The credit of this image goes to @pyemoney
Cerulean Blue
Suddenly he stopped and analyzed the space where that peculiar tree was. He frowned as a sensation difficult for him to identify filled his chest. He tilted his head as he watched him with his eyes twisted. He took two steps back and gently sat down on the ground, near one long, lattice-like roots of that strange tree between grass and gravel.
The boy heard an exhalation and for a second he turned his head in alarm that there was someone else with him in that place, but there was no one there, only the boy and the tree. As he turned his attention to that giant bark, he heard again a sigh of slow, heavy breathing. That must have surprised him, he must have run, but it was not so, he was not alarmed and with that same coldness he continued observing that nearest root, it was so long that it touched the tip of his worn shoe. He pondered for a while whether he should touch it. He decided, stretched out his fingers and placed them on the hard, rough and surprisingly warm surface of that root. He left his fingers there for a while, then began to move them slowly from right to left.
"Wow," he said in an almost inaudible whisper.
The tree seemed to take a slight sigh, like when you come home and sit down to rest on your favorite chair.
The boy pursed his lips slightly in response and put his fingers away. He rested his hands on the ground and pushed himself to get up very carefully, as if he didn't want to make any noise, shook the earth from his hands and from his grey trousers, which he was not afraid to soil.
He took two steps forward to examine that living being. At the front, the tree had a dark, broken opening, like a hole, and from it a black, viscous liquid, almost like pitch, oozed out, scattered along the ground, wetting it in its path, turning it into a dark brown mass; the roots, herbs, and leaves of other small plants nearby also began to soak, corroding. The boy bent down and took a small smooth stone in his hands, weighed it for a moment in his hands and then threw it into the black liquid, which fell with a dull blow. At first nothing happened, but then an ethereal smoke came out of the rock and it began to melt.
He looked up without getting up and noticed that one of the lower barks was covered with a kind of blue moss. It approached cautiously, seemed to vary in color, from cerulean blue to almost white, as if it shone and moved.
The boy approached, attracted by that color, that brilliance. When he was in front of it, he stretched his fingers again like a while before, he felt an urgent need to touch that moss. When his fingers were inches away, a rumor was heard and something fell on his hand, startling him a little. He looked down at the ground, a broken branch had struck the back of his left hand, hurting him, reddening the battered area.
The tree breathed audibly again.
The boy stretched the fingers of his right hand again, but this time in the direction of the leaves of the tree, when he was about to feel them on his fingers he stopped waiting for another wild branch, but it did not happen, nothing fell this time. The leaves were broken and rough to the touch, they were green, but in the center they had a brown spot that extended to the corners of the leaf, on both surfaces.
He focused his attention on the moss again, and taking the branch that had struck him, tried to remove it from the bark of the tree, but it wouldn't budge. He continued to carve in different places without obtaining results. He dropped the branch to one side and noticed a path of fire ants, followed them with the look, surprised because they were the first insects he saw near that area all the time. The small insects arrived until the moss, they were placed in front and with their small pincers they tried to pull it, some managed it, others only remained very still until they died, and a few were left to fall on the tar.
Seeing the ants making that effort provoked something in the boy. He let air escape suddenly and without noticing it he stretched his right hand in an unconscious movement caressed the back of the left that was beginning to turn red.
"You're dying". He mumbled as if it wasn't obvious. "If that is your destiny, perhaps I should let you die".
He began to walk away with renewed determination. But without stopping he shouted over his shoulder:
"I'm going to save you, thank your ant friends".
He came back two days later with an elongated, flat shovel, a bottle of gasoline and a grey lighter. The last two didn't know why he had brought them, but they were there. He placed the can of gasoline about ten meters away and stopped in front of the moss with the shovel, holding it tight with both hands, placing the tip slightly downward. Before hitting the bark, he saw if the tree had changed its breath, but it was still the same, hard and troubled, no branch fell from anywhere and no other sound was heard, almost as if time had frozen in that place. He rearranged his hands on the shovel pole and struck.
