What if the man in the mental hospital who hears trees screaming isn’t mad—what if he’s the only one sane enough to hear what the rest of us have forgotten how to listen to?
A poignant narrative about a mental health patient who claims to hear everything in nature speak—trees, mountains, rivers, and a childhood friend, the ancient Turtle, who taught him that “everything carries wisdom within.”
‘Tell me, my dear…’ The old Doctor said while peering at me closely from behind his thick pebbled glasses. His kind face resembled a map of rugged terrain, marked with jagged lines and twisting contours. ‘Tell me, what do the voices ask you to do?’
We were both sitting on a concrete bench under the shade of a big banyan tree. A beautiful world, painted with liquid gold by the March sun, surrounded us. It was a small and private mental health facility being run by the good old Doctor, and I was one of its few selected residents.
‘The voices do not ask me to do anything. They just want me to listen.’ I replied.
‘Listen?’ The Doctor asked and scratched his bald head. ‘Listen to what exactly?’
‘Listen to everything — the trees, the mountains, the rivers, and the streams.’ I tried to name all my friends.
‘I see.’ The good Doctor removed his glasses and started polishing the lenses with unusual vigor. ‘And are you able to listen to all those things?’ He asked me when the ritual was complete. ‘The trees, mountains, rivers and……….’
‘…and the streams.’ I completed his sentence.
‘Yes, yes…the streams.’ He eagerly nodded his head.
‘Oh yes, I do!’ I replied with a smile. ‘I like to listen to them. They tell me about life and God, and of His grand system and scheme. They tell me that our universe is just His dream. They tell me of the past, and they tell me of the future. They tell me what is possible and what is not. But the most important thing that they tell me is that happiness is only a momentary lapse of reason and that it is the only wisdom that matters; while sadness is the eternal reality, and is the key to all wisdom.’
‘And when did this all start? This listening to…umm! Well…the things?’ The Doctor asked while getting up and started examining a dried-up chrysanthemum bush very closely.
‘It all started with the Turtle — the ancient Turtle living in our backyard.’ I said while smiling at the warm memory of my long-lost friend.
‘The Turtle is actually right.’ The old Banyan tree told me in his deep, throaty voice. He stood in the exact center of the courtyard and looked all wise and elderly.
‘Everything is alive, my little friend. Everything carries wisdom within, and everything speaks. You just have to learn to listen.’
‘What do you mean? How can everything be alive?’ I asked the tree, growing confused.
‘I am alive. Isn’t this so?’ The Banyan tree asked and chuckled softly. ‘I eat minerals from the soil and sip water through my roots. And we all can speak.’ He said while spreading his rustling branches around. ‘We all can speak — the trees and the flowers, the mountains and the springs, the sky and the moon, and even the stones and the soil.’
‘But why have I never heard them speak?’ I protested.
‘You are hearing me speak.’ The Banyan tree replied and smiled at me kindly. ‘You talk to the old Turtle all the time.’
‘Yes, but…’ I couldn’t find words to express myself.
‘Everything speaks, my friend, but everyone cannot hear the words. There are only a very few who care to make an effort. But anybody who makes an effort can hear the whispers of the universal consciousness.’ The Banyan tree explained.
‘What is that — the universal consciousness?’ The words were too big for my limited childhood understanding.
‘Be silent, you pompous ass! Do not confuse the little one.’ A familiar voice grunted from behind me.
I looked back and there stood my old friend — the ancient Turtle. Half-hidden in the overgrown and moist green grass, he was looking at me affectionately and smiling his kind, toothless smile.
‘Hey, you are finally back.’ I stated the obvious as an excited greeting. He had left for some important task a few days ago, and I missed his company badly.
‘It certainly looks like it, and you look perfectly fine.’ He sounded a bit tired. ‘Anyway, what’s going on here?’
‘I was just telling our little friend that everything is alive and everything speaks.’ The Banyan tree explained politely.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ The Turtle silenced him impatiently with a wave of its arm. ‘I wasn’t here and you thought you could go on and confuse my young friend in my absence.’
‘Oh please, Mr. Turtle, please don’t say anything to the Banyan tree.’ I ran and hugged the tree’s trunk. ‘He is my friend and he didn’t mean any harm.’
It was true. The Banyan tree was one of my many friends. Most of my summer afternoons were spent playing under its cool shade and digging for earthworms. I hugged the old gnarled tree trunk closely and could almost feel a warm and throbbing response, deep under the rough bark.
