A cold wind blew some of the settled snow on my bare branches as the early morning sun rose higher in the sky. There were a couple men working at shovelling the boardwalk after the blizzard that had dominated the most part of the night.
One of these men walk a little harder to read so I decided not to waste the effort, all I could get from him was how cold he was, understandable from the thick mist emitted every time either of the men exhaled. Not only was it cold but the sun had yet to give even a hint of warmth to counter the penetrating cold.
The other man was a much easier to read, he had an overwhelming desire to stop his work for a dose of nicotine. Apparently he was deathly dependant on cigarettes and had recently relapse further after a short period of quitting – his mother's idea seeing as he was almost 5 and yet rejected at one marriage meeting at a time.
From what I could see, he was nowhere near as bad as he thought he was in his mind, even despite the below-freezing temperatures, he was barely shivering. It was just his head telling him he needed nicotine.
Cigarettes was the only thing on this man's mind, well that and his fears of dying old and alone with no one to mourn his death. He was a hopeless case of an addict. A part of me felt pity for him, but mostly I found him a little ridiculous.
These two were rather boring the more I watched.
As the sun slowly climbed higher into the crisp, blue sky, its light glistened against the snow and ice; the temperature was too cold to allow any melting. The wind had slowed a little in comparison to earlier, the mean long gone before I was truly aware of it.
Now there were the early birds who would go to offices early in the morning, normally these would be the last to leave through some insane logic. Every so often there would be an over eager student, these youngsters were the ones to usually stop and make a wish.
Today, however, was a little different from the usual; today it was a working woman. Of course, while I don't remember specifics, I am sure it has happened before, however it was rare for one of the working population to take notice of me, especially this early in the morning. This woman seemed to have sat down at the bench opposite me and as waiting for the boardwalk to clear a little more.
From what I could tell, this woman was extremely worried. Rather conversely, she was also a recent graduate who had landed the job she truly wanted to do, was fitting in and progressing well, on friendly terms with everyone and – strangely for the time she was walking down here – has a very balanced work-social life. At first glance there is no reason for her to have so much worry.
When I delve a little deeper it becomes a little more clear to me. It was strange for me to do so, but I believe that she had every right to be worried.
A month ago there was the murder of senior student at the university she was a recent alumnus of. While she had never talked to this specific underclassman of hers, she and every current and recent student who had studied classical history were very into the case due to the two others involved in the case: a upperclassman of the class and the notorious teacher who lead the classical history course.
This young woman herself had a rather deep-rooted hate for this professor after he failed her paper a total of four times during the final term of her freshman year; it had effected the rest of her studies through stress and in the end just a change of wording had awarded her with top marks. She had felt unnecessarily harassed and she was not the only victim of this sort of behaviour.
His class had the greatest dropout rate, however no matter how many people complained the university never heeded the complaints for a very simple reason: the course also produced the greatest number of top students, regardless of the main pathway of the students.
And so his tyrannical reign over his students continued.
He was suspect number one.
The other individual involved was what had made the case so incredibly high-profile. Of course, that is given when one of the initial suspects is a prodigal politician who seconded as a handsome and popular philanthropist.
From the get go there was a lot of controversy over his involvement, there were those who couldn't believe it and strongly supported the young politician. There were also those who believed his public persona was fake, that the student in some way must have threatened his progress and so killed him off.
The case stirred up many, many discussions. Even I had heard the odd bits of information about the case, there seemed to always be someone who would walk past thinking about it, mostly angry fangirls and super-conspiracists. The point being, the case was everywhere, even a stationary tree has heard about it multiple times, enough to remember it.
The woman sitting across the boardwalk had also been one of those to be biased on the case, strongly believing that, if any one of the two were capable of murder, it was more likely for the heartless teacher than the kind senior she had only met on one occasion – during the orientation of her freshman year.
It came no surprise to either sides when the politician was proven innocent and the classical history professor was proven guilty. Those in the latter's defence believed the wealthy philanthropist paid his way to freedom. On the other hand, the majorities believed that justice had prevailed by coming to the obvious conclusion, condemning the evil teacher.
Of course, the woman was sitting there because of worries that even concerned me, which would make no sense of there was not more to this situation than what the public was aware of.
She had stumbled across something that had not only changed her mind on the to-be-ruling but also would prove the opposite to be true. This lone office woman had come across evidence that would turn the entire case upside down.
I have to admit, I hadn't come across something so interesting in a long time.
According to the lady, who had kept up-to-date on all the happenings regarding the case – spending a lot of the time wishing for her horrible ex-teacher to get his just desserts – there were many theories in favour of both of the suspects. However, the police never confirmed anything other than the fact that both had a relationship of some for with the late student.
With the professor it was an obvious connection, he was one of the students. While it had been revealed by those in the class that they boy himself had never had problems with his grade, there was a clear animosity as part of the teacher-student relationship in question. The police never said more than the two had disagreed on a number of occasions, one time almost leading to a physical altercation from the student's side; apparently he was quite hotheaded.
