Once upon a time there was a young girl named Melissa. She lived in the small town of Dublin where she disliked everyone. Everywhere she went, she would avoid any interaction with another human being. Doing something as simple as leaving her house, was a huge chore for her. The only people that she felt comfortable talking to were her two sisters, three brothers and two parents. The only problem was that since she wouldn’t talk to people, she really had no life. Her parents worked all the time and her siblings went to school five days a week. Melissa chose to be home schooled. She was abnormally brilliant and had the ability to read peoples minds. That’s why she avoided talking to people. She knew from the time she was little, all that people ever thought of her were mean things. So since people only pretended like they wanted to talk to her, she figured that she would just save them the trouble by avoiding them. This incredible ability of reading people’s minds practically ruined her life. From the time she was five years old, she promised herself that she would never step outside of her one acre of land for the rest of her life.
One thing that Melissa was very passionate about was her garden. She started growing a garden when she was ten years old. The time spent that Melissa was not doing school work all day and being with her family, she was caring for her garden. Not only was her garden very important to her, but so was all of the rest of nature as well. And as she sat out in her garden one day, day dreaming about what life would be like as a normal kid, she noticed that the forest outside of her house was missing. Not just a tree or two, but the entire forest had disappeared. She quickly snapped out of her fantasy and ran inside to see if her parents had come home yet. Much to her surprise, her parents were not in her doorway. But instead, an old man with long unkempt hair, a scruffy beard, a leather vest with fringe at the bottom, filthy jeans and a Tye dye shirt. Melissa screamed, but no words came out. They both stood there for what seemed like hours, staring at each other. Melissa was in such shock that she didn’t know whether or not to run or to stand her ground. She couldn’t read this mans mind which was very strange but somewhat appealing to her. Finally the man said, “You must save the trees.” Melissa jumped. His voice was as high as a squeaky mouse. “I know why you won’t talk to me,” The man replied. Melissa looked confused. “I can read your mind. That’s why you can’t read mine. So, if you’re too afraid to talk to me, I won’t make you. But believe me when I say that you will have to overcome your fear if you want to save that forest. Trees are very friendly creatures and they will not take kindly to your rudeness. You must leave your house and try to convince the trees not to leave.” And with that, the scrub was gone.
Melissa toiled for hours over her dilemma until she finally came to a simple conclusion. If
she couldn’t talk to people because of what they were thinking of her, then she surely shouldn’t have any problem talking to a tree that would be friendly. Friendly trees only think nice things about other creatures. Melissa knew what she had to do, so she grabbed a toothbrush, wrote a note to her parents and left her house. As she approached the edge of her property, she became nervous. She hadn’t left her land in ten years. She didn’t know what was out there waiting for her but she knew that the old man in her living room was right. And that without those trees outside her garden, she would have nothing to dream about while she tended to her flowers. She didn’t like seeing wide open spaces because then she knew that there was more to the world than just her twelve hundred square foot home and one acre of land. With the trees blocking her view, she could only imagine what she wasn’t missing out on instead of seeing what she was missing out on. As happy images of people enjoying their lives flooded into Melissas mind, she became even more determined to find the trees and tell them to move back to their original post. So she trudged on, hoping to find any sign of a tree that had previously been standing in her forest. With no such luck, she spent the night in the wide open field that lay about a mile from her house.

The next morning, she woke up to a russling sound. She tossed and turned a little bit but finally opened her eyes. Standing all around her were trees. Hundreds of trees. After learning that these trees actually had feelings and could talk, they made her much more nervous. She couldn’t speak, so the trees did. “May we ask why you are following us?” Melissa’s eyes teared up while she shrugged. “It’s really not that hard of a question. Why are you following us?”

“I-I just needed to ask you...”

“Ask us what?” The trees interrupted.

“Ask you if you could, possibly, come back to my house?”

“Why? You never come out to talk to us. You’re always too busy with your own garden.”

“But when you’re all there, I can’t see what is beyond you.”

“So? Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“No. I don’t like seeing what’s out in the world. No one cares about anyone but themselves so why would I even give them my time? I haven’t left my yard in ten years.”


“Lady, it sounds to us like there’s a lot more standing in your way than a few trees.”
Melissa was silent. She knew that they were right. For all of these years, she had let everything stand in her way of having a normal life. So she decided that it was time to let go of the past and go forward with a whole new outlook on life. She couldn’t care about what everyone else thought of her anymore. All that matters is what she thinks of herself.

“Thank you!” Melissa said as she turned around and ran back to her house. The trees just looked at each other and shrugged their branches.

“So does that mean we don’t have to come back?!” They yelled to Melissa. She just turned around and smiled. Something that she hadn’t done in a very long time.

When she returned to her house, Melissa saw her parents and siblings all playing bad mitten out in the front yard. She gave them all a big hug and said, “I think I’m going to go to the store.” Her family just stood there. But instead of questioning her, they all just smiled. Melissa even saw her mother tear up a bit. Melissa could tell that this was a huge accomplishment not only for her, but for her family. She finally realized that it wasn’t the trees that had been standing in her way all of her life. But if she never would have gone to try to get them to come back, she wouldn’t have realized that the only thing blocking her view of the world, was herself.