The Cherry Tree Monologue

Aria Ashwood 陆杉 210110217

1

I am a cherry tree. About ten years ago, I was transplanted to this campus.

I grew up in the city’s parks, surrounded by tourists from morning to night during the tourist season. Most of them were girls who prefered to stay close together, letting their slender hair intertwine with each other like a waterfall, holding their mobile phones with elongated slender white arms. From the selfie captured by their mobile phone, they could see their innocent smiles, behind which were the flowers on my branches, which were fully blooming before the petals’ short life’s end. Like people who were burning their short lives and trying to live a worthy life, they left their youngest and purest looks in such photos, together with their smiles. There were also girls with a camera hanging on their neck, and when they reached me, they lifted them and paced back and forth, as if looking for the right place to capture. In such photos, I became the protagonist – maybe some flowers on my branches, or maybe my whole self, were frozen in such photos.

After arriving at this school, the people who raised their cameras toward me still existed, but they were much less than when in the park. I had chances to see more types of human other than camera girls: When the classes began, some students with bags on their backs trotted anxiously toward the classroom; On a sunny day, a few students occasionally sat under the tree, holding large and small books to read, or enjoying the food just packed from the canteen; And on clear nights, pairs of boys and girls appeared, and over time it became fairly easy for me to know the relationship between these boys and girls: the shy couple must be in love with each other, the two people who kissed and hugged frequently and occasionally burst into laugh may be in love, and those who naturally leaned together, or calmly walked while holding each other’s hand, may have been in relationship for a very long time.

Chuanxun Bai came to me very often (I’d seen the name on his bag and heard it in his conversations, so maybe it was the guy’s name). The first time I saw him was in the early morning one day, the snow in early spring was still a few centimeters thick. The soft snow replaced the flowers and leaves on my branches, as if a cluster of cold flowers. At first sight, I noticed his thick black hair, which reached past his jaw. With half his head tucked into a scarf, he sat on a bench under a tree, strapping his guitar on his lap and began to practice. The few people I shared my early hours with were usually too drunk to go upstairs at night, or hurrying for the morning trains or planes. He was the only guitar guy appears in the early morning I’d ever seen.

He liked to play melancholy music, which was like the vast snow, the impenetrable mist, friends that cannot meet again, and the love that cannot be fulfilled. Sometimes he would weep alone, staring for a long time in a certain direction with tears in his eyes. Perhaps he did not know that trees also cry: as my body became soft, the wind shook more violently than usual, and flowers and leaves fell in the wind.

He liked to play alone and never was seen with others. And when the sun rose higher in the sky, when more and more others woke up, he would go away. He looked at the dwellings of men with a certain impatience, as if in disgust with his own kind. It didn’t look like he was being ostracized, but purposely was a loner. In the early hours of the night, when no one else was awake, when all mankind was asleep, the world was his to enjoy. When melancholy music reached the ears of others, intoxicating sadness collapsed into an incomprehensible strumming sound, so he just listened to it alone.

It was just that one day, he began to enjoy being with a girl. The change didn’t surprise me because I’d seen how had he met her for the first time. It had been also early morning that day, and the weather had gradually warmed up in mid-spring, and I began to raise some scattered petals, which were vigorously growing in the slightly cold air. When the girl passed him by, his guitar sound became a little bit rougher than usual, like a flowing river meeting an annoying stone, so the water was torn. His face showed some bored expression, while lowing his head, staring at the fingerboard, as if he did not want girls to see his disgust.

To his surprise, a flute sound appeared. The flute was being played by the girl, like filling the gap of the guitar pizzicato. Two timbers mixed together, into a more turbulent melancholy, so hidden in the sound of the vast snow blowing a sad wind, the impenetrable mist spread around became boundless sadness. The boy’s voice at first became more unnatural with surprise, but with the emotional entanglement of the flute and pizzicato, he became more engaged than before, and the beautiful arpeggios slanted down, carrying the long, songlike flute sound, as if it were drifting around the world.

At the end of this jam session, the two looked at each other and smiled. It was a smile I had never seen before, with the unfamiliar and polite of the first meeting, but also with the understanding of the tacit understanding.

I thought that they were about to start exchanging names. The girl said her name was Morning Leaf. But why did the names still matter after the jam session? A name is only a few words, while the music they had played with emotion had told the other all about each other. Their sound shared a melancholy, but there was still something innocent inside the sound of girl’s flute, which warmed the guitar with woodwind runs - alone, Chuanxun Bai’s guitar sounded deeply melancholy, with a determination that his age should not have.

