Tale: The Fruit of Knowledge

Night was cold. A damp and frozen wind flowed through the bedroom. I rose to close the windows that was still opened. While closing the window in the living room I realized something out there. Way up high, in the Twin Hills, there was someone wandering from side to side, beneath the Holy Tree.

            Then, shadow stopped. It was too dark to be able to see, but it seemed like it was watching me. I felt my neck crawl. It was like a little sigh on my back. I glanced back, stunned, but no one was there. It was just a bad impression. When I got back my gaze to the Twin Hills, the shadow was gone. It was just the Holy Tree and its branches and leaves swinging with the strong wind out there.

            I closed the curtains and came back to my bed. While I was lying under the blankets I felt a brief scent. It was cedar. Probably, it came from the Holy Tree. I drank a sip of ginger tea and turned off the light.

            It was a eternal silence.

            I couldn’t hear nothing but the inner buzz, as when all is quiet and your ear attempts to find a sound. I closed my eyes. Finally, my body yielded to tiredness. At least I believed I was sleeping. I started to see a shining light from the kitchen. Immediately, I thought I was dreaming. I stood and walked to the light, which turned off as I approached. I got scared. That had never happened. I’m not sleepwalking.

            While I was returning to the bed, I felt the scent again. It was cedar. I opened the window in the living room and took a look to the Twin Hills. The wind didn’t swing the Holy Tree. So where would have coming the smell of cedar?

            In order to my terror, someone knocked at the door while I was thinking at that night. I tensed. It was after two in the morning and I didn’t expect visitors. I remembered the shadow that was wandering in the hills. I ran back to my bedroom and locked the door. But they kept knocking on the doorway endlessly.

            I unlocked the bedroom door and took the first thing I saw ahead of me. By the way, it was an umbrella. I walked slowly and silently to the living room. I asked who was knocking at the door, but nobody answered. I asked again. There was nothing. So I sat on sofa and stayed there. The smell of cedar intensified. Along, a burning smell spread through my home. I ran to the window in the living room and understood what was happening. The Holy Tree was on fire. Someone had begun a fire in that giant tree. Its branches were burned and falling as its leaves were drying.

            Whoever was outside my home went back to knocking. This time, impatiently. It looked like my door would fall anytime. No one answered me. Determined, and overwhelmed by fear, I opened the door. And there was nobody there. Nobody. I put my head out, looking side to side and I didn’t find a trace that someone was there. I took my mobile and dialed police. As soon as they answered me I told that someone had burned the Holy Tree, and the attendant was startled. She said that I should call the firemen, so I explained that that wasn’t the only reason for my call. I told that there was someone knocking on my door and it was hidden out there. She was saying something when the line went dead. I tried to dial again, but my mobile wasn’t getting signal. I tried by my desk phone, but it wasn’t getting signal too. I tried to turn on my notebook, and it didn’t turn at all.

            I got desperate and started to cry for help.

            I was watching the tree dying every second. It was distressful. And I was supposed to die too, depending who was out there. I cried like a child. So I saw the fire wipe off like a magic. Then it began a storm. The burning smoke was going up and mixed with the damp wind rain. It was a scary landscape. Again I heard someone knocking at the door. I didn’t hesitate. I fetched a knife in the kitchen and walked to the living room. In front of the door I opened it thoroughly. There was a middle-aged-man. He had a goatee and dressed winter clothes. His eyes were staring into mine as if he was trying to see inside of me.

            I asked shakily who were he and what he wanted from me. He smiled. It was a nice smile, but the smile was carrying a secret. He started to enter in the living room, so I lifted the knife, by threatening him. He smiled again, pointing to the window that overlooked the Holy Tree and staring at the remains of ancient tree. Finally, he said something. He said that was nothing compared to what he could do with all his power. My shoulders tensed by the fear. But he said he would do nothing against me because I had already done. I asked about what he meant. And he smiled one more time. I felt an urge take over my arm and threw the knife I was holding against his chest.

            In order to my surprise and panic, nothing happened to him. He kept smiling and at that moment I realized that it was an evil, wicked smirk. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who he was and neither what he wanted from me. I didn’t know what come next and I had no idea what direction my life would go later that night. I asked again who he was.

             This time, he answered me. But I wished never had to heard him.

            “I’m that one who never speech lies. I’m that one who just wants to be between mankind. I’m that one who wants to be human, and for wants it I was thrown from my place next to my father.” He answered me. That wasn’t a joke. Those eyes didn’t joke. Next thing I knew I was down in tears. I cried as seeing death ahead and not want to die. I cried as who loses the parents. I cried as who cries when you’re lost. And he stood there smiling and watching me.

            I asked for the last time what he wanted from me. And he answered me. He said he wanted to show me the truth. And he said he was the truth, and not what all mankind seems. He said he never took the life of someone for mere show of power, not even to punish or to satisfy his own ego. None of that. His actions were just out of revenge. He would act revengefully to the end, when he could return to his place and tell to his father that all he wanted was to be loved like the humans were loved.

            Then, I noticed how silly I was to question him and wanted to know about him. My life was changed thereafter. He was gone before I could ask or say anything else. He just disappeared. I never saw him again.

            But I still feel him. I feel his presence like never felt before.

            Now I got a swirl of misunderstandings inside my mind. My life was damned since then. Now I know the truth. I know both truths. And I will carry it with me till the rest of my life, trying to know what is the really truth. And it consumes me. It distresses me. Some days I wish to die just to be sure that this man was being truthful or not.

            I was overcome by the desire to know the truth. I was overcame by the knowledge.