‘Little one…’ The Turtle admonished me, ‘If you choose to play with the giants, you’ve got to learn their secret little jokes too.’
He sounded pretty serious, but I could see that he was trying his best not to laugh.
‘Yes, I remember the Turtle. He was your childhood friend.’ The good Doctor was trying to flatter me, but I knew the truth.
‘You really don’t believe in the Turtle. Isn’t that so?’ I asked him with a defensive smile.
‘It does not matter what I believe in.’ He smiled back at me. ‘It is your beliefs that we are discussing. So you were saying that the Turtle told you that everything in this universe speaks?’
‘So is it true that everything in this universe speaks?’ I asked the Turtle.
It was the very next afternoon, and I was too curious about what the Banyan tree had told me. Besides, everyone else was busy taking a siesta, while I was free to roam the lonely wilderness of the backyard.
‘Oh yes, certainly, everything speaks.’ The ancient Turtle nodded his head. I could see he very much wanted to take a nap under the shade of the rose bushes, but he loved my company far more than his afternoon naps.
‘And what does everything speak of?’ I asked while tickling his old wrinkled head — a naughty but affectionate gesture.
‘Everything speaks with one voice what the universal consciousness wants it to speak of — wisdom and future.’ The Turtle answered while turning his head and looking at me with his soft, grey eyes, and then started singing:
‘Of wisdom and future and of what the universal conscience has in store for you,
of your life and the life of all others, and also of the flow of the river of time
Of what lies ahead, your life is a rose and optimism — a few drops of dew,
while pain and pleasure and sadness and joy, dance their eternal mime’
‘Hmm!’ I was a bit confused. ‘What does the universal consciousness say about me?’
‘What would you like her to say about you, little one?’ He asked with a twinkle in his eyes.
‘What will I become and what will become of me?’ I asked after thinking for a while.
‘Aha!’ The Turtle breathed a sigh of understanding and then started singing again:
‘She says that you will grow and your heart will grow even more,
and you will be wise and generous and kind to all, that’s for sure
She says that you will learn and evolve, with a light in your core,
you will walk the path and the others’ pains, you will certainly cure
She says you will love and understand all if only you find the door,
the door that opens with patience, and then shuts down no more
And she says this will all happen if you learn not to judge and ignore,
what the others say and what the others do — the pious and the whore’
‘But I don’t understand this at all.’ I said, feeling both confused and flustered.
‘Yes, you do not understand yet.’ The Turtle nodded his head wisely. ‘But you will one day. Till the day of understanding dawns upon you, just be patient and wait for the universal consciousness to work its eternal magic.’
‘But what if I fail to walk the path and what if I get lost?’ Suddenly, the fear of some strange possibility in the future gripped my heart with its cold fingers.
‘It doesn’t matter, little one.’ The Turtle said and closed his eyes drowsily. ‘It doesn’t matter what path we walk or whether we get lost. The only thing that matters is that we see, that we observe, and that we learn, while we are walking the path.’
‘Do you remember why you were brought here?’ The Doctor asked me after taking his due time to understand what I said about the Turtle and the universal conscience.
‘Oh yes, I do.’ I thought with bitterness about that cruel, summer morning.
I was on a trip to the hilly areas of the North, and I saw hundreds of trees being cut down. They were all crying with pain while the electric saws cut them into pieces. Their blood was flowing down the mountain slope, but no one but me could see it.
I sat down on my knees and touched the warm blood with my fingers. I listened to the weeping trees and felt their pain vibrating within each nerve and fiber of my own body. It became personal when the trees recognized me and started shouting my name, asking me for help.
‘You can’t do it.’ I approached the foreman of the woodcutters.
‘I can’t do what?’ He asked me, surprised at the welled-up tears in my eyes.
‘You can’t cut the trees. It’s murder.’ I said while trying to muster up some badly needed courage.
‘Trees? Murder?’ He stood there for a moment, confused by what I was saying. But then he suddenly looked up and started laughing hysterically.
‘It is no laughing matter. You are murdering the trees.’ I pleaded again while trying to ignore his insulting laughter.
‘I carry a permit. I can do whatever I want.’ He stopped laughing and replied to me sternly.
‘But they are screaming with pain and their blood is flowing in the valley.’ I begged him.
‘Who is screaming and what blood?’ He was flabbergasted. ‘Are you mad?’
