Short Love Story – THE DREAM TREE
Photo credit: diana_s from morguefile.com
There was once a boy, named Lipak, who lived in a jungle of dreams. He loved a girl with a rainbow for hair and she was from the realm of the cloud people, but he never let the girl know his love for her, because he was afraid, as he was just a small jungle man and she was a cloud dweller.
So everyday, when he woke up, he used to go to the temple of dreams to pray for a miracle. So that he could finally get the courage to express his love for the girl of the clouds whose name was Ahena. He took from his jungle a tribute of the most beautiful dreams he could find; For the jungle of dreams was a place where all the broken dreams of others would come and stay. These were all lovely, insane, mad, and the most attractive dreams…and that is why they never came true.
In this forest, every tree belonged to a person and the dreams that came to that person stuck to that tree. Those dreams that came true withered and fell out and those that did not made up the leaves of the tree, that shone and glimmered in every season.
So Lipak took the most beautiful dreams to the temple and kept it at the threshold. One day he came across the most beautiful tree he had ever seen in the whole forest. It was vividly colorful and shone like the sun with the brilliance and power of the dreams that it held. The dreams were so fantastic, it made his eyes water, and he wanted to keep the dreams for himself. He could not bring himself to tear down those dreams from the tree, even to take to the temple. He wanted to keep the tree as it was. Beautiful and intact.
He loved the tree so much that as time passed he used to go and sit beneath the tree, soon forgetting all about the temple. He spent his days sifting through the dreams, looking at them, loving them, and identifying with them, for what he himself dreamed of was very alike.
One day, as he was sitting beneath the tree, he saw that one of the dreams was withering. The person who the tree belonged to was going to have one of their dreams come true. He was happy for the person, whoever it was, because all the dreams were so nice and desirable. As the day grew long, the dream got grayer and grayer, darker by the passing minute. The dream would come true any moment now- he should be happy. But that one grey dream was so ugly against the beauty of the rest of the tree. It was a scar on the perfectness. And as the days went on and the dream remained dark, Lipak grew sad, he wanted the dream to fall down fast so that the tree could be pretty again.
So one day, when he could bear it no more, he took his ax and climbed the sturdy branches of the tree and he set to work, cutting off this one dark dream that just wouldn’t come true. He thought to himself that if he cut the dream, it would come true for the person quicker and also the tree would be perfect again. But then when he had almost cut it down, he though of looking in to the dream, to know what it was. Just one little peep to see if it was as good as the others.
And as he looked, his limbs went numb, For this dream was of death.
In the dream, the dreamer has an intense desire of dying. Of leaving the world. He was scared because he almost granted this wish by cutting the dream. He had to save this person now. No one should die because of his mistake, he thought.
Now every dream tree, had a part of the person it belonged to. This particular tree was radiant and colorful and suddenly it struck Lipak that he had not gone to meet Ahena for a long long time. Suddenly he was scared. He felt sure that this tree was hers. So, He rushed down the tree and went off to the cloud city, to look for the love of his life. The one person whom he had thought the world of, and forgotten for a moment of pleasure of sitting under a tree of dreams.
He searched for long, he roamed around, and finally he found her, under a particularly dark cloud, sleeping. There were flowers around her and people crying. When he asked they said that she had not woken up for a long time. You see, she loved this boy, No one knew whom, and everyday she would go off to this unknown place and everyday she would return radiant, bringing back from this place the most beautiful dreams – to keep with her. But since some time, she went and came back empty handed. And then she felt sure that her lover had finally forsaken her, to leave her for someone better.
And her heart broke.
And Ahena, in a fit of despair, had drunk the juice of the hollypine plant. It was the most poisonous plant found in the city of the clouds. And it killed slowly. The only way to save a person from the effect of the poison was to take then to the place where they loved to be the most and bathe their hair in the sweet sap of their own dream tree.
But then, all their dreams would die.
Terrified and hopeless, Lipak picked Ahena in his strong arms and bore her to the temple of dreams, for now he knew where all his tribute dreams went. He knew he had to save his love from the clutches of terrible death at any cost, so he travelled swift and sure and laid her on the threshold of the temple. Then he went to the most beautiful dream tree, the one he had adored and it still shone bright, except that one dream that was dark and grew darker by the minute. He dreaded the fact that he had to cut down the tree, for he loved it so, and he loved the dreams that it held.
But one look at the pale face of Ahena and the limp rainbow hair that had almost lost it’s colour made him grit his teeth. And closing his eyes, he swung his axe and cut down the tree with one mighty blow. And he gathered the sap in his hands – which was the most beautiful color anyone had ever seen – and ran to Ahena, and gently placing her head on his lap bathed her head with his hands. And as all the sap ran out, the colour of Ahena’s hair was beautiful again, and her cheeks grew warm and her heart beat stronger and faster.
She was coming back to life.
Then she flickered and eyelid, and opened her eyes. And looked straight into the eyes of the man she loved. And as he wept for joy, holding her in his hands, he kissed her. And she was happy at last.
And behind them the most beautiful dream tree in the forest lay dead and grey, for all its beauty was now in the heart of the girl who was in her lovers arms.
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