After exchanging names, they began to share their time with each other. They would appear together under the trees in the wee hours of the morning, and the music would change from cold sadness to a fierce collision of warmth. When Chuanxun Bai looked at the girl in front of him, his eyes were much gentler than when looking elsewhere. The girl’s expression was always full of vitality, like the pure white flower color of the flower buds facing the cold in mid-spring.

They talked about other things besides playing music. One day they played dice; the person with the most points asked the other person questions. Sometimes I admire human creativity, and it’s really a wonderful way to get to know each other. They started with innocuous questions like “what do you like to eat?” and quickly began chatting about their past experiences.

“How did you spend your childhood?” said Chuanxun Bai.

“In the countryside. It was so happy and free.” said Morning Leaf.

“Nice. What did you like to do then?” said Chuanxun Bai.

“All kinds of things, even just running on the mountain was fun.” said Morning Leaf.

“Sounds wonderful. What would you do if you were ten again?” said Chuanxun Bai.

“I will do the same thing as I did before. It was happy, no need to change.” said Morning Leaf.

“That’s nice. Was there anything impressive about middle school?” said Chuanxun Bai.

“Everyone in our dormitory had a night talk on weekends, very happy.” said Morning Leaf, “Sounds like you had a not-so-happy childhood?”

Chuanxun Bai’s eyes dimmed down, looking somewhere through the hair of the Morning Leaf.

“It’s all over.”

He still smiled as he answered.

I gradually detected an unnatural feeling between them. That’s what happens between two people who are starting to love each other.

“What is your ideal life?” said Morning Leaf.

“I want to change the world with my music. Music is a beauty above all else, with the power to cleanse all misfortunes.” said Chuanxun Bai, “And, of course, including my own misfortunes.”

2

I don’t know what night it started, but there came another strange girl under my tree. That night she set up a table under the bright moon and lit two candles. The tail of the candle melted into the moonlight, and under this dim light she set up her astrological props. It was a disc engraved with a strange symbol. The wooden astrology equipment looked rather old and had probably lasted for many years. She also placed a crystal ball near the disc, which looked like a modern industrial product. Human’s modern industrial products always seem to be exquisite and gorgeous, but in fact, they are identical and flawed, and this crystal ball was no exception.

It was almost early summer, but the temperature in the north was just early spring. I also took advantage of the spring to release my petals and hung clusters of pink and white flowers on the crown of the tree. In this way, even at night, people who raised the lens to me appeared from time to time; sometimes I suddenly felt like I was back in the park. The young astrologer never fiddled with her camera; she just sat at her own astrological table, meditating alone or reading for others.

I also looked at her astrolabe with interest. Although I had never read an astrology book, I gradually picked up some simple rules from her divination. For example, what signs indicates that the guest will have an optimistic financial situation, and what signs indicates that the person has a strict family. Human beings are always contradictory, talking about the impermanence of fate, but at the same time inheriting this art of predicting the future. Some people often say, “My destiny is not my destiny,” but when sitting in front of the astrologer, the person’s emotions are affected by the astrologer’s every single word and sentence.

“I’m on the fence about this sort of prediction.” Chuanxun Bai kept his voice low to avoid being heard by the astrologers, which led to a hissing sound of air colliding over his vocal cords and teeth. “It’s hard to say if I believe it.”

“So am I,” said Morning Leaf, “but I believe it a little more.”

“Either way, it’s useless. Again, if there’s a destiny, everything is destined, so you’re not able to change it, right? Since, such a choice is doomed, then all you’re able to do is just go on. Or, if there is no destiny at all, all you’re able to do is go on as well.”

Chuanxun Bai was still in low voice. Perhaps the astrological signs and astrologers on earth couldn’t hear, but could the stars in the sky hear all of this? They were hiding behind the cold moonlight, turning slightly in the light, slowly walking on the night sky. How many human children would be born from their mother’s womb under the eyesight of stars, and who would at some future moment calculate the stars of birth, agonize over the way the stars look at them, and guess their future?

Once again, I was the observer of human speech, not the subject of human conversation. At this moment, the distant stars above human heads, and the equally distant fate, had become something closer to them than my flower cluster near at hand. If you ask me how I felt about being shut out of the conversation and whether I felt a little upset about it, I can’t tell you. Perhaps when the cold spring breeze once again made the pink and white petals fell into their sight by chance, I could still stir up a faint ripple in their hearts.

