The Three Trees
A short story by Csaba Deak
The man came to the hill when the light was flat and the wind indifferent.
He wasn’t searching for anything—not a destination, not an answer. His boots pressed into the softened earth without urgency, carrying him across the edge of a forgotten field, where the path narrowed into the worn trace of what might have once been a boundary line—or the memory of one.
Beyond it, the hill rose. Modest. Weathered. Shaped not by glory but by time.
That was where he saw them.
Three trees, standing on the crest.
They did not call attention to themselves. They simply were.
They did not call attention to themselves. They simply were.
Three trunks, tall and straight, stood in quiet formation—each a mirror of the other. Their branches reached upward in near-perfect symmetry, as if they had grown from the same thought, not just the same soil.
They matched in height, in bark, in posture.
No visible scars. No signs of struggle.
As though time itself had touched them evenly, shaping them not as individuals, but as one shared presence.
No visible scars. No signs of struggle.
As though time itself had touched them evenly, shaping them not as individuals, but as one shared presence.
And yet, their stillness felt deliberate—like a silence held in common.
A harmony not learned, but inherited.
A harmony not learned, but inherited.
The man hadn’t intended to stop walking, but his feet no longer obeyed the rhythm he'd imposed on them all morning. Something had shifted—not outside him, but within.
He stood there, facing the three trees as if they were an ancient trio offering no judgment, no welcome, just a quiet invitation: Be still.
He sat—not out of fatigue, but instinct.
He listened.
Not to the wind. Not to birdsong.
But to the pause. That vast, sacred pause between thought and memory.
He listened.
Not to the wind. Not to birdsong.
But to the pause. That vast, sacred pause between thought and memory.
The world didn’t fall away. It became itself. Entirely.
And in that moment, the man remembered nothing.
Not his errands. Not his burdens. Not even his name.
Only the presence of the trees—and the odd comfort of knowing they would still be here long after he was not.
Not his errands. Not his burdens. Not even his name.
Only the presence of the trees—and the odd comfort of knowing they would still be here long after he was not.
He rose before the light changed. No photographs. No markings.
Only the soft imprint of his steps, fading as the earth took them back.
Only the soft imprint of his steps, fading as the earth took them back.
The trees stood.
Not as witnesses.
As companions.