The old memories tree

post by Yair Halberstadt (yair-halberstadt) · 2025-03-05T19:03:59.498Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

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This has nothing to do with usual Less Wrong interests, just my attempt to practice a certain style of creative writing I've never really tried before.

You're packing again. By now you have a drill. Useful? In a box. Clutter? In a garbage bag.

But there's some things that don't feel right in either. Under your bed, you find your old soft toy Fooby, now tattered, smelly, and stained. In your bedside table, there's a photo of you and your ex in Paris. Behind the dresser, an 18th birthday card from your nan. In the kitchen drawer, a key-ring your best friend bought for you when you were twelve.

You stare at them for a few minutes, then sigh and prepare to toss them in the garbage bag. Then you change your mind, dump them in a backpack with a coil of string, and head out on your bike.

You go down the road, around a corner, through an alleyway and along a dirt track for a couple of minutes. Ahead, you finally see the tree, a huge old thing spreading its canopy wide in an otherwise empty field.

Spring is newly come, and the fresh growth is mostly bare of memories. You quickly hang up the photo, keyring, and birthday card, but you feel that action isn't significant enough for Fooby.

Ducking, you enter the canopy and walk inwards. Past the fresh growth are last year's memories. Mostly photos, knickknacks, and old toys, but sometimes the artifacts speak of sadder stories...

A branch burdened with baby clothes, all still in their original packaging. A family photo with one member carefully blotted out. Even a funeral urn.

As you step further in, the toys start to be made of wood instead of plastic, and the clothes have rotted away.

At last, you reach the centre. Someone's hammered metal handholds into the trunk, and gingerly you start to climb, rising back out of the past towards the present. Here the artifacts get stranger. Broken musical instruments. A car key. An empty bottle of wine. A wedding ring.

About halfway up, you spy a 12-year-old girl sitting on a wide bough, cuddling a smelly rag-doll, her eyes red and wet. You scramble up beside her. Silently, you take the rag-doll and nestle it in a fork. Finally, you place Fooby in its lap.

You give the girl's hand a squeeze, and together you descend.

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