The Story of a Bench
The life of the larch, the heroine of this narrative, was as if split in two. The first part was short, a mere blink of an eye for a tree, considering some of her sisters lived for nine centuries or more. She remembered how she sprouted as a thin shoot towards the light in the heart of the taiga, how she grew stronger year after year, withstanding frosts unbearable for humans. She remembered, right up to the moment when that human, a lumberjack, cut her down, silencing her song, and sent her to the sawmill. She remembered the resin oozing from the wound like tears and blood, how she screamed in pain, but the people and machines around were deaf. All she could do was stoically endure this torture, this agony, which still couldn't kill her completely. The irony of fate: man used her even before taking her life. He used the larch's healing resin to treat his ailments – ulcers, gastritis, heart and lung diseases. He drank it to ward off old age, heart attacks, and strokes. And ...