The square was a jagged expanse of cracked, scorched earth hemmed in on all sides by rusted barbed wire. Litter and debris choked the gutters. All around it, living within a stone’s throw of one another, the people existed in a state of cold hostility.
They were emaciated, their bodies all skin and bone. Scars marked their skin, while deep, festering wounds lingered in their hearts. Though they spoke different languages and practiced different customs, they shared a cold, lethal hatred for anyone on the other side of the square. Starving, their crops long dead and their people standing on the precipice of extinction, they still chose to suffer in silence and glare resentfully through the wire rather than speak to one another.
Then, she arrived, and marched into the ruins.
She was a stranger, originating from somewhere beyond their fractured geography. Possessing a quiet, radiant depth, she drew the light of the sun. From every corner of the square, all eyes were on her, suspicious and hostile. They called out to demand her identity, but she didn’t answer. She simply walked straight into the center of the barren, dead square, the dust rising into clouds at her footsteps.
Between her thumb and forefinger, she held a single, living seed. It pulsated with warmth and light, as though it carried the memory of fertile earth within it. Under the glare of hundreds of cynical eyes, she knelt quietly in the dust, parted the scorched earth, and pressed the seed into the ground.
A harsh laugh rippled through the area. “Don’t you know the earth is dead?” an elder mocked, his voice cracked from hunger. “Nothing has grown here for generations. You’re crazy.”
She looked up. “The ground isn’t dead,” she said. “It’s waiting.”
A heavy silence filled the air. Then a small child walked out onto the cracked earth, carrying a glass of water. The woman smiled, took the glass, and delicately poured the water around the buried seed.
A tremor of curiosity broke out among the people all around. Another person crept out from the opposite side, carrying a small handful of rich, preserved soil, and patted it gently over the wet earth.
Slowly, hesitantly, the emaciated people began to cross their fences. They stood together in a circle around the patch of dirt. They reached out, their scarred fingers interlocking. They were on the verge of starvation.
The woman began singing. A low, sweet tune. It grew into a song. They all started singing it, though their languages differed. It rose from the center of the square into a singular, beautiful chord of desperate hope.
The living seed heard it. It drank in their voices and the collective warmth of their sudden alignment.
The woman looked at them and spoke: “What is planted in unity bears fruit for all.”
By morning, a miracle had broken through the surface. A vibrant green seedling sprouted from the dust, defying the poison of the soil.
The sight fractured the old order of fear, mistrust and hatred. All across the square, the people put down their weapons. Guns, swords, and clubs clattered against the concrete. In their place, they grabbed tools. Men and women from all sides picked up spades, picks, and hammers. Working in unison, they began to till the barren land, churning the soil, clearing the debris, and dismantling the barbed wire.
As the days passed, the tools became surrounded by instruments of creation. People picked up pens and paintbrushes, lutes and tambourines. They began to write, paint, and play together, creating new ways of communicating that took the best parts of their cultures and resurrected them into something vibrant, new and alive.
In the center of it all, the tree grew. Its branches stretched out indiscriminately to shade every corner of the square. It bore a sweet, magnificent array of fruits. The people became healthy and thriving, and their lives fell into orbit around the light of the tree. It didn’t choose sides. It fed everyone unreservedly.
