Young Writers Society

It felt like years ago that Maman died, though in actuality it was no more than a few months ago. The Chaplain didn't return after leaving the last time and I had nothing left to think about besides the impending end to my life by the guillotine. I still get no sleep at night and dread the rise of the sun for each one could be my last. I started to think back about how free Maman must have felt knowing she would sleep one night and then never wake up again, to know she was at the end of the road and almost done with this life. I started to think about my childhood, the only time I had ever gave thought to such silly things as faith or love or tried to narrow things into right and wrong.

Years ago when I was but a small child, Maman and I lived in an apartment. I had enjoyed it because it was small and the street outside was always so busy, most evenings I would sit by the window and just watch the people walking around. Kids running down the street to the candy store at the corner, men in dirty clothes coming home from work, a man walking his new puppy that would get distracted by everything around it. The commotion would dim as the evening is swallowed by the night the Men who hadn't gone directly to the bar down the street were now walking into it. At that moment Maman would call me away from the window for dinner, Maman would always talk about the beauty she saw that day. I would sit listening throughout dinner, she had a way of talking about details that kept me listening not missing a singles syllable. That was when Maman was filled by hope and thought that there was more to this world, maybe I did too.

During the day I had school, not that I had many friends. My habit of analyzing things usually put kids off but the kids who did hang out with me I had fun with them. My school was normal like any other I suppose the only thing I could think of that sets us apart from the rest of the world's schools is the big oak tree In the middle of the schoolyard. Many kids loved to try and climb it but almost all of them failed. I had come to like this tree, so many details and unlike the others. I sat under it from time to time or just looked at it, from the way the trunk twisted instead of went straight up like a cork screw. The leaves that had a very peculiar pattern, swirling from the center to the right or left. Branches that looked so thin they couldn't support anything but then others that could hold up a grown adult.

One day as I was sitting reading the neighborhood bullies walked my way, I saw them coming from the top of my book. The boy in the middle wasn't very intimidating, only slightly taller than I but then the two boys that trailed behind him made his presence more frightening. I peeked around the sides of my book and saw no way to get away, the way the buildings were built around the tree made it only possible to enter and leave the same way. I looked up at the tree, I knew this tree inside and out but could I escape using it?

I dropped the book and kicked off the ground trying to reach as high up as I could, I caught the spot where the tree bend to the right and continued up. Grabbing the branches I remembered were strong and avoiding the thin ones, before I knew it I was sitting up on one of the higher branches. I looked up at the sky and I remember the feeling well, maybe it is what birds feel like... Free. Not only had I climbed the unclimbable tree but I also saw why every boy wanted to get higher up. I stayed up there while the bullies stood where they were, it was a while they just gawked at me but they eventually left and I climbed down. From that time it became my favorite spot to go to, a place I truly felt free.

Sitting here in my cell I felt a smile go across my face and then something I hadn't felt in a long time... I felt a pull in my heart like some distant part of me wished to be back on that tree. A peace inside myself and I knew when it was time I would be thinking of that tree and of Maman.The second time I had felt this peace was in my youth I was in love with a beautiful young woman, she had long hair always flowing free. We would spend time on the beach almost all the time, taking the train then coming back late in the afternoon. One day as I was making my way to the train station where she usually waited for me, I saw something that now I realize should have been obvious. She was with another guy, I stay out of sight trying to convince myself I was wrong but when she leaned on his shoulder and then kissed him I knew. My heart broke then, which was when I realized true love was only an illusion. I knew that nothing else mattered, just what was in front of me.

I hear the door creak open, my time has come and still I can see the crowd, hear and feel their hate towards me. Now with nothing else to hold on to, I embrace that however many people come to see my death it means nothing but yet everything.