But even though they said something like “we should ignore destiny and go on”, they finally came to the astrologer and asked her to predict things for them, watching the astrologer’s movements with some nervousness, not knowing what kind of result they were expecting. This is why I have said that mankind is contradictory and obscure, and that the man who said “just go on” was as prayerful before the astrological sign as the pious. I do not know whether fatalism is engraved into the core of human beings; no matter how people fight against it, it more or less occupies a certain inch of the human mind.

The astrologer’s eyes were as clear as gemstones, and as mysterious and deep as a thousand feet of water. She looked at the world with these eyes, as if she could penetrate the visitor’s body and see everything hidden behind their souls.

“Very innocent girl. You are a born artist. Very imaginative.”

“It seems that you are very affectionate and help your friends a lot.” “If I may ask, can you and I also be friends? - Ha ha ha, I’m just kidding.”

The astrologer began with the astrology birth chart of Morning Leaves. In fact, I could read some of her fate, too. It seemed that she was born in an ordinary family and did not have a lot of money, but her family was always full of love. This was a simple, contented child, full of expectations and aspirations for everything. As I thought about this, I heard the astrologer telling them what I wanted to say, without any concealment, but without any need for concealment. She interpreted the fate of the girl full of love and happiness, and made the three people around the table happy. Morning Leaf laughed so hard that she showed her white teeth, and present all the happiness in her heart on her face. Chuanxun Bai’s smile was much more restrained, his lips pressed together, his eyes were very gentle, but with some subtle sadness.

But this pleasant atmosphere was soon broken by Chuanxun Bai’s birth chart. The first to lose her smile was the astrologer, who, when she laid out Chuanxun Bai’s horoscope with a wooden disc, seemed to instantly produce a deep black hole that swallowed up all light, all pleasure and life. It was the force of doom, the unhuman sorrow, with a weight that man could not bear, that gave me a vague illusion as if the whole astrological table were teetering on its side. I have lost my smile for this reason, but humans do not know what I am like with or without a smile. When I slightly lower the branches, unable to support some bouquet, and let it slip off the branches, humans do not know that it is my melancholy, only some people call it “gravity”.

At first, I thought it was an illusion, for I saw that Chuanxun Bai’s astrology chartshowed that he was born into a very wealthy family, and many humans have always believed that wealth means happiness. I just thought to myself that maybe nothing good would come of this couple. Mankind always like myths of a rich boy in love with a poor girl, or a princess in love with a cow boy. They will use all the beautiful words to write such a story, but always give such a story a sad ending. Often, when two people love each other to the extreme, there will be a variety of difficulties that cannot be overcome, one after another. They sing of free love and call it human nature, but they also call the barrier between wealth and poverty another kind of human nature. From thousands of years ago to the present, from the east to the west of the human world, we can see everywhere the story of different kinds of human nature. It’s another human paradox. In fact, they do not seem to reject contradiction, but rather to have a full faith in certain contradictions.

But when I looked further into his horoscope, I found that things were far from so optimistic. He looked as if he had been abandoned by his family - his horoscopes probably indicated that both his parents were dead, or at least that they were like strangers to him. For a person who was only about 20 years old, without the nourishment of home,  life could only be of grief. This may explain why he was so obsessed with sad music and disliked people, because if people who were not born like him hear about his past, they will probably say things like “But you are rich,” “You just haven’t experienced the sufferings of ordinary people,” and “Who hasn’t had a bad time with their parents?” Then only the music can understand the clouds that he passed through on his way.

“It’s all over.”

His voice emerged in my mind. In fact, he couldn’t say ‘it’s over’, because these memories had not truly gone away. Perhaps the unpleasant memories of the past had faded a little, but the emotions of sadness were still there, etched in his obscure look, his loneliness, his music.

“Music is beauty above all else, with the power of purifying all misfortunes.”

“And, of course, including my own misfortunes.”

And his own misfortune did not end there. Fate controls him, and his whole life seems to be in a whirlpool of doom. He was destined to love sad music, but fate would destroy his hearing when he was about to start his music career; he was destined to pursue true love all his life, so as to cure the sadness. For him, love was an illusory thing; he had never seen what love was like from his parents, just as the treasure hunter has not seen gold and diamonds, nor found the treasure map, so he set off hastily and pursues it singlehandedly.

“All you’re able to do is just go on.”

After losing his hearing, he would only have more than 10 years of journey left in his life. Maybe he’ll get some kind of serious illness, or maybe he’ll end this hopeless life on his own.

