The Seven Trees

Sendai. We arrived last night, Ridge and myself, and apparently, from what Ridge has told me regarding Shin, they're on their way there. One can only wonder why he brought her with him, to be honest, it's not something that should keep crossing my mind nor continue thinking about. Certainly, there's other reasons.

"You didn't tell me you had a private jet and a private spot at Sendai International." He asks.

"You shouldn't be so surprised, you were the one who figured out that I was the daughter of a multinational company."

"And it gives you no shame?"

"What?"

"Being so rich, having all this money, being able to do what you want. Most people would kill to have a life like yours."

"I don't disagree, I would only tell them to focus on theirs and they'll find the results they're looking for. It sounds harsh, but I'm not going to act as if I don't have privilege and enjoy that I have it. Maybe it's why I'm so moved to something greater, starting with this."

Sitting in the hotel room we shared, sitting down for a while made me a bit anxious, so deciding to stand up for a bit helped stretch my legs. "You don't like me very much."

"It's not that. Simply, I don't trust you. There's too many red flags."

"But all of the stuff that has been told to you by me, turned out to be true."

"...Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why us?"

"You and Shin, supposing you meant that?"

Pausing for a second, there was only one way to respond to that. "It should be asked of you the same. You say you don't trust me yet keep going along with what I say. You saw the map; you've seen what I said was going to happen, the red pills, money trail. It makes you curious. Because both of you are like me. More than you would like to admit."

"Maybe, but that doesn't explain your actions."

"But it does. My father was going to release a fraudulent article from an 'anonymous professor' explaining that Shin plagiarized research, but I stepped in front of it and made something else up. Albeit, to his benefit as well. At least he can now challenge the illegitimacy of it. It's Shin. My father is recruiting him as we speak and for some reason, his research is vital to what he's trying to do. He's the piece."

"That's vague. Who is supposed to believe or even know anything about this? You have no basis of any of these claims and sure, let's say, no you've been right. A couple times, maybe a time or so more but you can't consistently use people without their consent and just exepect them to be okay with because "bad things will happen, it's for your own good, trust me.' That's bullshit."

Huhhh, there's no point in hiding it. It's true, this plan that's been so close to me for the better part of a decade, only the last two years had there been ground gained, can't be done alone. "You know Shin well, no?"

"Well enough, why?"

"How many people are 24 and a professor."

"Was. No thanks to you."

"Ok, sure. But how many."

"Not many."

"Ok, not many. That being said, how many of them have groundbreaking books that are internationally recognized as a standard for their respective category?"

"What are you getting at?"

"What you saw in the Bahamas, what did you really see?"

There it is. I knew it. "What do you mean? There's reports well documented." His face gave it away.

"Sure, but you know the reports don't report everything, no pun intended."

"Not funny."

"Wasn't trying to be, hence the "no pun intended". Let's switch gears. How much do you know about The Seven Tree myth?"

"What does this have to do with your point?"

"It has everything to do with it. There's things I can't explain or well, do alone. I don't want to do them alone anymore. I'm sorry."

He looked puzzled. It's as if people can't be sorry or have the ability to be so. "Sorry? For what?"

"For dragging you into all of this. When you received my offer to help me, it was hard for me to even do that. I'm not the type of person who thinks of others too often, so when it happens that we meet, people that align with me, there's a tendency for me to absorb them in my circle."

"That's an apology, hm."

"No. I'm sorry for not being fully honest. Asking for your help without explaining my actions. Making myself untrustworthy, being too selfish. Maybe it pushed him away a little bit...I don't know."

He sat there, across the room for a moment. Getting up, he actually sat next to me. "How do you feel about him?"

"Well, I love him of course."

"Wow, that was straightforward. After all this time, a few months or maybe even less, you love him. Then why did you get him fired? Why do you keep leaving him in the dark about all these plans, only talking to me? Hell, I don't even know what this goose chase is all about. Forgive me, but, hah, I just don't believe it." Even if I want to believe her.

"And you shouldn't, so now I'll just show you."

Rolling off the bed, it came to me that it was in my bag. The map. Slowly walking over to the desk that was in the middle of the room, grabbing the map, slowly I patted for him to come a little closer.

