When Trees Fall

FICTION

March 1889

He thinks the tree is kahikatea. A Māori word slow and disjointed on his tongue. The name comes to him like a chant. Kahikatea.

For the first three days the pain was bad and the thirst was terrible. Now they are a constant roar.

How can he have lived all this time under it, and not known its name? The smells of sap from broken limbs, and tiny rough green leaves blend together with sawdust from the smashed wooden shingles of his hut. The bark, where the tree is not broken, is grey with lichen. He knows he must stink, but all he can smell is resin.

His heart continues to beat, he wonders how and when it will stop, pinned down as he is by the tree. Kahikatea. The pain is an avalanche

Fall watercolour on paper by Kirstie McKinnon

He uses the shingle nail to scratch another line on the beam beside his head. Four.

He’s run though the list of his sins. He’s a criminal pinned beside Jesus, he’s a shivering tiny child: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was so long ago. It was yesterday. He has tried to be good since, and always greed and lust ran just below his skin, alongside worthlessness, and shame. He’s an insect, a bug crushed, a thief.

He’s scratched the story into the board with the nail in as few words as possible, each word exhausts him.

13 March 1889
Wednesday.
The tree fell while I slept.
Jack Tarran.

He understands it couldn’t keep standing alone. He cut down the forest around it, leaving one. Now he hears the forest keening. A branch presses gently on his torso, ‘Forgive me,’ he says to the tree.

In the orchard he planted, the apples are fat. What would give for just one? Everything. Anything. The sweet cold juice. He’s grateful when he passes out again.

When he wakes, the handkerchief in his hand is dry. He sucked the dew from it hours ago. He’ll have to end it today. He’s figured out how, though he doesn’t know if he’ll have the strength. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says for this too.

Above him a spider has spun a new web, the fine threads spangled with liquid gems. If he could reach them he would drink each diamond drop. A bellbird lands and sings. One more hour, another, another, the roar of the avalanche, then he hears a voice.

‘Jack? Jack!’

It’s Bill. The young farm lad from over the way, a four hour trek.

‘Jack, are you —’

‘Bill,’ his voice is chalk.

Bill gives him water. Bill holds his hand and listens.

‘The tree fell,’ Jack says, ‘In the night, while I slept.’

Bill can’t shift the tree. Bill picks apples and piles them near Jack’s hand. Bill is going to get help. He’ll run, he’ll do it in two hours, ‘I’ll be back soon, just hold on.’

‘Plant more trees,’ he whispers.

‘Okay Jack.’

When Bill is gone he lets out a sigh. The one good thing he’s done in his life: is not ask Bill to put him out of his misery. That would haunt the lad. He waits.

People come. Surely he doesn’t matter enough for this many people? They cut the tree away. They lift him, so gently onto a stretcher. Someone has poppy syrup, ‘Thank you,’ he says.

They carry him. They carry him for hours and hours and hours as if he matters. Does he matter? He thinks of George Moonlight losing everything. I’m not dying alone. Not alone. And this becomes the miracle. Each one of these people is beautiful. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispers, his mind stays with the fallen tree, and his heart is here, a glowing ball of light.

‘It’s okay Jack, it’s okay mate. We’ll get you to the hospital.’

‘Thank you,’ he says.

*

Dunedin 2024

This is a fictional telling of John (Jack) Tarran’s last-days. Jack Tarran was a friend of George Fairweather Moonlight (see Moonlight and Gold, one of my previous posts). Jack spent three months searching for Moonlight who went missing on a gold prospecting trip.

A year ago, I stopped to help at a fatal accident on the road. Nothing I did helped, and, I knew my attempts to help were very, very important to the family and friends, so I did everything I could do, and many others did everything they could do. Later, my friend Sonia said to me, ‘Thank you for stopping, people don’t.’ So I write this to honour the person who died and the family and friends who live. I write this because every life matters. Your life. You.

Thank you.

And as always, thank you for reading.

Kirstie

References

Accounts of Jack Tarran’s story can be found on Papers Past.