• In the distance, the sound of sirens wailing as if they were in some sort of horrible agony could be heard. It was a cool night with a breeze and other then the sirens, it was mostly quiet except for the rustle of the wind in the trees and the grass. A single figure meandered to a small pond and sat down on the rough, rotting remnants of what used to be a dock at some other time, far, far away and before this peaceful night. There was a single tree around the pond, and it was old but still strong. If it could tell a story no one could guess how many stories it could tell. The countless small children taking a break from learning to swim beneath its swaying branches. The happily married couples sitting in it's shade, watching the sun set and enjoying the close of a perfect day. If it could tell all that it had seen, ah, the stories you could hear. Not all of them would be pleasant, not all of them so safe to dwell on. No, this tree had seen much sorrow in its countless days. A child with his heart torn out running for many miles only to collapse beneath the branches of the tree and sob until all the blood and sorrow and pain seemed to have run out of their little body, until they were numb to the world. On a silent night a tear-stained girl quietly climbing the tree, only to descend wearing a tragic necklace, her face contorted in pain until her delicate feet stop their movements and all that is left is girl swaying in the breeze, limp like those sad little dolls made of rags that peasant girls would see as a luxury. An angry pair sprinting across the plain leading to the tree, desperately trying to catch a small figure who simply could not run fast enough. Under the tree, a quick struggle, a scream cut short as a neck is grabbed by a hand, gruff words, a single glint from the moon on a smooth, cruel surface. The world enveloped in red for a moment, only to be filled with blackness as the moon hides its face behind a silent cloud. The stillness of night returning as the two remaining look with smug grins at the quickly growing cold corpse before slinking off into the night. A small child not more then bones and skin trudging through the heavy snow before collapsing at the foot of the tree, letting out their life with a sigh, a faint smile, and thoughts of warm summers at home below another tree, and frozen bits of salty water called tears on their blue face. Yes, these and many more, there are endless stories, endless figures in the night, in the dead of winter, in the scorching heat of summer, no matter the weather, no matter the day, there is always the tree, forever standing and watching, waiting, collecting stories and softly singing a lullaby with the wind to send those precious ones off to their eternal sleep.
    There is movement and the silent figure moves to lean against the tree, to breathe in the very essence of the tree and the pond and the earth and the past, the present, the future, the memories of old and those to come. A mask is removed and with it comes a sigh as if it was a great weight to wear that mask. The surface of the pond is silent, there is not a single ripple, not a single disturbance to the night. In the dark are two old friends, a tree and a boy. If you ask the tree and he could answer back, he could tell you many, many things about this boy. How he used to climb up to the very highest branches of the tree in hopes that he could climb out of the very world and simply drift away like the mist when the sun comes out. He could tell you how he would swim in the pond or sit under the tree's boughs for hours, listening to the wind and the birds and the happy chatter of squirrels. You could hear of the day that the boy bought his very first camera and spent hours taking pictures of the tree and the pond and the fish and the birds and the sky.
    If you asked, he could also tell you of something else, how there was a change. The boy who would climb in his branches and swing on the small rope attached to the tree for hours began to change, or at least, that's how it looked. This supposed was not at all subtle, it was something that all those other figures, the older ones who thought they were so wise for being alive for a few decades, decided must take place. They decided that the boy must do better in school, must make more friends, and most of all must stop hiking miles everyday into the countryside to visit some silly little pond with a silly old tree. They told how they had moved into the city, a huge place teeming with opportunity, as they called it. You can find this all out from the tree because the boy did not stop coming as commanded, he simply would sneak out a night to come and visit the place. Yes, he came and told the tree, told the birds, the fish, and even the squirrels. This kind of thing happened for a few months, but eventually it was stopped, one day the boy simply didn't return and it would be many years before the tree would see the boy again.
    When he would see him again he would not seem to be the same person at all, he was no longer a very young boy, now he was a young man, he looked completely different except for the eyes. Yes, it was the eyes that reminded the tree of all the day and the nights he had spent there, sometimes just sitting and other times napping or swimming or climbing. Those eyes were special. Normally they were simply icy blue, a little startling but still comforting and kind. Once the boy had been in a fight when he was younger, though, and his eyes quickly changed from kind to simply terrifying and horrifically intense. His eyes showed that he was not afraid, that he was confident, that there was something he wasn't telling you, but most of all, that he was very, very dangerous. After the fight was over his eyes would seem kind again, inviting, almost playful. Yes, it was the eyes that allowed the tree to remember the boy, and it was his eyes that allowed the boy to remember the tree.
    The figure leaned against the tree and was gently lulled to sleep by the familiar sound of the wind in the grass and the tree. He dreamed of a far away time when he would spend his days playing, without a care in the world, far, far departed from the current reality.
    The sunrise was stunning, really, and as the sun began its glorious accent the figure sat beneath a tree and watched. By the time the sun was about a fourth of the way up in the sky the figure was gone, leaving only a pond and a swing and a tree, forever watching, endlessly forming memories.