Vencedores: Língua Estrangeira - Escalão B - Menção Honrosa

The Odd Tree

The young boy could not stop visiting that odd tree. It was like no other tree, completely different, unique, and as much as it annoyed him to see such a deviant plant exercising so much more power than any other tree, he could never stop looking at it.

Never. Those patterns of leaves had him glazing nonstop. Every leaf had a different colour, making a gradient so beautiful from one corner of that foliage to the other. He would change angles so often, just because every view was different.

Then he would get close, take a look at those leaves more closely and every size was different, every single shape, every texture... there wasn’t a single place of that tree that was not gorgeous, not perfect, not different from anything else he had ever seen and how it annoyed him. “No tree is like this, who gave you the right to exist?” He would yell at it.

Even the tree trunk was a masterpiece. As though it was true that it had only one colour, it had such a beautiful pattern carved into it. Normally, the boy would watch it going from the base towards the foliage, but that particular day, he understood it. It was the other way around. Every single leaf was shaping it. From every point of that trunk, patterns emerged, all different, all beautiful, converging into one simple tree trunk at the base.

But that boy was done with glazing and with that tree that was better than any other tree. “All trees should be equal!” He yelled as if that single sentence gave every right for what he was about to do. He grabbed the knife he carried with him everywhere and again yelled that exact sentence. He then got one last look at her divine beauty and slashed. Leaves fell on the ground, and he stopped for one second, as if the idea of destroying such perfection was weird, as if he was surprised that it was no longer beautiful, as if he thought that somehow, his actions had no consequences.

He struck again and again and again, the fewer the leaves, the grimmer his face, the fewer the beauty, the less his blind rage controlled him, but he didn't stop striking, for as hard as his arm weighed, for as much as sadness crept into his mind, for as much as every single cell of his told him to stop, he never did, never, not until all the leaves were on the ground.

And then, right there, for a single moment, as his mind went blank and his body crumbled to the ground he doubted the last hour, there was no way that all those leaves on the ground withered precisely as any other tree withers in winter.

However, that was not the worst, because as he found a fruit on the ground, no doubt from that odd tree, and tasted it, he realized his mistake. "This fruit is perfect..."