"The Seven Trees is an old fable, myth as some like to study of the likes of the Lochness Monster, Bigfoot, Aliens and extraterrestrial life, so on and so forth. The list goes on. Just like this story, Shin, the mystery around him attracted me."

If you were looking at the map, it shows a standard glimpse of the world and all its continents. Pressing my hands on the edges, the model straightened it out to show the full picture. In certain parts, there's an upward 3D model drawn of tree that pops out, indicating where the legend says each of them are supposed to be found. Even though, all these 6 sites have been visited to no avail.

"As it had been passed down to us from our mothers, grandmothers, their mothers and the further down it went, the more believable it became and woven into our lives. And that's where the Yuzu comes in. Maybe you don't know, maybe you do, I don't know, but it's a fruit that's tied into a lot of our daily lives. Aside from the use of it as vinegars, sake flavoring, spices and it being generally food related, it had significance among royalty, being used as a gift and of high class. Even me, I remember being a little girl and my dad giving me Yuzu baths to clean my skin off after working in the fields all day or taking some in tea whenever I got a cold. It's a symbol of renewal."

"Many people use it for lotions, skin care, and even in traditional Onsen baths at hot springs,"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar. I've been wanting to go to one, but I have tattoos..."

"Haha, yeah. They won't let you go in one. But you can make a bath yourself, I can show you." I smiled. It's hard to contain it, my love of Yuzus.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a deep passion for fruit.” He nods, “Anyways, I remember when I was a girl, being in the field, growing Yuzus. The care, tending, meticulous process. They take years to bear even a single fruit at times. Out of all the fruit here in Japan, it's one of the most notable ones. There's a saying they have amongst some Yuzu farmers, 'Three years for peach or chestnut, eight years for persimmon, and eighteen years for silly old yuzu.' Some of my fondest memories are in those fields."

"So, it really shocked me when, well, let me explain the story first. According to the legend, the Japanese version-"

"The Japanese one?"

"Yes, the version is different depending on where the tree is located, or rather, stories in general become convoluted and inconsistent as they grow older, but it's the magic within them and our nature as humans to believe beyond with what we can see or could ever interact with that keeps them alive."

"Hm, kind of like Telephone."

"Exactly. The form changes, but the idea of what's being told remains the same. It is said and as it was told to us, Shin knows well, that the Gods, seeing the suffering of humans to their desires, whims, diseases, planted a singular tree that could cure humans of any disease, strife or issue that could possibly be bred." Clearing my throat, my gaze remained on the map. Hearing this story so many times, asking my father to repeat it to me day after day, night after night, it feels like a trance every time it comes out of me. Automatic, even. Like it's a part of me. Maybe that's why I can't let it go. 

"The location of the First Tree has no origin, prehistoric, middle age, nothing. And for reference, when I went to study in Russia, the professor I was studying under had a different version he had been told as a kid and then later, subsequently researched multiple other versions. None of them having a link to the First Tree. Anyways, the Gods planted a tree. It's said in legends, and the pictures that have been found in walls, that it was like an ant is to us. Meters and meters high with seemingly no end. Cliche, right?"

"No, I'm listening."

I smiled. "From this tree, grew each and every type of fruit imaginable and that has ever been known to this world. Bananas, grapefruit, cashews, granadilla, Dragon fruit, the list goes on. And each of them all had the ability to cure any type of disease or issue that a human could have whether it was physical, mental, spiritual, or even deathly. They say it felt as if you could never die."

"Unbelievable."

"It is, and even me a firm believer, sometimes questions that, but I don't know. It's interesting to know. Right?"

"That's not the story or at least the end of it, I me-"

"No, no. Of course not. I mean, well, I believe, now this is just my interpretation on the matter, that it was a mistake. To not let humans live out their suffering. To give us a cure to anything imaginable."

"And why is that? Sounds great to me."

"Ok, I'll explain, but the story. So, the Gods had pity, typical story, and they gave humankind the ability to basically live forever without the feeling of pain, suffering, strife. It was strange; no one has any record of where the First Tree is located, but everyone in across all of the stories I have heard, had access to said fruit. Somehow, someway people got this fruit. Now the one thing that was not accessed to humankind as a stipulation, was the ability to evade death."

"Ok, but you said it could cure everything. That would mean death too."