A thud sound was heard, but the moss did not give way. He tried it a second time, the same thing. A third time, nothing.
The ants hadn't stopped, he wouldn't either. Almost at a mad rhythm he kept hitting the moss, he didn't care if he ripped out the bark equally. He seemed to have gone completely mad. He lost track of how many times the shovel hit the tree.
He took a deep breath as the sweat wiped away with the back of his wounded hand, he had to put on a bandage, for where he had touched that branch he now had a slight rash. He wiped his hand mechanically with his jeans, put his hands back on the stick, took a deep breath and impacted again.
This time, to his surprise, the moss fell to the ground with a piece of bark, inseparable. The boy began to hit the cerulean blue on the floor, but it wouldn't go away. He knew it, but he didn't understand it.
The sound of a persistent drip made him look back at the dying tree. His gaze immediately turned to the pitch-filled hole, but from there only that disgusting liquid oozed. He searched quickly with his eyes and found the source of that sound. From the place where the bark had been plucked with the shovel, a golden, almost crystalline sap dripped, creating a tiny well between the low branches of the tree.
The boy ran his hands over his face in frustration, watching the sap attentively. Suddenly he watched as the fire ants approached the sap, placed their small tongs on it, and drank avidly. That disconcerted him, he left the shovel on the ground and approached the tree. Probably it would be madness what he was about to do, but he bent down in front of the opening, put his face to the tree and licked the sap, drinking from it as well.
He didn't really feel any different, either good or bad. He just wanted to keep carving that moss, and so he did.
The broken tree oozed sap from every possible corner, the whitish moss lay on the ground, the boy pushed everything until it was covered in tar.
The boy looked at the state of the tree covered in his own blood, his hands hurt and small blisters had appeared in the palm of his hand. He silently apologized to nothing for what he had just done, no one could definitely hear him. He picked up the bottle of gasoline and left without saying another word.
This time he didn't come back two days later. He was still in his bed clothes, with his hair in a rush and his eyes still narrowed by sleep. He didn't believe what he saw. The tree was once again covered with the seductive and blinding brilliance of that damned moss. the tree's breathing became slower and dying, somehow more macabre.
As usual, there were no sounds, there were no animals, there was nothing around them, only the darkness and the reflection of the moon on the cerulean blue with time stopped. The boy took a cornerstone, a little pointed and with a single cry he lunged at the moss, charging at it again and again. The sap sprinkled on his face, his clothes and his hands, but he didn't care.
"I'm going to save you," he whispered, his mouth pronouncing the words unnoticed as warm tears began to slide down his dirty cheeks.
He stopped dead in his tracks, he put a hand to his face and felt the tears running down. He watched the tree closely, now it seemed to move with each exhalation. The boy stretched out his hand once more and placed it on the barkless trunk of the dying creature. As if giant lungs were filling, the trunk inflated and after a few minutes, which could have been hours, he breathed his last breath. The place was filled with light, a light that invaded him, got into every pore of his body and ran through his veins until he was unconscious.
When he opened his eyes again, it was daylight, the sunlight slipping through the foliage like silk. He licked his lips and looked back at the place where the tree was. There was nothing left, it was dry, the only thing that throbbed was that bluish moss, eating the remains like a bird of prey.
He sat down leaning his elbows on his knees and plunging his head into his hands, his arms were heavy and his eyes ached. His wounded hand bothered him terribly, it itched so much that he took the bandage and unrolled it quietly. When he discovered the bandage, he noticed that the rash was no longer there, in its place there was a pattern of circles that became smaller and smaller. He looked at it more closely and discovered tiny dots that joined each circle, creating a horizontal line and a vertical one, vaguely reminding him of the map drawings he hated so much. Although he took it as a kind of sign, he shook his head, stood up, shook the earth from his hands and trousers, just as he did the first time and made his own way home, to check every map in the area.