The Cherry Tree

It had just snowed and the children of the house had come out into the backyard, screaming in excitement as the first flakes had touched the ground. The trees were bare and the leaves had been removed one by one by the wind which was getting colder and colder by the day. The big cherry tree which stood at the center of the yard was all but bare, with a few stubborn leaves still hanging on but losing their fight against the changing weather. The flakes kissed the branches gently and one could almost feel the tree shiver in its touch as they melted into the branches. The breeze rattled the windows panes on the top floor, asking for permission to enter and then moving on when none was given.

The house itself was a magnificent old house; it was one of the first to be built in the neighbourhood and had been handed out through three generations. It had two floors and an attic filled with all the memories and lost treasures of the family. This was where they stored all their old and broken furniture, that antique cupboard which belonged to great Grandma, the little cots and prams which hthe children had grown out of and a million other trinkets which gets stored in such places till a curious grandchild creeps up one day and starts exploring it like it was Treasure Island. That was when curtains became ghosts and the old sofa set in the corner became the spring board from where the pirates pushed innocent maidens into the shark infested waters of the vast attic ocean. This was also where little Rafeek hid during a game of hide and seek and fell asleep for hours while the entire family had searched frantically for him, till he came down rubbing his eyes woken up by hunger.

The cherry tree had been there ever since I remembered, it has given us its shade during the hot summers when we lazed out talking about cops and robbers and the new neighbours who were always fighting among themselves. It used to bear these red ruby coloured cherries which we’d run back from school to pluck and savour. Every day in summer, it would give us a treat without fail; the tree seemed magical back then as it never ran out of the sweetish sour fruit which came in colours of red and yellow and sometimes even green when we just couldn’t wait for it to ripen. I still remember that neighbour boy Prateek who had sneaked in once to get a hand full of cherries and was clumsy enough to fall and break his arm instead. Pa found him wailing in pain on the ground and had to quickly be rushed to the hospital to set his right hand. Grandma always told us that the tree had magic and we never thought of questioning her words.

The window from our room gave us a perfect view of the backyard; it was a big place with all kinds of plants and trees. Ma had a green hand and was always winning some prize or the other for her wonderful garden at the annual garden and flower competition. It was always magical in spring and the house which looked asleep in the winter also seemed to have a kind of new sheen to it every spring along with the greeness of the cherry tree.

During one of the storms which frequented our place, it had been fierce enough to knock out the lights and the phone connections, we heard a huge thud outside and Pa was wondering if the old Oak tree beside the house had finally given in. He had always been complaining of the roots being diseased and that it was his nightmare that it would one day fall on the house. The house seemed intact since we were still alive inside it and there was no draft or rainwater in the darkness to tell us otherwise. The next morning, the backyard was abuzz, some neighbours and workers had already come and chopped up the tree into a couple of big logs. We kept hearing of how lucky our family was and when we finally got a glimpse of the damage, it pulled at our heart strings and little Nishu started crying. The big Oak had fallen straight onto the house and it was the cherry tree which had saved us all. The beloved cherry tree had broken its fall and moved the oak just away from the house but not before snapping into two pieces. There it lay, our shelter from the sun, our accomplice in all those escapades, our silent friend to whom we had whispered so many secrets, lying broken in the mud, gone for ever.

The house itself seemed to realise what had happened. Pa had always been telling us of his grandma’s stories of the cherry orchard which our neighbourhood had once been and that lots of pieces of the house itself was made from wood of the cherry trees. The roof gave away in six months time and the stair case suddenly started detiriorating. In about a year’s time, most of the door hinges had to be replaced and some of the railings of the porch in front broke. We moved out of the grand old house a little more than a year after the incidence of that night as it was getting too dangerous to stay in the house. It was almost like the house didn’t want to live anymore and had given up. It felt like the house was in pain and was mourning the loss of its loved one.

The house is now in an abandoned state and no one lives there, the place is under some litigation among brothers and the place as such hasn’t been touched. I visited the place yesterday and it brought back a flood of memories. As I brushed aside the cobwebs and carefully climbed up to my room, I saw outside from the window which we spent the summers looking out of, a small cherry tree growing proudly beside the stump of where our beloved cherry tree had lived.