A few years ago, I stood tall, proud, and royal – as I was in the beginning of this story – in a small town called Dachau, where petite houses breathed curling smoke from their chimneys and their residents strode up and down the streets in a cheerful, polite manner. Snow drifted from the sky above in thick clots of white onto the scenery below. Being the tallest tree in that small town, I was covered with it. It blanketed me, like frost on blades of grass, keeping me warm and cozy. I stood in the center of the small square the town provided, the gathering place for the people, where flocks of the old, small, large, and young greeted one another with smiles and chatted about nonsense. Children would run through the streets and kick the snow and throw snowballs at each other, smiling, screaming, and laughing.

If I could smile, I would have. Such happy people, I thought. Such wonder and joy in these dwellers of this small town.

In the winter seasons, the people of the small town would gather in the center of the square where I stood and string trinkets, glowing seeds of glass, and colorful fruit-shaped spheres upon my branches until it covered every inch of my needles. After doing so, they would carry a little girl – a different one each year – with a bright star in her hand, to the top of my head. Although I knew she couldn't see my expression, I would watch in wonder and excitement as the little girl would place the star gently on top of me. In its position, the star pointed to heaven; a symbol of guidance and mercy. Once the small band struck their first note on their musical instruments, the town people would grasp hands and swayed side to side as they sang songs in their language I have now come to accept and understand. Their songs have stuck with me since, the beautiful words ringing in my head each time the season comes around and the people would decorate me like royalty.

Royal.

They would look up at me like I was born to be known, to be special, to be noticed. Pride would swirl in my bark and make me shiver.

Proud.

As if by some miracle, every time they decorated and sung, it would start snowing, frosted flakes of tears from heaven, clinging onto my décor and pride, cleansing me and making me feel much more than royalty, the ones who are sinless and dutiful.

Clean.

For many years, they did this to me. Every year it would be the same sequence – snow, decorate, star, sing, snow. I haven't grown old of it; I never have. This attention and happiness that radiated towards me made me feel like I could be anything. They made me feel special. I was hope for these people, the ones who were looking at me with eyes of relief and contentment. Out of all four seasons every year, I have been their hope in the winter.

Then, all of a sudden, it all changed. The scene shifted before my eyes in a blur of black and white, the noises of shattering glass and screaming making it all the more confusing. The scene fast-forwards to an interesting event: strange men in midnight suits and hats with cherry, white, and black symbols on their armbands, and sticks with notches and switches on them roaming the eerily empty streets, catching and hurting those who got in their path. It was as if these strange men were poisonous to the people, venomous from the look. I shivered as they would pass by in a brisk, stiff walk. I shuddered when they would stand a few feet away from my branches. I did not like the look of these men. Not one bit.

That's when the other people came, hundreds upon thousands of whom I had never seen before. Slowly trudging their feet as if they were a burden, heads down as if in shame, bodies as thin as the sticks on my branches, I would watch in horror as they dragged their legs through the snow, leaving behind tints of brown and crimson speckles in their tracks.

One day, as a particular group of these people, walked by, I noticed the tool they had in their hands: A shovel. That tool had been used many times in my life whenever the town's people happily dug up the weeds that plagued my feet in the spring and summertime. These people, however, carried shovels on their backs with grim expressions on their sullen faces. They didn't stare at me nor stare at anything it seemed like. Their minds were taking them somewhere, someplace they didn't know where.

One of the strange men with one of the black, white, and red armbands and notched sticks strode up to me with a cart being pulled by two other men behind him. He raised his hand and called out to the people in the language I grew to understand, "Call!"

The people obeyed and gathered around him and me. "Today, you shall not fear Death," he said, his voice echoing throughout the square. "Death does not care whether or not you are living, only that He is willing to take you if you surrender to Him. Well, there shall be no surrender. Today is a day of justice, a day of fearing the end of our mortal life. Don't be afraid of Death. He will capture you if you give in to the temptation He offers. There is only one solution to this problem." He raised his hand, and the other two men lifted something out of the cart. The people's eyes widened and I heard a few small gasps.

A corpse, rotting and lifeless. The sight was of the indescribable. The stench was unearthly.

I swallowed.

"This was your leader, Rafael," the man said. "He gave in to Death, where he suffered the consequences of doing so. You do not want to end up like him. Don't even think about ending your life so soon. This war will be over. Stay alive. Run. Color up your skin. Fool Death, and you shall live another day. Consider these words. Do not disobey me."

He snapped his fingers and the other men lifted the corpse and settled it on my branches.

What were they doing?!

"Look! The once powerful leader has earned his doom," the man shouted, "and you shall too! Take a look – a really long one. Any of you who do not will receive consequences. One must learn to look at the possible outcomes of their future and strive to earn them. This corpse on this tree – this Christmas tree – symbolizes consequences of misbehavior and giving up. Don't do it! Now, march!"

The people continued to trudge along and hundreds glanced at me with so much fright and horror I wished I could shrink into my bark and never return. I wanted to shake the corpse off me so badly, but I knew I couldn't because I was a tree. The stench was beyond dreadful and gruesome that I felt ashamed. I was royal, proud, and clean – I shouldn't be treated like this like I was just a careless item. A new emotion stirred within me, one of great horror, shame, and somberness.

Is this what the world was like? The real world beyond my town?

