The Wardrobe

By Bernard Shaw

I felt my eyes slowly closing; it had been a long hard day. The full moon sent a ray of light into my bedroom. A low voice opened my eyes. Without moving my head I looked to see where the voice was coming from. It was my wardrobe.

“Are you all listening? Good then I will begin my story. In the woods I too was once a tall tree. One day I overheard a young Fir tree telling the world that one day it would be the tallest tree in the forest. Another young tree with high ambitions, I thought.”

“One day a man came through the forest and sprayed red paint on some of the trees. The young Fir tree was very excited it had; he said, to have been chosen to be looked after specially.”

“I had not the heart to tell it that every time the man came into the forest, trees were chopped down and were never seen again. One day the snow was high in the forest and the wood-choppers came in and chopped down all of the trees with the red paint.”

“Why did they chop down the Fir tree? It was so small it would not make any good furniture. One could not use it to help build a house.”

“I was chopped down and when all of the branches had been chopped off my trunk I was sent to a sawmill. My once proud trunk was sawn up into planks of wood. Then the planks were taken to another place and men with machines turned me into that what I am now. A wardrobe.”

“The fir tree was placed into a large tub and decorated with all kinds of baubles and other glowing shapes. The once proud Fir tree had become a Christmas tree. When the Christmas was over the fir tree was thrown onto a lorry and that was the last I saw of it.”

The wardrobe stopped talking and I finally dropped off into a deep sleep. In the morning I examined the wardrobe. It was just a wardrobe. Highly polished but all the same it was just a wardrobe. How did it speak and tell the story of the once proud Fir tree that ended its days not in the forest as the highest tree but as a Christmas tree in the same house that I was sent to?

- Total nr. of readings: 2,861 Copyright © The author [2020] All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author except for personal use.