Different Perspectives - The Hanging Tree

[Cammeh]

Time to take the perspectives to a new level.

Previously, the topics have been broad and sweeping, but now they'll be more focused to a particular situation.

So let us return to the beginning, to the tree. But now, you aren't just any tree.

You are a hanging tree.

There is some leeway in how the person arrives to you. Is it a criminal punishment being carried out? Mob justice calling for a lynching? A suicide? No matter how the person comes, you are the tree, the silent observer. How do you feel? Do you feel? How much do you know and understand the ways of man? Is this your first time, or have you seen this before? These are only a few of the questions there are to answer. You'll never know the rest until you put yourself there.

 

[Thomas McTavish]

Here they come, once again. The hooting. The hollering. The rope tied around my branch. The shuddering of the limb as the stool is kicked out from under whoever it is this time and they man struggles to be free from the coarse loop around their neck. I see them now. Yep, another one. Another damn witch. Poor girls. This is the fourth one just this week. Why are they being killed? I can't understand. Fifty-three other nooses hand from my boughs and branches, the victims of whom I did not know. They'd been hung there for various reasons over the years. Witchcraft, theft, murder, rape. I don't know what those words mean, but I associate them now with the concepts the mob calls 'crime', 'immorality', and 'indecency'. Apparently it's 'wrong'. What I find wrong is using me to kill people. They don't know how I feel. Ow! They put the rope tighter this time, must be really enthusiastic about it. And the charges are: witchcraft, adultery, murder, and association with the devil. Typical, except the murder bit. Ugh, how I hate this. The cheers, the jeers, he protesting cries of the accused. The rope is around her neck now. I feel the vibrations as the stool is kicked over, and my branch shakes as she struggles in the rope, unable to breathe, unable to fight back. It's sickening, how helpless she is. She stops moving, the crowd leaves. Days pass. She begins to rot. The putrid odor surrounds the area. I can't wait until the day I am dead wood. They can continue to use my corpse, so long as I no longer have to bear the weight of the dead. Oh, how I despise this life.

 

[Hatsune Candy]

It's always the same spot. They love to tie the rope around my second lowest branch. To them it is the perfect height for what they plan to do. I can feel the rope slide into the groove that has formed over the years. It stings, but they don't care. They can only think of themselves as they climb to the lower branch and slip to their death. The poor souls are so selfish. If only I could speak. I would say that this is wrong, that it is the coward's way out. But I don't think they would listen anyways. I can feel the extent of their troubles, they know exactly what they're doing. I understand why they do it, sometimes I wish to take their place and end my misery. It's not life if all you know is death.

 

[Anglkate]

How did it come to this. If I were one of them I would be having rain fall from my eyes...weeping do they call it? If I were anything but a tree I might feel more emotion. However even though I am a mere tree I cling on still to the girl I have known all her life. As I feel the metal teeth of the hungry wood machine bite through my bark flesh I can only silenly grieve with a creaking and cracking as my last connection to the girl is broken away.

I was a mere sapling when I was placed here and as I grew strong and proud so too did the human things that put me here. They built a fort within my many branches, and a swing was held on my lower arm. The same one that now is broken from me. The same one that cradled the girl in her last moments of what the human things call life. I watched as the girl herself started as a mere aapling and grew so quickly year by year.

She shared her secrets and her words with me. I sat quietly and listened, cradled, and protected her when I could. She even engraved her name into me with a pocket knife. She was my little sapling and I her protective tree. Yet even I could not save her. All I could do was watch and try as I might I could not protect the sapling I watched grow.

As I stood tall and ageless, she was cast from my very branches that once she climbed and held on so dearly. I watched as she struggled to gain the upper hand and as the rope was tied around my branch. Here I thought that they were adding another swing, anither toy. Only when I saw her body sway back and forth upon my branches with no fire or light in her eyes did I really know.

Here I stand silent and unable to shout the truth. They believe it suicide....self inflicted death....yet I know it to be the act of another dark hand. Even though I am frequently visited now, I gain no happy feelings. I can only stand tall and watch the world go by so unaware of the truths I have seen.

I fear this is only the painful start as I see the dark hands wandering around day by day....

 

[Brother Gabriel]

Death is only a perspective to me . everyday i see people get hanged in my branches . Forcing the person he or she to wear the rope around the neck . Even though they did something wrong they won't live very long . i wonder how could take it on . To face death itself by their doing or from others

I always watch the children play around me . playing tag or hide and seek or other games the children play . they are a shining example that theirs light in this darkness . but i wonder as the years go by their once innocent faces were replace with the looks of sorrow . their wonderful smile turned to a beaten frown . their once energetic naughtiness replaced with a Aura of self damnation . i wonder why would't they fought it but now i knew it was faith

The rope is set . he was only 23 so much to live for . What a waste of mankind's promise i thought . Seeing him dropped , choked to death by the rope felt heavy in ancient heart . I felt his pain and sorrows . That given a chance he would change but that would never happened .

