The Haughty Tree: (giving the water a side eye) What did you say you wanted to do?
The Effaceable Water: I want to travel the world. I want to climb mountains and hills. I want to go down valleys and crevices. I want to go to quiet and wild places. I want to see the world, giving help wherever I go.
The Haughty Tree: (snorts) You have no legs, my friend: no limbs at all. (The haughty tree waves its branches) You have no form nor comeliness. You’re nothing: just a shapeless immobile liquid.
The Effaceable Water: I have a great desire, I have ambition. I want to climb mountains and hills; go to lands far away, provide drinks to man and animals; irrigate lands and help plants and trees.
The Haughty Tree: (looking down his nose at her) Help plants and trees! See, I love you and I am the only one who can tell you the truth. You’re impotent. You cannot move! Don’t waste your time dreaming. Don’t deceive yourself that you can amount to anything. Take my advice, be content with what you have. Thank God for where you are and seek no lofty things for yourself. It will lead you into sorrow. (The tree flaps its branches, sways this way and that way and gives out a great swoosh).
The Effaceable Water: (Looking at the tree, does not even realise that she gives the tree its life) I will go. I will try my best. Even if my best is not enough, I will keep on trying. I will not sit here listening to you because your words have power to weaken me. (Water by sheer will moves her body this way and that way. The ground holds her in).
The Haughty Tree: (Looking at her with disdain) What on earth are you doing?
The Effaceable Water: I am trying to move.
The Haughty Tree: Stop! You’ll harm yourself. You’ll only reduce your quantity as you splash about. Some parts of your body will escape to the soil around you and it will swallow you up. And if you continue to splash around, you’ll reduce your capacity and if you reduce your capacity, the sun will come out and lick you up so that you’ll be no more.
The Effaceable Water: I will continue to try. I will not listen to you. I have a dream; my heart is filled with my ambition. I will rather die trying than die idle.
The Haughty Tree: (snorts at her) Mmhh, please yourself.
At that moment, some birds fly over and perch on the tree. He sways and waves to give them pleasure singing, ‘See how important I am – loved by the birds and I’m friends with the winds.’ The water tosses and crashes restlessly. It spills some living organisms from inside her body. A bird or two go down to pick and eat food from the side of the water. Their beaks and web feet with their talons soon depress a part of the ground holding the water. By constant splashing and turning, the water wears down that part of the ground. Not long after, the depression gets lower and lower. Then, the water begins to move. And because the tree was merciless to her, she doesn’t want his friendship. The water moves completely away leaving a hollow bed. Soon, the sun scorches the wet bed and dries it completely, leaving a parched hollow bed.
Many many years later, the water returns to see her former colleague with whom she shared a geographical location. Lo, it has become a tall dried wood. Some of the branches have fallen off and there are no more leaves on them.
The birds are gone. Only vultures are seen hunched over his branches like hooded predators patiently waiting for the victims of the drought. The water touched beyond measure, weeps over her friend, splashing tears over his trunk and soaking his deep roots, trying to revive it. Because water tarries and weeps, lamenting over the end of proud but hitherto prosperous tree, at the scent of the water, life returns to the root of the tree and a little foliage appears somewhere on the stem of the tree. As water rejoices and splashes, she sees that a transformation is taking place. The trunk revivifies. Foliage after foliage appear on the stem. It is no longer the proud tree, but a humble foliage-covered trunk trying to gather strength to survive.
Times and seasons pass and the tree revives because his former neighbour refuses to leave him all by himself again. But now, the transformed tree is eager to hear about the mountains and the hills that water has climbed and the valleys she has watered; the great forests and lands she has visited.
Beloved, don’t let anyone talk you out of your dream. Make efforts – efforts may experience failures, but they yield fruits!
The End.
.NEXT WEEK, INSIDE LITERATURE WILL LOOK AT THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN IN DELE CHARLEY’S THE BLOOD OF A STRANGER.