Of course this woman had more detail than that, being part of the alumni. This student was very vocal, especially about the unfairness the teacher showed to the other students. He would constantly disrupt the class, bringing up one injustice after another. Not a single class in the first term had gone by without an argument erupting.
She had heard of the student before his death and very readily supported him in any sort of online debate or petition in regards of the subject. Word has it, according to this woman's mind, that this one student had been loud enough to even grab the owner of the universities attention just before his untimely death, something many classes of students had failed to do.
That was most definitely the main motive. It was nothing no one could refute, not the late student's friends, not the professor's colleagues, not even the suspect himself. He outwardly admitted that he felt he felt threatened by the student's actions, well that is in accordance to what other students at the university said was on a police report that has been supposedly leaked.
The source itself was most definitely unreliable, she was well aware of it, but with all the witness accounts in support of it, there was little chance on anyone denying its highly possible credibility. She had no reason to not believe it.
There was much less information between on the relationship between the young political alumnus and murdered student, a suspiciously little amount as this girl had come to realise.
All that was known was that a couple weeks before the murder, the public figure had visited the university as a guest speaker for the current senior year. More than a few people had seen the two having a friendly after the event, a handful admitting they had heard from the dead boy himself that the two were still in contact in the days after.
There was no information about the nature of the relationship at first, other than an anonymous post attempting to disseminate that the late student had thought the other party was courting him in a sense.
Unsurprisingly, once again to everyone, the post was gone with the wind before the word had even spread, only those close to the university's establishment having seen in.
At first the representative of the politician denied all contact after the event, raising a lot of suspicion. However the man himself soon spoke out on social media revealing that they had been in contact and that he had considered the two of them in the early stages of becoming close friends. Many people applauded him for coming clean about knowing the deceased, only increasing his credibility, and in lieu his popularity.
To me, there were many obvious signs of foul play, however when a lot of my information is coming from a woman who now knows that there was indeed foul play in regards to the case, I will never know if it really was as obvious as it seems now while the case was unfolding.
However, it was safe to say that the real murderer was, without doubt, the well-loved public figure.
He had used his money to prove his innocence.
He had used his power to manipulate the investigation so that the widely-hated professor was found guilty for his crime.
The short-lived post was, in fact, the most truthful revelation to have come to light during the case, even if it was quickly muffled.
Everything in regards to the case had been manipulated at the hands of this young politician who would strive for success no matter what the cost.
A innocent man was going to be jailed for another corrupt man's crime.
These were the facts this young woman's mind presented to me, without me having to delve deeper and waste my HP, along with the most important fact of them all – at least in this person's mind; this woman had the evidence in her hand to undo this major wrongdoing.
Now, this is where the woman's real dilemma starts.
While visiting her brother, a current senior at the university who happened to have never made contact with the formerly loud deceased, she had chanced upon a flash drive. With pure intentions, she plugged in the drive, only to find out the name of whichever student or teacher the storage device had belonged to.
What she didn't expect to find were thumbnails of photos of the victim.
What she expected less, as her curiosity took her further through the contents of the drive, were pictures of the young politician alongside with the victim.
And the very last thing she would have ever guessed even if given an infinite number of chances, were to find pictures of the deceased in extremely comprising, most definitely sexual, positions, after he had been killed. The disgusting sight was etched into her brain.
After a little more digging around – apparently even such a horrific image doesn't stop human curiosity, such stubborn creatures, of course, I was one too – she had more than enough evidence not only to prove his guilt but also the horseplay that will lead to the soon-persecution of a, while hated, innocent man.
This left her in a difficult situation, which is why I decided to acknowledge this girl's worries.
On one hand, she could take this to the authorities and have them deal with the whole situation.
Personally, I do not understand how the idea of the police being corrupted by the money this politician was willing to give in exchange for silence had not once crossed her mind. The concept on this choice, however, was understandable: let justice and truth prevail.
But as commendably noble the thought was, it was not that simple – no affairs regarding humans ever are.
She was, whilst naïve, a smart woman, well aware of the fact that there were risks tied to how she proceeded with the evidence in he hands, especially with her opponent being such a public figure.
There was a good chance that he would bury everything under black money even if she did hand in the information; this humble tree, however, thinks the phrase 'a good chance' would be better off swapped out for 'almost certainty'. My thoughts are irrelevant in this case, all I can do is commend the young woman for knowing it could happen despite of her naivety.
An alternative from going to the authorities herself, publish the information online. The case being so high-profile, with the right tags, the data would spread like wildfire. Once in the hand of the public, there was no way for the information disappear. She could post it anonymously and let the news spread.
This woman had come up with many alternative plans for how she can have the corrupt politician do time for his crime, or to at least let people know he was the real culprit. However, maybe due to her overthinking to an extent, she couldn't come up with a single one she was wiling too go through with.
