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It was a secluded part of the forest, where few souls ever came. Not that it wasn’t pleasant: it was never too hot or too cold, and sunlight was always filtered through the foliage, leaving dappled and constantly changing shadows on the forest soil.
Everything looked as if it had always been there and would always be, everything looked as if no human or angel had ever left a trace, but it wasn’t actually true.
There was a large, proud, healthy tree that grew in a piano. It was hard to say how old the tree and the piano were, or how the piano had come to be there. Or how a tree could have grown through, for that matter. But they had, and now it looked like taking one away would make the other collapse. Well, maybe the tree would still stand for a while, but it would look lonely and unsupported after so much time with its companion.
And the piano… it was cut in half by the tree, and time and weather had left their marks on it; and yet most of its keys were still there. Sometimes, when the wind was just right or an acorn landed on the keyboard, the strings inside would whisper and sigh and that would make the tree leaves rustle as if it shivered. Maybe it was a ghost passing by. Who knew?
The very few people who knew of this place rarely visited. Some had theories: forgotten art piece, old prank, angry movers working for a long-dead artist, mob threat? Supernatural intervention or Gothic film set? No one really cared. It was eerie and too unsettling for many. Who liked to be reminded mankind and its accomplishments would all be dust as soon as the last human disappeared? that nothing could resist time, not even art? So the hikers and the park rangers, the self-proclaimed nature lovers and the mystery aficionados… they left the place well alone.
Forest animals, however, didn’t. A wildcat with gold fur often dozed on the piano top, for instance. It had strange, squarish black markings around the eyes, and liked to prod and poke at the inside of the piano through the broken back. It made the strings shudder, sometimes. The wildcat had come for so long, it couldn’t be the same one; but maybe several generations of felines had made this part of the forest their territory. There was no one to wonder about it, anyway.
There was also a family of birds who always made their nest and raised their young in the tree boughs. They were smallish, with dark shiny feathers; and every time one landed on the piano they trilled and the foliage seemed to murmur along.
A tiny squirrel had made its home there too. It was a curious creature; it loved collecting things – shiny things, food things, things that didn’t belong in a forest yet ended up there: foil wrappings and a lone earring and a ball-point pen and even, sometimes, proper squirrel things like nuts and fruit. Sometimes, the birds brought it some trinkets, and sometimes, the squirrel watched over the baby birds when they learned how to fly.
And, sometimes, a tall black man sat against a nearby trunk, and talked.
“Dan and Charlotte say hi,” he said one day. “And Maze didn’t say anything, but she gave me this.” He put a tiny cufflink on the ground near him, and watched as the animals circled it, visibly interested. “Go on, take it,” he said. The squirrel darted down and picked it up, inspecting it. A bird joined it, and a soft thump made the man look at the top of the piano. The golden wildcat was there, pretending not to see the man and licking its paw. “Hell is running smoothly, not one demon dares cross her. I think she’s happier there than she’d be on earth without you, but she misses you. Not that she’d admit it.”
The wind picked up and a withered leaf fell from the tree on the keyboard, then another. How long were they going to remain here? As long as the tree’s life, as long as the piano would stand? And then what? The man, who wasn’t quite a man exactly, shook out huge grey wings and plucked a feather from each. He dropped one in the piano through the hole in its back and buried the other at the foot of the tree, always careful of staying out of reach of the wildcat. It was looking intently at him, its tail fluffed up and slowly going left to right, left to right against the wood.
“Az said she’d have to come collect you all one day, and that that day was getting closer. She doesn’t want to, but she will.” The wildcat growled. “I know. But you can’t ignore it for much longer. You have to make your choice. All of you.” A cloud covered the sun and made the shadows deepen, and the angel sighed. “Oh, Luci. But you knew it couldn’t last forever, didn’t you? And the humans’ souls – they deserve a proper afterlife, too.” There was a huge crack and a branch fell to the ground, missing him by a hair’s breadth. It was dead wood, hollow and dark. “I’m only the messenger, Chloe. And… you know your time is near, too. I am sorry, but I think you’ll find there are more options than you thought.”
The angel reached out and the squirrel jumped on his hand as a bird perched on his shoulder. He gently touched their heads. “Until next time, little ones. I won’t come back here, but we’ll see each other soon. I promise.”
He let the critters go back to the tree and looked at the wildcat, which stared back then finally looked away and let its ears go back to their normal position. The angel stepped forward and scratched it under the chin and the cat purred, then batted the hand away. But it was a gentle batting, and the claws were not out. The angel smiled, and stretched his wings, and disappeared.
Both had chosen to remain together, and one even turned into a tree; but this isn’t a Greek tale. Even if the tree used to be young, green, and fresh, it wasn’t meant to be forever young, green, and fresh. Even if the angel of light can take refuge in the gloom of a forest, he will still crave and reach for the sky day and night and have roots deep into the underworld. Their second earth life together was much longer than the first, but still not forever.
But one day, not too long after the black angel had visited, another man came who wasn’t a man. He looked like a kind-faced, bearded man because he’d grown used to it when he walked the earth, and he leaned against the same trunk his son had, before. The forest was silent, and everything seemed to be waiting for something. The wildcat was peering from behind the piano, the tree’s remaining branches had infinitesimally curled around the instrument and the birds perched on it. The squirrel was looking down on the scene from higher up, quiet and its little head tilted in curiosity. There weren’t many leaves left to hide it.
“I’d say you’re welcome home, son, but everything that exists is your home.” The man who wasn’t a man straightened and took a few slow, deliberate steps to the piano. “As for your friends… you’re all welcome to heaven. It’s where you’ve been headed since, well. Since.” He raised a hand, let it hover over the broken keyboard. “You, too. But you, my son, are free. You’ve always been. I… I’m sorry I haven’t made it clear, before. That I’ve let things go so far, between us. That I’ve made things worse when I tried to make them better, because I was afraid we couldn’t have a proper talk. I was afraid. Not you.” He rested his fingers on a few keys. The tree creaked, either as a threat or as a last dying word. Maybe both. “Even your demon friend could visit, you know.” The wildcat’s tail stopped swishing. “I’m looking forward to that talk now, son. I miss you. Please allow me to free you all from these mortal forms.” There was another creak, and a dead branch fell and broke on impact. The tree was very old. “Please.”
The last few leaves fell on the piano, and a ray of sunlight fell on what was left of the keyboard. The man who wasn’t a man looked like he didn’t know whether to cry or smile, and after his breathing had evened out a little he played a simple tune on the white and black keys.
The tree and the piano and the birds and the wildcat and the squirrel faded out and soon it became impossible to tell that they’d been here for so very long. The man who wasn’t a man stayed there until the last echo died, then disappeared too. The forest sounds and life resumed as if nothing had ever happened here, as if no one had ever been there. Maybe nothing, no one had.
The music went on, somewhere else where death and pain wouldn't hurt anyone ever again.