"No. I said pain and suffering. The idea of death is tricky and has been morphed into a superstitious ideal of suffering to reach another plain where then you'll find the peace you never could on Earth. Well, what happens if you don't feel it on Earth? The need to be peaceful because that's just the way it is. The people lived longer, hundreds of years even without a single worry in particular. Of course there were still municipal matters, and kingdoms, hierarchies, status and so forth, but on a personal level, no one needed anything particularly in specific. They had been there for order and functionality. not control and the need to retain a lost sense of peace, which is why people fight, hate, and separate themselves amongst differences of race, language, culture, beliefs, rights and wrongs. For the need to belong and feel peace."

"What I am saying is that, even with world peace, there would still be problems, but it wouldn't result in differentiation."

"But you just said so. People were still divided. There were still hierarchies."

"Okay, to refute that, animals have hierarchies. What do you make of that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You wouldn't say, ha, as an example, that because two lions fight each other, there's a problem with the lion species."

"But they fight for territory, for mating rights. Absolutely, you could say there's a problem with that."

"But what's the result of that? They fight, move on, leave the resentment, and find another territory, find another mate. But with humans, it's personal. It's evolved to be that. We can't let it go because we are in pursuit of something beyond the humanly realm of things. We fear dying, getting sick, losing someone, not getting what we want, where as an ant simply carries bread back to the colony for the sake of being an ant. A human does something to gain something that tries to escape them being human."

"You sound like you want humans to suffer forever, hoping and wanting something that will never come to them."

"To continue, a part of the reason there were longer lives were due to the pure health benefits of eating naturally made things, which is historically tracked throughout history, nothing outside of the norm. But each fruit was almost a superfruit, an all-encapsulating thing, like a super pill would be in our times, meaning the life gained was exponential. I said you basically lived forever, not that it was literal. People still died, but it was accepted. Like a cycle of trees, plants, fruit, nature, hurricanes or anything else that spontaneously occurs, that can only be tracked and rationalized, never pinpointed to how it came to be. That's not for us to know, just like living forever."

"Ok. So, what happens?"

"People lived prosperously. Not without issues, but issues without suffering. Essentially, we were able to live in the moment because the idea of overthinking wouldn't exist. This occurred for generations and generations, the process of consuming only fruit because it carried all the resources we would ever need. But as all stories, there's a caveat. At one point, there was a person, who is stated to be different people depending on the version you hear or read, it being written down as it was told to said person, which is how you could read it-"

"Ok, I get it."

"Ok, that there was a person who found the tree." The whole time he seemed interested, but this part in particular, albeit predicable, is interesting. It's the part I could never believe as a child. Someone found it. Someone really did the unthinkable. The story never felt fake to me. Maybe it's why I hold it so close, even to this day as if it was a dream, but tangible and achievable. 

"It was never supposed to be found. It differs from Prometheus because he stole something from the Gods to improve the lives of humankind, whereas in this person found the tree, only to use it to help humans escape being humans and become Gods."

"So, the Gods didn't like that."

"Of course not, Gods as it goes, have a God complex, believing themselves to be Gods and the benevolent givers of life to all those beneath them. That's the eternal problem with Gods and stuff of the nature. And I w-“

"So even you are not a believer of Shinto, or Kami-sama as I've heard it, the idea of God."

"I do, to a certain degree. There's obviously more to the life we're living-"

"I wouldn't say obvious. Not everyone believes in fables and magic, or a story like this. Even though it's interesting. So the Gods gifted humanity a tree, they have fruit that cures any issue, a man-"

"No one knows who the person is. So, a person.”

"Ok, hmph, a person, found a tree. So what? How was the tree supposed to give life away from the concept of death?"

"Despite all of this, the idea of a mortal man, figuratively speaking, found Their creation; they were interested. Interested in seeing what would happen if a human knew the secret of the First Tree. The tree itself bore fruit that could cure anything, but underneath the bark, was sap."

"Like honey?"

"More like blood."

"Blood. Ew, that's gross."

"To make the tree, each God had to give a drop of their blood, reinforcing it with their life sustainability or giving it their life force in other words and underneath the bark of the tree, ran up and down the blood of Gods. Red drops of blood, just like humans." He seemed captivated. Only now, could it be understood by me, the love and passion my father had for this story, no matter how ridiculous it seemed. I can extend him a thanks for at least instilling this in me along with the love of fruit.