Why?
Because in all the cases she could come up with in her head, there was one thing that wasn't guaranteed: her safety.
This young woman had pulled off the feat of procuring a successful job, a stable engagement, a good social life, essentially her life was as perfect as it could get. And the politician with the money and power to falsely accuse a university professor most definitely had the resources to both find out she was behind it and ruin her life.
She had aspirations, people she cared about, too many things that could potentially be in harms way if she were to make any attempt to reveal the truth.
Someone so sick they would even consider to keep such horrific photographs in a flash drive would not think twice on using her family, her friends, her job to threaten her – this was the thought of her's I agreed with the most, as well as why I agreed that she had every right to worry.
From the thoughts I have seen from other human's and the actions this man had committed, he was more than capable of doing so.
When I thought about it, however, I think in her position I would at least say enough to have the innocent man set free long enough too prove he was not behind the murder of his student. It made no sense for him to go down for a crime he hadn't committed. I don't know why he was hated r why I thought this way, but this all made perfect sense to my mind.
That being said, first and foremost, I am only a tree who is almost certain to have been human in my pass life, with no way of proving that as true or not. I have no idea if this is a instilled sense of morality from when I was human or an opinion which has formed over my decades of people-watching. Either way, I was a tree, what I thought had little to no effect on anything.
This young woman was extremely torn with which path she should proceed, stick by the truth or her life – a drastic notion, but, with the hyperbole removed, summed the essence of the dilemma rather finely. Should she go against such a powerful person on cower in her fear of him.
Slowly, the woman, who had been sat for quite some time, waiting for the boardwalk to clear for a few moments, stood up and slowly walked over, stopping just short of the piles of shovelled snow the two men from earlier had left. She looked up at my leaves almost as a child would, in a lost wonder.
However, it was soon that her face morphed into a scowl, her worries nagging her again. Digging her hands deep into the pockets of her long, black coat, she let out a long breath, staring morosely at the vapour formed from her breath dispersed into the winter air.
All she could think about is what she should do, whether the risk was worth it, whether doing the right thing was really the correct action to take. She had so much to lose, her fiancé, her brother… job and friends aside, these were two things she could never give up on.
Then suddenly the strangest thing happened, the worry-stricken lady smiled; the smile was bitter, cynical, mocking even. What a peculiar action it was.
Curiosity got the better of me, her reason for smiling like so required me to dig a little deeper into her head, which is where I have been stopping myself for quite some time. This time, however, I let indulged myself a little.
She was scorning herself. Her fiancé and brother as reasons why to keep silent? She found it laughable that she could say that.
There was a more simple reason, the only reason she needed: she didn't want to risk her life as it was. She was living her dream, why should she give it up for a teacher who made his living by terrorising students? What has any of this got to do with her?
Deep within her mind she had completely accepted that she was not willing to give up her life as it is now for people she would never come across again. As horribly selfish as it was, she was not such a good person.
While she did not like to admit it, she knew she had long made her decision; she could use other's to appease her self-righteous ego all she wanted, but even without them in thought, her mind was made up. She knew that no matter what, she was never going to risk losing everything she had worked so hard to receive, especially those she had already once lost. In her mind, she knew she was too much of a coward, both with doing what was right and with accepting she had chosen herself over the innocent man going on trial.
She reminded me a little of a particularly scary student that had once visited me, while I couldn't quite tell how long ago this was, what the exact circumstances were or even if it had really happened as I remembered, but he had a horrifying mind that scared even the likes of me. While this woman seemed much stronger with a clear resolve, there was something that felt nostalgic between the vague memory and the young office lady stood in the winter air, huddled in her coat.
Besides that, I couldn't help but let my mind wander along a tangent. This woman seemed to know that her excuses were to comfort her on choosing the morally unacceptable course of action; that was her truth.
From what I knew, many human's were like that, perhaps all – not in the sense of being so self aware, more in how there were ulterior motives behind everything. Most probably, I had once been the same; the more I watch human's the more I find myself lowering the chances of me having been a good person, because you meet far more of the other.
The road along the boardwalk was starting to get busier, making the young woman aware of how long she had been here, in front of a tree she had no belief in. It was her best friend who had told he about this tree. Along the line, she had been so conflicted that she had decided to lean on fantasy.
"Of course, there was never an option really."
The mumble was near silent but in her entire aura was pained, still conflicted, perhaps even more so. The cynical smile slowly melted off her face and she shook her head in disbelief. She had work, why was she standing in front of a tree?
Without hesitation, the woman who had spent so much time looking up at my snow-laden branches and early winter sky whilst contemplating her decision she seemed to have already made, turned in the direction of a cluster of offices within the financial sector, not once looking back as she made her way to work.
As she left, I almost gave into my curiosity a second time, wanting to see what she thought in the deepest part of her heart, however I had done enough digging around for today.
I do not want to use too much of my HP.