Short story - Meadow and the Tree

In the meadow of emptiness, surrounded by young and small bushes, lived a tall tree. It had dark green leaves in summers and a huge strong trunk. This tree was very particular about cleanliness and rules. Violation of rules was not permitted. It would shout out its anxiety with strong shrugging of its branches if even minutest of his rules were broken. And if it were angry, it would SHOUT (read SHRUG) irrespective. In any case it was a meadow of emptiness; so its shouting or no shouting made no difference.

One day a sparrow came to its vicinity, he looked around, inspected the bushes and enjoyed the small appetizing insects living in those bushes. He then inspected the tree. Clean indeed. What a perfect combination! I will live here, he decided. He would fly everyday and find some twigs and dry branches and would collect them all in a warm shallow hollow inside the trunk. Slowly and gradually his nest was built into a clumsy scatter of dried plant parts. Tree was watching all this time, but it did not mind this intrusion. It was a meadow of emptiness after all and arrival of a pair of fluttering wings and a talking beak was definitely an omen of life. Tree welcomed the sparrow with a silent but full smile.

Sparrow would fly everyday and come back to the warmth of his shallow hollow and sleep. Very soon he found his soul mate for the season and both of them started making lot of chirping and fluttering each day. All that noise would irritate the tree to the capacity of its endurance and when he would wake up he would find all the dead twigs and bird shit scattered everywhere on its branches and on the bushes around. Everyday tree's morning would start either with frustration of the mess the sparrows would create or with the extra effort of cleaning up all that mess by shrugging his branches and mopping with his fine dark green leaves. He would still tolerate the pair because it was after all a meadow of emptiness and those sparrows were the only signs of life there.

Mrs. sparrow laid three peach colored eggs one fine day. Both the sparrows started taking care of the eggs. Giving those little eggs all their warmth and smiling at each other in turn. Those were the days of maximum happiness for the tree. All this time, there were no flutter and loud noises which were caused mostly by the excited pair during their seasonal mating sessions. Relief. This meant peaceful nights for the tree and much lesser mess to clean up the next day. Wow! I am helping a form of life in surviving this meadow of emptiness and I am no more alone, thought the tree and smiled wide. Days passed by with nothing much happening and tree almost forgot that there was a pair of sparrows and a triplet of peach colored eggs in a shallow hollow inside its trunk.

On another finer day, the triplet of sparrow kids came out of their peach colored shells. These small sparrows have peach colored fur all around their bodies, little blue eyes which were mostly closed and rarely open with a lot of "aw", "what?" and "wow!" in them. Tree was too happy to see these kids. It felt really proud that day, when he heard the sparrow kids for the first time. It felt good that it did not remove the cumbersome pair from his trunk. The sparrow kids were all either too happy or too sad to see this new world outside their shell, as they made a hell lot of noise all the time. Even the sparrow pair started all their fluttering and loud chirping once again. This time their shouts would mix with the shouts of their kids and made it worse than ever. Not to mention all the mess they created added with the peach colored fur of their kids. Tree tried tolerating but very soon it gave up. He decided to take some action.

One finest morning, tree got up, looked at the mess, but in place of preparing for the regular clean up; it pulled up his sleeves of bark and reached out to the shallow hollow in the trunk. Tree was an old healthy tree with strong branches quite capable to throwing a ton a mile away but the branches were very thick nearer to the trunk and thinner upwards. It tried hard but could not reach the hollow. It shrugged its branches a number of times, but the trunk was intact, it won't move, so would the hollow and the sparrows inside it. Sparrows weren't moving but they were all awe-struck with the power presentation given by the tree. Tree was all angry and would do the shrugging even harder each time. No avail. Sparrows became quiet out of fear and there was complete silence. Tree was also silent, its shouting did not help. Two and a half more moments and fluttering and noise resumed slowly. Sparrows started their day to day activity which of course consisted predominantly of fluttering and loud noises. Tree had to listen to it all, it had no choice.

Now everyday tree would get up and get frustrated about its helplessness and the mess of course; and sleep frustrated in the company of loud noises. It was no more a meadow of emptiness. May be tree will someday learn to be happy in a lively meadow.