“Or, if there is no destiny at all, all you’re able to do is go on as well.”

It may have been more of a wish to him.

The astrologer’s expression grew more anguished. For a long time, she found that she had been showing a face of pain for too long, and she tried to make up for her immodesty by forcing out an unnatural smile. But it was too late; her uneasy look had already been seen by the two people in front of her. Morning Leaf, infected by the astrologer’s unease, also began to look at the astrolabe with worried eyes. Chuanxun Bai, on the other hand, smiled, even as if he were a victor, or as if his pessimistic guess about fate had been verified.

All three were silent. But in the face of such a result, what could the astrologer say? If she were an honest and kind person, she would struggle. After all, to reveal his fate to him without concealing anything is not kind. However, if there was something to hide, it would destroy honesty.

Maybe the person who interprets fate must be as cruel as fate itself.

I felt a little lucky. I was glad that I couldn’t open my mouth, so that I could silently reveal Chuanxun Bai’s fate and gave him mercy. Glad that I was out of the attention of the three, glad that no one knew me, so that I could silently participate in their conversation without being responsible for this long periods of silence. Even if I couldn’t hide my emotions, I didn’t mean to drop some petals, so what? Morning Leaf would not notice by my uneasiness just because I had petals falling, and people would only consider it a nice intrusion.

There have always been men who have arrogantly assumed that the human race has the highest significance. They said humans can create art, help each other, and transform the world. However, if you have also experienced the silence between me and the three of them, you will find that the cherry tree is the most beautiful thing of this silence. The astrologer’s interpretation of Chuanxun Bai’s fate would destroy the expectations of the two, Morning Leaf’s love for Chuanxun Bai was clearly full of uncertainty and worry, and Chuanxun Bai himself was in the center of this uneasiness. On the contrary, my flowers were beyond the reach of human contradictions, they were only flowers themselves.

3

None of us thought that it was snow that would break the silence.

“Xun, look! It’s snowing!”

“Oh? Really! But it’s already April. Why is it snowing?”

“I heard the last time it snowed during cherry blossom season was 15 years ago! We are lucky.”

“The snow is getting heavier! Let’s ignore the astrology stuff then. Look! That cherry tree is so beautiful!”

The three of them just looked at me, with the snow and falling petals decorating me. I suddenly became the center. They seemed to forget their previous silence; the astrologer also seemed to forget the worries and entanglements brought to her by the birth chart, and Chuanxun Bai showed an innocent look that I had never seen before.

Their eyes filled with surprise clearly warmed my heart, and I suddenly regretted that I had mocked humanity so harshly. It was at this moment that the loneliness that had accompanied me for most of my life had suddenly collapsed, and I suddenly seemed to understand why human beings were so obsessed with each other’s conflicts and struggles.

My heart was warm, but my body was suffering from the biting cold. The spring snow of April beat on my fragile flowers, colder than a winter blizzard. I tried so hard to ignore the pain, seeing the spring snow beat the clusters of flowers I had nurtured for a long time out of shape, or fell to the ground under heavy pressure, so the mixture of petals and snow accumulated under the tree. If I could bleed, my body would have been bleeding at this time. However, they were only clusters and showers of cherry snow, only pink and white.

Astrologer was staring at the mixture of falling petals and snow, Morning Leaf was happily holding the hand of Chuanxun Bai, with the other hand stretched to catch the falling snow and petals. The snow also reflected the white moon. I realized that I myself was no doubt the most important thing on the whole clear night.

Morning Leave started singing a song, which I recognized as the music of her early morning flute tune. Her clear voice was more graceful than a flute, and the melody that normally filled the gaps between the pizzicato of the guitar now filled the gaps between the falling petals. It seemed that Chuanxun Bai regretted that he had not brought his guitar. He waved his empty hand as if he was strumming guitar strings, with his smile of joy.

“Or, if there is no destiny at all, all you’re able to do is go on as well.”

The ice wind urged the snow and rain to hit me with greater force. Although my petals were frequently falling down and my body was covered with bruises, I stretched out all my branches to meet the icy wind, trying to make the “snow of petals” more fiercely. Perhaps I also had some kind of wish that I could use the pain in exchange for the beauty of snow and falling petal, would it bring some joy and hope to the people in front of me? How much could I bring to them?

I tried harder to shake my branches along the wind, so that there would be more petals falling this time, so that the snow of petal would carry more beauty, so that the beauty of the moment would be more intense.(陆杉）