grace the snow with it’s tracks.
The glimmer of sun hinted on the horizon, lightening the sky. It seemed that the sky could not wait to be blue again, could not wait to shed its cloak of black. For I, however, the sky seemed ever darker with the dawn, now I would have to leave my dirty windowsill and begin the tasks of the day. All had to be fresh for master and his wife when they awoke. So I, the good little maid, must work.
The scrubbing never seems done, the clothes never gone from the washing room hamper. Though I must eat and to eat I must work, whatever my work entails. Good little maid that scrubs and cleans and washes without fury or weariness, the good little maid with the petite figure and the delicate pointed chin, the good little maid that looks back at me from the master’s mirrors.
The good little maid is not I. Who is she, this being of perfection that inhabits this perfect little house with its perfect little family? She is not the one who stares through her eyes, no, I stare through those eyes, and I am so different. She is polite while I scream words of rebellion, she cleans while I strike, yet I seem to do what she does, screaming all the while.
Today the fresh snow bore the tracks of something different, neither fox nor mouse. Today the snow bore boot prints, clearly marked against the pure white, and today the neighborhood is a shade quieter, and one house stands dark. No one dares to think why, save for I, I saw what came to pass on that crisp night, I watching from my tiny unnoticed window. There upon the ground stood not a fox or a being of good and nature, rather a solider, stark green against the snow, his uniform designed to help him hide making him apparent all the more.
I was the sole creature to see them knock upon a door, and see them drag the family away. I was the sole creature to see the little girl cry as they burned her doll, and I am the one who knows that the snow tomorrow will bear no mark, but one more house will stand vacant. I know master is different that all of them. Soon this street will be empty, save for this house, this perfect little house.
They stood, they worked, why am I any better than them? Is it my skin, my eyes, my hair, my mind? They are not so different from I, they are people, with hearts that beat, lungs that breathe and minds that think. Is it that they think differently? Do the trees and machinery that think they own this world deem that they do not think? A maid thinks and a scholar thinks, with the same words, ideas, and feelings, but a maid thinks different things. Can they prove that those people think different?
But the maid with the petite figure and the lovely curly hair will work, forced to ignore the smell of death on the air and the awful sounds carried on the wind. They do not know that behind the clean white apron, behind the starched black dress, I burn. Fury with the fire of a thousand suns, directed at them for sitting in a sunlit solarium sipping tea when there are those dying.
And who am I to judge? I wash, sweep, fetch and scurry for those I hate. Am I really any better than them? I would help, oh how I would, but when the suffers rise up, they are called a hero and brave, but when one of the safe dares to step forward, they are called a traitor, worse yet a villain.
Let me walk into the street, my flesh worn away, my head gone, yet I still alive and able to speak. Let me scream at them then, let me say, “What have you left to judge me on, you heartless beings? I am no longer any one of you, I belong neither to the safe nor the sufferers, I am above you and yet below you, for I would never judge like you judge. Try to take me down now, for I have already hurt myself beyond what you could do. Let me scream, but do not listen for I know that even if you did, you would not truly hear. Let me scream at you, you heatless, lifeless beings with guns. Trees! You are nothing more than trees! Trees with guns save for the fact that trees are much kinder, and have more of a soul!”
But I could not scream and I’m starting to wonder if I could even speak; for though my vocal cords work, all they ever do is say, “Yes sir, yes ma’m, sorry sir, sorry ma’m,” and other such things. Let them live their lives, make decisions. I don’t matter.
So though I say what I should, I would not need to change to stand before them with no voice or mind or skin. That is already how I walk.
Ah, but I know much more about them than they do about me. I have seen the master’s son’s boot tracks in the clean snow, leading to places where dead armed trees were found. I have seen the master’s wife give food to our neighbors as they were pushed along the street. I have seen the master cry in his study as he sees his best friend’s heart stop beating.
Now there is ice, and boots leave no mark, but it does not matter for we already know. Our door hangs open to the icy street, everyone too much in shock to open it. All that is, saving for me, I have slammed out the cold, for I have seen this coming. So it has come to pass that master knows of his son’s activities, and so it has come to pass that there are wet boot prints down the halls of this perfect little home. The master sits at the window, crying
to the icy pane, asking why his son would do such a thing.
Only I, by the candelabra with a polish cloth know that the master knows why, and what the master is really asking is why his son had to be the one to do so, and why he didn’t do so first. I know as I watch the empty streets from my tiny window that the master’s son’s boots will never mark the snow again.
The cook has heard that soon people will come and help those who are suffering. I look down upon the streets, at the foul boot prints below and I think of how much I wish they were fox prints again. Yet they are, I suppose. A fox hunts another creature, a creature that may be smaller than him, a creature that might look different, but is none the less another creature, and the fox, by nature of it’s being needs to see it dead. So thus is a tree. So thus is a fox.
The people have come, people who are here to help those who are left, and now they stand in the snow, guns pointed at the trees who have guns pointed back. When they first stood, they seemed to be light and good, but now as I look upon the snow, all I see are rows of trees, guns pointed at each other, standing dark green against the crisp white snow.
