The tree at the window

I regularly look up to the sky while the computer is working on a task. Embedded in one of the windows, a tree spreads its branches. I saw it turn green in the spring, I saw it move, sometimes softly, sometimes madly, according to the heat and storms. I saw it turn orange and yellow.

Only this one can distract me because the other large windows are more urban. The tree provides a contrast both in the urban landscape of this neighborhood and inside the building where I work. We are arranged like this tree in its window, each of us has our own cubicle.

These are parallels, not real truths. The tree is not alone. A park, just a short distance away, is its extension. It probably speaks to its fellow trees through rustle, chemical exchanges or, again, below the surface, through the old roots that take the relay. For my part, work is not so isolated. My teammates talk to me, I get calls, I get up, I go to meetings. If he could look at me, the tree would say the same thing to itself as I would. He would watch me slowly change my colors.

I don’t know its fate. It may live many years longer after mine turn to dust. Either it will be shot down by a road administration, or by pollution that will end up killing humanity anyway.

It is so unimportant. Right now, this window is my life, I look up at it. The seasons pass. I breathe calmly until the next wind, the next sun or the possible storm.