Beneath the Tree

Some people have never seen stars.

I certainly hadn’t.

I had always lived beneath the tree, the fruit swaying above my head. To look up was to bathe in their light. To pick one was to grasp a bright jewel. To bite into it was to drink molten.

Everything outside that golden space was hidden tides. Unknown paths. Ravenous earth. Anyone who wandered there was lost. But beneath the tree we were safe. Nourished.

At one end of that little land was the rod of iron, emerging from the dark and then, reaching the tree’s perimeter, suddenly turning upward, stretching into the sky. Someone was always watching over the rod in case a figure coalesced from the mist—running to meet them and supporting their final steps toward the tree. All to watch the look that came over their face, the golden glow that spread through their body, as they took their first bite.

But at the other end of our circle was the building, jutting crookedly from the ground, leaning over us. People called to us from its openings. Some of our brave ones went near to engage with them—answering their arguments, returning their mockery.

I never went too near. I never ventured outside the arms of the tree. It was home.

But one day.

(How do I put this?)

The world turned upside down.

And I fell upward.

I grabbed at the branches as I fell, trying desperately to save myself. But every branch I caught either slid out of my grasp or broke. Finally, I burst through the top of the tree, and saw darkness.

My home sunk away beneath me as I flailed in the empty air.

Then the gray angle of the building slid into view. I realized that it was close enough to grab. I could save myself! I could climb into the building, find my way to the bottom, and back to the tree. And, indeed, I caught hold of an opening and clung to it.

I looked up at the abyss I had just saved myself from and stared.

Sprinkled in the blackness were—

I remembered a person I had seen lying beneath the tree, arms crossed behind head, staring upward. The person intrigued me because they seemed to have a different glow than the golden one that suffused the others.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“Stars,” they replied.

I had never heard that word before, and they seemed to know it.

“Imagine,” they said, “that you took the seeds from a thousand shining fruits and threw them upward. And they stayed in the sky, glowing.”

They looked at me. “Seeds have life.”

And as I clung to the building, I saw the seeds in the sky. They were beautiful.

But so far away.

I looked at the building, at my tree, and then at the stars.

And I let go.

It was terrifying. I had no ground. No gravity. No direction. And my tree diminished beneath me until it was simply one star among millions.

I don’t know how long I fell. But eventually, I saw something familiar. A rod of iron stretching across my path. I grabbed and held onto it desperately, certain that it would bring me back to my tree. But which way would I have to go to find it? I finally chose a direction and pulled myself through emptiness, grateful for this one strand of reality to follow.

Soon I was pulling myself through mists, and then waters, and then marsh—the land slowly solidifying beneath me. And I saw a glow ahead. A tree with shining fruit. I wept as I struggled toward it. Soon, an arm wrapped itself around my shoulders and helped me along the final steps to the tree. I reached up and plucked the fruit, taking an ardent bite and swallowing.

I almost choked. I looked at the fruit in my hand. It was different. Had a different glow. Taste. Texture. I wanted to throw it away from me. To dash back out into the darkness. To find the real thing. But as the fruit spread through my body, I felt it nourishing me. And I knew that it was good. My glow started to shift.

I stayed a long time beneath that new tree. Reveling in its fruit. Hungry for its taste. Disdainful of the people in the building who mocked me. All thought of my previous tree sank to the back of my mind. This was the right place.

And then. The world turned upside down. I was wrested from this tree the way I was wrested from the first. And again, I was lost among stars. I was angry. Grief-stricken. A part of me started turning as dark as the space around me. I raged into the emptiness.

But then, another rod of iron. And, of course, I took it. I wanted somewhere to stand. Anywhere.

And I found. Another tree. Another fruit. Another joy.

Look at the stars up there. All those seeds. All those trees.

I search the sky. Find that one particular golden star.

And feel a tug.

Why? I have the whole universe.

I look at my hand. My original glow has been suffused with many other colors. Would anyone at home even recognize me?

Would I even want to be around them? It’s such a small place.

I remember all the people who had emerged from the mists holding on to the rod of iron. Who were they? I had assumed that they had simply been born in those mists. But now I knew that they could have come from anywhere. Tasted anything.

Who were the people I had lived among for so long? Had any of them fallen upward as I had?

Of course.

One had told me about stars.

And even those who had never been torn from the tree. What deep knowledge pooled in them that I, a traveler, cannot gather?

What about those in the building? Had they inadvertently aborted their fall, clinging to the stability of the building, just as I had wanted to?

What about those like me, who need to know—

“What are you looking at?” someone asks.

Stephen Carter is the director of publications at the Sunstone Education Foundation and author of Virginia Sorensen: Pioneering Mormon Author. He is the recipient of the 2023 Smith-Pettit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters.

Mark England is a Utah based artist who also owns Dolcetti Gelato with his son.