This couldn't be happening – this should have never happened. The oppressors, the corpse, the distant-minded and frightened people – none of this was part of the future I was looking towards, the future of the innocent, clean, and perfect.

What was happening? My world was changing – the other was taking over.

For days, hundreds of those frightened and distant-minded people trampled by me, every single individual looking at me with their identical expressions, their looks engraved in my mind. Those who did not look at me were instantly shot and killed by the oppressors. My self-confidence flickered dangerously dark – it was as though it was replaced with something else, something murky. I resented the corpse on my branches that stained me with its leaking blood and pale yellow flesh that flaked dryly in the air like ashes from a thick fire. I could not shake it off – not even my proud and royal bark and branches could budge it an inch. It stuck like a pulse between a fly and an attractive light – or rather, an unattractive corpse.

I was changing, no longer innocent.

I was guilty of the world.

I was filthy with thoughts of the devil Himself.

I was disrespectful, sinful, rotten, and ruthless.

The world flickered around me, but I did not care. The corpse had poisoned me, just like how the strange men did to the town people. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months. The corpse rotted, and I rot with it, turning my thoughts sour and deceitful. The oblivion I stood in no longer mattered to me. I didn't care whether I perished until I shriveled or I was cut down and splintered into a thousand pieces. Those oppressors all those months ago had infected me, and I let it course throughout my body. I no longer cared for the purpose I bred myself to believe and become.

I was a dead tree.

But then something happened. It wasn't an emotional or spiritual change – I was still the same and did not care either way – but on April 25, 1945, the little town in Dachau, where I stood in the center of the square, and the surrounding towns were liberated.

Freed.

The frightened and distant-minded people who had passed me months ago burst from all four corners of Deutschland, rejoicing and hugging each other, their once muted and sullen faces bursting with color and joy as their stick-like bodies ran through the streets and shouted praises at the sky and entered the food shops, gathering as much food as they could to fill their starved bodies.

No one looked at me.

A few stood in the faded background, staring at the rejoicing, their expressions apathetic, their eyes carrying deep depths of melancholy and torment. They were probably thinking of the past, although I had not experienced what they did.

Unless they had seen the strange men ornament me with a dead corpse.

Unless they had been in a deeper and darker time than I had, one that cannot be described in words.

Only those who survived will know the feelings and times they had faced when they had confronted Death and overcame Him.

All of a sudden, the earth trembled in fear as feet slapped on its face toward Dachau, coming in ranks of synchronized men, these ones even stranger than the ones I had met in the past. They wore pine-colored helmets and vests with heavy chest pockets and the same sticks with notches in them like the strange men had. As they marched through the center of the square and past me, the rejoicing people went up to them and touched them reverently and shook their hands as though they were their saviors. These men – of whom I called soldiers – nodded their heads and gripped the peoples' hands in thanks.

I glanced away.

From the corner of my hidden eye, I glimpsed a particular soldier who had halted and allowed his fellow brethren to pass him. He was staring at me.

I grimaced. Stop staring at me, stop staring at me . . .

He didn't look away. I met his eyes, and although I knew that he did not see me, his face caught me off guard.

Sympathy.

That is what I saw in his face; pure sympathy and compassion.

What?

He walked briskly towards me and I stiffened, ready to defend myself if I needed to. He ripped the decayed corpse from my branches and continued to stare. I held a breath and followed his gaze.

My needles were deep brown, an odd color for green branches. In a messy ring around the base of the brown was crimson red blood, stained with brown and green splotches. Dried strips of flesh and bone ornamented my branches. My entire being was covered with the dead, colors and flesh of red and eerily dark brown.

I was no ordinary tree – I was no longer a tree.

"Why did they do this to you?" the soldier asked, speaking the language I grew to understand. "You do not deserve such treatment. You are an innocent tree, bred to become magnificent. I can help you. I know the perfect solution, one that will prove that you are still a proud, royal, and clean tree."

It was as though he read my thoughts and saw my soul. The hours flew past in a blur as I tried to recognize the sawing of metal teeth against my thick skin, the buzzing of a huge fly, the gentle wash of water, and the crackling of fireworks that heated me. Before I tried to predict what would happen next, the surprisingly not painful slice of a blade slashes against my skin, carving, engraving something on my outer soul, changing me, but not within me. What was happening?

The stroke of a pasted brush. "Almost done," the familiar voice said.

A few hours later, the same voice: "Done."

The next hour, the breeze of warm spring air and higher altitude collided with me. "I announce this sign"– Sign? –"the freedom of all Jews!" Shouted the familiar voice. "Freedom to the Jews!" Freedom to all mankind!"

The thunderous cheering shook my body. I opened my invisible eyes and saw them.

Thousands upon thousands of people, who gathered together in a large multitude that stretched out for what seemed like horizons and horizons long, marking the earth's face, were gathered around me, cheering and rejoicing and hugging each other as they looked up at me. I glanced down at myself and saw not me, but a carved sign of what I once was. I closed my eyes and listened to the words engraved on me, the words echoing in my mind, words that would continue to echo for time and all eternity:

Freedom to the Jews.

Freedom to all Mankind.

* (sighs dramatically) the memories of creating this part of the story ............

I had fun with this part because being able to speak from a tree's perspective is awesome - YES YES YES I AM SPEAKING TREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

(NEW AMAZING DISCOVERY!!! lol)

What do you guys think? 

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Love ya'll!!

Karsen