The Story of Four Trees - Girl 1024

On a perfectly ordinary afternoon, when the wind was restless and the sky undecided between sun and cloud, a girl turned to her friend — a boy who was known for his curiosity and occasional impatience — and asked a peculiar question.

“Would you do something for me?” she said, quite seriously.

He straightened up, surprised. “Of course,” he replied without hesitation. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer right away. She was the sort of person who chose her words with care. “I need you to complete four tasks,” she said eventually. “They’re simple. Repetitive, even. But you’ll do them at different times, and in different places. I’ll tell you when.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of tasks?”

“You’ll need a bucket of water,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I’ll give you a map. Follow it. At the end of the path, you’ll find a tree. Your task is to water that tree. That’s all.”

He stared at her, waiting for the real part to begin. But there was nothing more.

No monster to fight, no treasure to recover, no spells, no riddles. Just water. A tree. A path.

“All right,” he said, intrigued despite himself. “I’ll do it.”

---

The First Task

The next morning, she handed him the first map. It was neatly drawn, straightforward to read — although the path stretched long and led deep into a forest he’d never explored.

He walked until the trees grew tall and strange, until the birds stopped announcing themselves, until the sun slanted like a whisper through the leaves.

There, at the end, stood the tree.

It was bent and brittle-looking, with a trunk like twisted rope and branches like old scars. It looked as though it had given up long ago.

He hesitated. It seemed pointless.

Still, he tipped the water over its roots. He stood there a moment longer — then turned around and walked home.

---

The Second Task

Some months later, she returned with a second map. This one led to another forest, thorny and wild, the sort of place that rearranged itself when your back was turned.

He followed the trail, determined. And when he reached the spot marked on the map, the tree was there again.

Only now, it looked different.

Small green buds were pushing through its branches, tiny fists of life. It wasn’t pretty, exactly — but it was trying. And that, somehow, mattered.

He watered the tree and made his way back, wondering.

---

The Third Task

Time passed — as it always does — and she brought him the third map. This path was more complicated, winding through shadows and criss-crossing streams. But he didn’t complain.

He reached the clearing, and his breath caught.

The tree was covered in blossoms — not just leaves, but full, fragrant flowers in pinks and whites. They fluttered in the breeze, soft as whispers. The whole place smelled like the beginning of something important.

He watered the tree, lingered for a moment beneath the blossoms, and picked a few fallen petals to take back — not as a gift, but as a reminder.

---

The Final Task

Eventually, as the year turned and turned again, she gave him the final map.

This one took him through a golden forest, where everything shimmered with late sunlight and the wind sounded like laughter far away.

The tree stood waiting, but it was no longer struggling or blooming. It was bearing fruit.

Branches sagged under the weight of ripened, golden-red fruit. It looked full — complete — like it had finally become what it was always meant to be.

He ate one. It was delicious.

He sat in the shade for a long while, not because he was tired, but because it felt like the right thing to do.

Then he picked a few fruits and returned.

---

Back in the usual clearing where they always met, he handed her the fruit.

“I’ve done all four,” he said. “It’s the same tree, I think. But it changed every time.”

She took a fruit, nodded, and asked, “Which version of the tree did you like most?”

He considered the question carefully. “The last one, I suppose. It gave back. But I also liked the one with blossoms. And the one with buds — it gave me hope. The first… well, I didn’t think it would survive.”

She looked at him — not proudly, not condescendingly, just calmly — and said, “It was the same tree, all four times. You didn’t meet four trees. You just saw one tree in four different seasons.”

He frowned, and then, slowly, the truth of it settled into place.

She continued, “You see, people — and things — can’t be judged by one season alone. What looks lifeless might be healing. What’s ugly today may bloom tomorrow. What matters, what really matters, is how it all turns out after the seasons have passed.”

And he realised something else, too. She hadn’t asked him to water the tree for the tree’s sake.

She’d asked because there was something he needed to learn. He had a habit of jumping to conclusions — quick to decide what was valuable, what was pointless, what was worth his time.

But through this quiet task, his friend had taught him the kind of patience that no lecture ever could.

Not with criticism. Not with lectures. But with maps, and a tree, and time.

And from that day on, whenever he was tempted to judge too quickly — he remembered the tree that looked dead… and the fruit it later gave.