The City of Stars

There was a single tree that grew out of the barren soil. It was not a large tree, but its dark branches hung as if it was crying. Though everyone knows that trees do not cry. Everyone knows that people cry for sorrow and for hope, but trees have no feelings, and thus they cannot feel these raw aspects of live.

The tree in itself was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing but a single half-dead plant, surrounded by a long-standing mist, and all alone, just outside the City of Stars, where all the people in the world lived, in solitude, just as the tree had done for so many years.

None of the citizens of the city ever thought much of the tree, though it had always been there, just outside of the thick walls. People felt nothing for the poor tree, they didn’t see anything in the branches, all they saw was a plant, one that had no purpose in the world, but to stand outside the gate as a lone soldier standing guard.

What was it standing guard against?

No one else lived outside the City of Stars, where it was said the whole world would one day be taken up to the Heavens and leave the god forsaken earth behind. The earth was nothing more then a shadow of the meadows and fields that used to grow, and the rivers, cool and clear, who used to flow lazily through the forests and the cities.

The world used to be such a beautiful place. A place of wonder and of hope. A place where the animals roamed and the people lived amongst themselves and amongst nature, and the trees were many and tall. They reached to the sky, as if they wanted to touch the stars, as man had always dreamed. They were so close, closer then any mortal could ever be. And we were all content with that.

Then one day a man came to the land. He stood at the foot of the tree and looked up at it’s branches. He stood there for hours, which led to days, to weeks. The people of the cities watched, crowding around the silent man. When millions of people had gathered, the man turned around.

"Why?" he asked simply. "Why do the trees reach closer to the heavens then we ever will?"

The people could not answer the man’s question, and they began to puzzle over the odd fellow’s doubt over the trees. They had lived along side them for so long, and had never dreamed of asking such an absurd question. It was unheard of. No one spoke, no one moved. They stared, almost admirably at the man.

A young boy stepped forward, out of the crowd, and faced the stranger.

"Because," he replied, "we haven’t thought to become taller then the trees. We haven’t decided to try to be taller."

"Yes," the man said, almost to himself. It was with that boy’s idea that the people began to think. The man and the boy stood side by side in front of the masses, and began to lead the people to the stars.

Eventually the people had built building so tall that the trees could not beat out, so tall that they blocked the sun from reaching the earth. And suddenly the world woke up one morning and the trees were no more. Nor were the fields and the flowers, the calling birds and the rushing streams, cool in the hot sun.

Naught was left save the wasteland that had once been paradise and the single tree that stood outside the place where the trees died. The people did not know what had gone wrong; all they knew was that the man, who had grown so old and frail, had died in peace in sleep.

The boy was now a young man, no longer having the childish innocence in his desire. He stood beneath the last tree. All the people came to him, bringing their homeless families and their empty souls.

"Why?" a frail woman had asked, barley able to stand. “Why is the world gone? Why did the trees go back to the stars and take all of our crops and life with them?”

The young man did not know how to answer the woman’s question. For once he was at a loss for words. There was nothing he could say other then the simple and silent truth. He dropped his head and said,

"Because we have tried to become taller then the trees, and tried to get too close to the stars."

The city was always in that one spot and the people of the earth never wanted to move from this place. The tree stood outside the city for all of time, crying softly, for the rest of eternity.