I walked up, I was willing to reach the top, where few dared to reach by means of the fall. The midday sun filled me with energy with its kindness, which being a desert iguana I can enjoy.
After more than half of my journey, a shadow started to float behind each step I took, creeping on my tranquility. I ran to hide, but the rock that I thought would be my refuge, fell all the way to the bottom of the mountain, leaving me in plain sight for whatever looked for me.
I saw it. He saw me.
Its feathers shot towards me. The shadow was getting bigger and bigger. Any me- I could not move. I heard a yell of victory while it prepared its claws to hunt me down, but that shriek that announced my death woke up every muscle in my body to launch in full sprint, go up, get to the closest hiding place that I could see.
The bird clawed its way between stones and roots that protected me. She couldn't catch me and decided to stop trying.
The silence of the dessert burned with strong drumming of my heart. But while the bird disappeared into the sky, the sound of my palpitations returned to a whisper. Calm. Beautiful sunshine and calm.
There was still an hour of light and a way to go; or so I thought. My fleeting escape had brought me to the finish line without realizing it. I was at the top. Right where you want to be. The lonely tree.
I am where I wanted to be and I am in from of who I wanted to know. Before I started this journey, I had so many questions to ask the unknown tree. But the journey was a better teacher than the silence of the voice that I no longer need. Today I lived my purpose. To not have decided to grow here, its branches would not have been there to defend me and my story would never have been told. Even knowing that loneliness will cost you years of lives, you know that being cut short of existence will multiply the clock of all those who find refuge in it.