The grave is set , he may not find peace among the living but may he find peace among the dead . I felt heavy again for i knew more will take his places

 

[Asinis]

I know the forest, I am the forest, one hundred long years standing tall in the cool, brown earth. Firmly rooted, a titan, a watcher. Through storm and sunlight i have stood, giving refuge to the world under my leaves, amongst my branches. The sun rises and the sun sets, winter comes and winter goes, animals die and animals live. A part of the great circle, we each have our place. I know this for I have seen this, the great unchanging. Look, feel and you will know the nature of things. I know the nature of birds and of deer, and now I know the nature of man.

Man comes in numbers, white like winter but not all white. They chant and cry, they fill the cold night with fire and cast theirs shadows about like demons. Man has an order, everything man does has an exactness; it is in everything they do, the way they march single file, the way silence falls as they reach that same branch. They drag the same man forward, like they always do, this same dark creature. They climb, like they always do, to a great branch sweeping the path. They let go of the man, like they always do. When man comes I will bear strange fruit, so I know the nature of man.

 

[Lisianthus]

I was once admired, standing tall and proud.
I was once loved and cherished, laughter surrounded me.
I was once, the bearer of secrets, when they had no one to turn to.
I was once surrounded by life, happiness and pleasure seeping through me.

What has become of me now?

I am now a plague, one that people turn away from
I am now the scorned, hatred were strong for me.
I am now the outcast, Darkness surrounded me.
I am now the silent one, being able to do nothing.

When once, life and happiness surrounded me, Now, it was the dead and the anguish of the living.
When once, I was the bearer of secrets, I am no longer trusted.

I had become gray, with anguish, bearing the pain of the living, as their loved ones, one by one, was hanged, using my many hands as a leverage.

If I could cry, I would.
If I could stop them, I would.
If I could scream, I would.
If I could rage, I would.
If I could sought revenge, I would.

I would do anything, If I could. But Alas, I am nothing more than just a tree. I am nothing more than the helpless, just like the rest of them. A part of me dies as a person dies.

The pain, is too much.
The weight, is too much.
The stench, is too much.
The wailing, is too much.

Kill me!
Cut me!
Burn me!

Help! Help! Help!

What can I do?! Tell me!

Save me, from this living hell.
Save me, from this pain.

Death, seems more peaceful than this.

I can do nothing, but await Death.
To embrace me, and save me.
To kiss me, a final goodbye.

I hope that's fine, do comment, if there's any~}

 

[Drew]

The exhaust from their cars always wakes me from my tender sleep. They come at such a later hour for they take no heed to the fact that others do in fact sleep. I happen to be one of them but they do not care. No, they never do. For them it's quick and easy. A simple fling of the rope. The same one they have used for nearly thirty long years now. The same car too matter a fact.

Oh how the many lives that have been taken from this earth by way of my third limb on the left. If it weren't for that storm they would still be using the one on my right but it broke off and now they grumble and have to use one a bit higher up. The fat one mainly since he has always done all the work. I don't pity them. In fact I wish for rain to wash way not only their stench of cigar and sweat but also that of fear and guilt from the soul spent upon my limb.

At least it's quick. It's a snap if they do it right. Almost always is, only twice have I had to suffer the minutes while the human form twitched and gurgled. An epic failure that night and the fighting and arguing that followed nearly woke the dead. Most times it isn't that way, once more it's swift. I have no mind of the reason or care of its knowledge. I wish for the next storm to uproot all of me to end my days of this ill job. One I never knew I'd fall into the employement of. One I never would even wish upon a lumberjack.

 

[Raven]

I was once a tall proud tree but then it change. A man had murdered three people and then a song formed by two loves. It was called the hanging tree. Many have heard the song some with disgust others respect and some are just confused of what to feel. Many stay away from me now. I miss being that once proud tree. Although I don't mind because now I symbols the two lovers who loved each other to follow each other even in death. For there love was truly that strong.

The song was:

Are you are you,
coming to the tree,
were they strung up a man
they say murdered three.

Strange things did happening here,
and stranger would it seem,
if we meet up at midnight,
in the hanging tree

Are you, are you,
coming to the tree,
were the dead man called up,
for the his love to flee.

Strange things are happening,
and stranger did they seem,
when we meet up at midnight,
in the hanging tree.

Are you Are you
coming to the tree
were I told her to run,
so we'd both be free.

Strange things did happening here,
and stranger did it seem,
when we meet up at midnight,
in the hanging tree.

Are you, are you,
coming to the tree,
were a necklace of ropes,
and are side with me.

Strange things are happening,
and stranger dis it seem,
when we meet up at midnight,
in the hanging tree.