Short Stories
The Trees of Knowledge
An envelope has arrived. A pale cream paper, fine to my touch. What really captures my imagination is the name and address, seeing it written in such a beautiful hand, as if these fingers came into existence for the sole purpose of writing ‘Rose Cottage’. It is someone older I feel, a woman, each carefully formed letter speaks of an era of elegance long since passed.
I treasure it. I put it aside, to the end of the pile. I await the surprise that I know lies within. And finally I let it reveal its contents to me.
It is an invitation. A formal request with an acceptance letter and another page should I wish to decline. I am reminded of Jane Austin, of invitations penned and delivered, by carriage and footman of course, requesting the pleasure of another’s company, perhaps to tea, or a recital. The days when poetry flowed from quills and love was declared within folded pages sealed with wax.
How accustomed we have become to the non-descript standard envelopes that clump together in our letterboxes. To receiving messages we do not enjoy. The sense of anticipation that we might find words to delight us has been replaced by demands for our attention and time. There are bills and statements, promotional flyers and catalogues – an endless stream of information about products and services that promise to transform our lives, to make them easier, simpler.
We may just glance, or sift through and form piles or stacks, and eventually, when it is clear these papers are out of control, sit down and make the time to digest them. Each page, each leaf, forms a mountain that grows before our eyes until we find we are now drowning in a sea.
Yet it is a forest.
Behind every message, every envelope, there is a process. A tree that has given its life so we may gain knowledge. From the grass roots labour of the logging industry to the print production line, along the branches of distribution, the efforts of many are connected to us indirectly through every leaf we hold, to bring us the very pages we are now, as we read, screwing into balls or setting aside to yet another pile, to be born anew. An ever-continuing cycle in which we play an active role.
Each day as I collect my mail I think of the forest, and I wonder about the leaves I am holding. Yet I will never know from whence they came.
The invitation though, I accept.