I couldn’t speak as frustration and helplessness boiled up inside me.
‘Go away, son.’ The old mountain whispered in my ears. ‘They can’t see what you see, and they can’t hear what you hear. You cannot stop them.’
‘I will stop them.’ I told the mountain determinedly and then tried to snatch away the electric saw from the foreman’s hands.
‘Hey!’ The foreman was startled. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
But it was too late. Before he could move, I had already smashed the saw on a stone boulder.
‘Yes, I remember it all.’ I said while bitter tears misted up my eyes. ‘I remember the trees crying with anguish and pain, and I remember the smell of their warm, flowing blood. The memory of that massacre still haunts me.’
‘Have you considered the possibility that the trees were not crying, that there was no blood, and that the mountain was silent as he was supposed to be?’ The Doctor asked me while facing the dried-up chrysanthemum bush.
‘Have you considered the possibility that the trees were really crying, that their blood was staining the slopes, and that the mountain did try to deter me?’ I challenged his assumptions softly, with a sad smile.
‘It was all in your head, son.’ The Doctor said without turning back. ‘It was all your imagination. Only we, us humans, can talk. No one else can and no one else does.’
‘Imagination?’ I chuckled. ‘Why is that so bad? Aren’t we all the product of God’s imagination? Can’t you see that in that context, all imagination is reality?’
The Doctor did not reply and continued with his scrutiny of the almost-dead plant.
‘No, it was not my imagination. I really heard them cry and speak. As I told you earlier, everything speaks — the trees, the mountains, the rivers, and the streams. But not everyone can hear them.’
‘Hmm!’ The Doctor exclaimed and turned towards me with a tired smile. ‘This chrysanthemum plant was planted by my late wife. In her life, the plant gave us such beautiful white chrysanthemums — three flowers each morning and each one perfect in its purity, beauty, and delicacy.’
‘What happened to it?’ I asked while looking at the plant. ‘What went wrong?’
‘I do not know what went wrong. What I only know is that the day my wife died, the white chrysanthemums stopped blooming.’ He said while looking sadly at the plant. ‘But since you claim that you can talk to everything, I want you to ask this plant what went wrong.’
‘Hmm!’ I smiled at the Doctor and then looked at the chrysanthemum plant.
I asked her what went wrong, and she whispered back the truth to me. And the truth made me sad.
‘She says…’ I wiped my tears. ‘She says that your wife loved her and cared for her every day, and her love and care manifested in the beauty of the white chrysanthemums. She says that she is not being loved anymore. Instead, her roots are only watered by your bitter tears of loss and anger. And bitterness can never produce any beauty.’
‘I think it is time for you to go back to your room.’ The Doctor looked at the setting sun and waved at the two white-clad male nurses. ‘It is getting late. We will talk some other time.’
‘Think about it, my good Doctor.’ I smiled at him. ‘Please think about what I have told you.’
After the nurses took away the patient, the Doctor really did think about what the patient had told him. He stood looking at the plant for a while and then smiled and started walking away. But after walking only a few steps, he suddenly turned back. He went to the plant and then sat down cross-legged on the grass.
He thought of his departed wife, and he thought of all the love that she had given him. He also thought of his anger in believing that by dying, she had unjustly betrayed him of her presence. He smiled fondly at her happy memories. He let regret and anger flow out of his heart, and then he started whispering to the plant:
‘I know you miss her because I miss her too,
she had her love for all, not only for me and you
I miss her with longing — a dark and bitter brew,
I miss her for her sweetness, nectar of the morning dew
I treasure you and want to care for you,
but I do not know how, I swear, this is true
I want to love you because she loved you,
but I do not know how — this confession is true too’
The good Doctor sat there for a long time. His tears of sadness and love slipped down his cheeks and fell on the ground, right near the roots of the dried-up chrysanthemum plant. But when his tears dried up, he still did not get up. There was a strange solace in the company of the dead plant. He could almost smell the sweet fragrance of his long-lost wife, and he didn’t want to lose that fragrance ever again.
The next morning, the nursing staff and the gardeners found the Doctor, all curled up beside the chrysanthemum plant. At first, they thought he was just asleep, but when they tried to wake him up, he didn’t respond. He had already left.
Unlike the departed Doctor, the plant was very much alive once again, and there were three white chrysanthemums, smiling and gently swaying in the morning breeze.
Shehryar khawar 