"The person that found this tree, realized that there was something special about it. That there was more beyond it just being a tree that grew roots, which it also did. It functioned exactly like a normal tree would, it survived off of light and photosynthesis, needed water, had cycles, bore fruit and produced seeds."

"Seeds?"

"Obviously, there were other trees in the world, just not like this one. Anyways, the person looks and was enamored by the size of the tree, the fruit (which were bigger during those times), and all the seeds that sat on the ground. There were piles and piles of seeds that covered the area around the tree. No seeds could ever be made into another tree, unbeknownst to them. So, without telling anyone, they kept it a secret amongst themselves, visiting the tree every day. Bringing water, making plots of land to try and grow a tree similar to the one he had witnessed. At first, he thought it was strange that all these seeds had been sitting there for seemingly decades without a single tree growing next to or even in the near vicinity of this grand tree. He tried growing it around there, he took some back to where-"

"I thought you said it wasn't a he."

"Force of habit, they, because we don't who it is, tried this process of growing, caring and tending to multiple, hundreds of seeds that all failed to grow for years. Their entire life passed by without ever seeing a single one grow. But here's the funniest part: he dies."

"..."

"...Are you going to expand on that? I don't think dying is funny."

"No, I was just catching my breath, ha, sorry. But on their final days, they had slowly started to lose hope in the idea that anything was remarkable about this tree except the sheer size of it all. One day, they were old and elderly by this point, on a normal trip to the tree, usually so careful they were around stepping in the area, tripped, fell and hit their head into the tree. The bark on the tree being ironically like normal tree bark was prickly and hard on the outside , basically cracked their skull and suffered from a head injury, dying very slowly and painfully alone from seemingly a concussion-“

“But because he, or whoever it was, was so old-“

“Exactly, right. They died. But the tree did something curious.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You could imagine that just like anything in the world with sentience or that grows or well, personally we grow up in Japan with meaning embedded to all faucets of our lives, our language, you know, so as it goes by the version that was told to us, the tree was lonely.” This part always made me sad and cry as a girl. It still is saddening.

“The Gods, with good intentions, created the tree and left it alone and hid it so that it couldn’t be found and abused by humans. Even though they made it like that. But what resulted was the tree was left alone for thousands of years, maybe more, alone. No one tree could grow next to it being that their seeds were infertile, so no flowers or other forms of life could grow nor were attracted towards there. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone or anything..”

“Yeah…” He chimed in, trailing off 

“So you could also imagine the pure ecstasy and joy that coursed through the tree, when someone finally showed up to visit them, spoke to them, and did it every single day of their life. The tree and that human had a bond.”

“The human also was lonely and cared very deeply for the tree. Wanting to plant other trees next to it, irrespective of the fruit or could bear but the beauty in seeing an entire forest of tree equally as magnificent. They thought it to be a dream come true. The human had no children, close relatives or even a spouse, but they had the tree. And the tree had them.”

“Ok, returning to the funny part, which is the entire time it was the inside that grew the most. Meaning, it was the sap, the blood of the Gods, that made everything what it was. Not the fruit that it bore. Well, it’s more ironic than funny but, the tree, after witnessing days and days go by without noticing a movement from the old human, the tree decided to take action.”

“Combining the sap of the tree with the blood of the human that had leaked on the bark, the tree led it all the way to the mouth of the human.”

“And?”

“Well, they drank it or the tree fed it to them and not instantly, but 30 days had passed because they say you have to pass through the other side and when you reach the end, there’s a choice that you’re given.”

“A choice?”

“A choice.” 

“Which is?”

“To live or die. The Gods never had to offer this choice before because no one had ever consumed the blood of a God nor could challenge them, making this human the first God that would be on Earth. They could either pass on to the next realm or be a God amongst humans.”

“But why offer the choice, you said they have God complexes or whatever, I don’t think they’d just let anyone have all this power.”

“Two things: one, they were interested because this was unprecedented and two, technically, they couldn’t stop them.”

“Why not?”

“Because even if Gods have such ideals about themselves, a God was a God. Respect was mandatory and owed to a fellow God. No matter how small or large their influence was. This was the first and last time an offer was made.”

***