It’s not that there was a storm that night, just a bit of a strong breeze, but I was puzzled when I saw lots of sky the next day outside my window and then realized that a tree outside had vanished. For a moment I was shocked. You would have been too, to find a huge empty space where otherwise branches and leaves jostled with each other.
Then I looked down and saw sprawled out in all it’s majesty the fallen tree.
Dead.
I felt sad because the tree had been part of quite a few years of my life, and decided I’d go down and have a look at my dead friend.
I was startled at what I saw. Like I said, it was not just a windy night that had knocked down a robust tree. It was a casual breeze that seemed to have nudged a sick tree to death. There were termites all over the lower part of its trunk, and when I looked closer found that the whole of its bottom portion was eaten up: That was no tree down there, no solid wood, nothing but a gaping hole covered so well by a lying bark.
“So my friend you were actually portraying a wrong picture for all of us!” I whispered sadly as dead tree looked stonily up at me.
“Don’t worry,” I said to the tree again, “Many of we people are just like you! We show the world a lovely, beautiful exterior, great handshake, warm smile, cultured habits, when inside we are rotting!”
The dead tree seemed to be trying to speak, it’s forlorn branches signaling me something, “What could we have done. We were being eaten from inside!” it said.
“Surgical treatment!” I said sadly, “Bit painful. For you, powerful anti-termite treatment! For us the acknowledging of bad habits and the painfulness of cutting them out!”
As I write today, I pause and look out of my window. The tree is not there but the image of it is etched in my mind, the branches spreading east and west, and the trunk stretching from north to south, reminds me of a map of my own country. I hear termite mobs, making merry inside colleges or with their lynching. Cries of assaulted women from behind dead leaves. Bark, grown soft with corruption. And as I look for fruit I find nothing that it has produced for the past few years!
Exactly what will happen to us if we don’t deal with the rot growing inside..!

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