Magic is not Magical

Since my childhood, I’ve never not admired the beauty of a “Tree”-A tall, upright fellow, chinned up to the blue sky; grounded so deep almost piercing through the tanned earth; its branches delicately hugging one another while the light-headed leaves 🌿 greeted the wind side-to-side.

A family of small birds coming together for a vacation on the tree-top in symphonic chirrups and occasional raids of squirrel-vigilantes 🐿 raining on their parade; the very sight of it all appeared so magical as if angels had descended from heaven!

How could I forget!? The cool shade quilling over my tired-from-blinking eyes as soon as I would set my back against its trunk, Oh! I never felt so calm, like paused in time. It felt light, like I was no longer obliged to the force of gravity.

It was not just a feeling like-home. 

It was my home. 

It still is.

You see, growing up in a city that smelled of clean, crisp air much better than a cologne, fortified with green belts and wide neighbourhood parks, I should never have had this dream of living in a TREE-HOUSE. Why? It’s because it was supposed to be built somewhere, bossing around for its due rent. 

Yet, to my great surprise I never spotted one! 

Why in the god’s name, wouldn’t a single house in the city want this living magic in its backyard? 

Yes, I’m aware! A tree-house can also be home to a few uninvited guests and although I’m freaking scared of 🐾 animals, insects, reptiles, and basically every mobile species, I knew I could scare them away if not coexist with them (doesn’t seem believable to date). Anyhow, I was determined to build a tree-house and make it my personal refuge, my rendezvous!

But here we go again.

Of course, there’s a 'but' in every big announcement, a ‘tony’ in every love triangle; a ‘charade’ in every magic; so there had to be ‘concrete' in every urban house. 

For a gullible kid I was, I accepted all those buts, no matter deep-down how much I wanted to confront the person who subtly sneaked those buts into my world of fiction (I would now choose a stubborn me any day). 

I had hardly begun talking my parents out of it when I saw a distant tree 🌳 from my room’s window suddenly turning whiteish yellow-a colour I never knew it had it in itself.

As I grew up, I figured that expressing emotion is a universal concept for all species alike. 

The once crimson-crowned fellow that had conquered countless wild storms was there today, standing still, trembling from a jarring noise. 

Soon, the long-crooked neck of a massive yellow engine gripped the timid tree by its bark, shook it for a bit till it shed green tears that dried quickly 🍂 upon touching the unfriendly roasted grass.

Before I could picture myself architecting the design of my tree-house, its flaky cylindrical trunk had been stumped-out for nothing. The scene made me shudder. I didn’t blink my eyes for a few minutes. 

Could you miss something you’ve never had? 

I don’t know. But that moment, I did. 

I reminisced the comfort of spending my spring break nesting on the tall, bright red slightly yellow Katsura tree, hovering over its smooth branches 🪵 and reluctantly sliding down its thick, hard ridges.

Magic is not magical. It is a farce. And no one could convince me otherwise.

Of what I had considered to be a living piece of magic, couldn’t even bring itself back to life. Let alone it didn’t  even run for its life. 

That day, instinctively this question passed my mind-"Was the dumb tree more miserable or the intelligent man?"

Even if I had found an answer back then, it would have been no big revelation. Rather it would have lost its meaning as the next day I witnessed some bricks and mortar aspiring for the same blue sky over my royal tree’s grave.

A new house had finally found its place in the city…it just wasn’t the house 🏡 I was looking for!

By- Agrita Arora

~ If you feel more than just pity for our green protectors, go protect them.