My Friend Mulberry Tree
“He knew many of our secrets”
When we were tired of playing, we would sit under the mulberry tree on the edge of the playground. There were many more trees, but the peace we felt sitting under this mulberry tree was unlike any other tree. I was in love with this tree, there was such an attraction to it, there was peace, like the peace found only in a mother’s lap.
When I was a child, all of my friends used to sit under this tree. When we were tired of playing, that mulberry tree would call us to it. Sometimes we used to go out of the house, and on our return, it seemed as if the mulberry tree was worried about us. I thought he had feelings too. He was our childhood friend. He grew up with us. He understood our desires and feelings. He loved us. He knew many of our secrets.
I never felt bored sitting under the tree, as if I were sitting with a friend. Surely he was our friend, a friend who is sincere and who loves without interest. When we came to our permanent native village, I missed the mulberry tree as much as my other friends. Every day I used to see this mulberry tree in my dream, sitting under it and playing with my friends, and when I opened my eyes, sadness would grip me like a yellow vine grips a berry tree.
When I went back to my childhood town for the first time after coming to the village, I was in a hurry to go to the ground, like someone in a hurry to meet a very close friend. I was going to the ground to meet the mulberry tree because he was my friend. We had spent our childhood together; he had saved us many times from the rain, he was our umbrella, our protector.
When I reached the ground, my heart was filled with sorrow to see that the mulberry tree had dried up as if it had lost contact with the ground, it was dead, it had scattered like an autumn flower, we knew it couldn’t, and he died secretly. Later, friends told me that we had stopped sitting under the mulberry tree, and I was convinced that he died from our separation and was responsible for his death.
