Quiescent (adjective): resting in a tranquil manner

Quiet, peaceful, and full of secrets—there was a magical glow to the forest as the gentle sunlight streamed like golden rivers through the leaves. A soft breeze drifted by. Fluttering in response, the lazy branches bobbed, and the bird nests on each one swayed as well.

Amidst the tender movements of nature, was one piece of silent log. A blackened chunk of charcoal. The remnants of a once-great tree.

The sequoia forest burned down a long time ago.

Back then, the entire expanse of the sky had been painted with the disastrous hue of crimson, only with a few streaks of melancholic smoke sizzling from below. All of the years accumulated in the trunks of each tree disappeared within only several hours of the fire.

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Life sprang back into the environment bit by bit, but mother nature couldn’t do the same to a trunk that already fell. The air around the burnt tree was always solemn.

The other sequoias knew that the fallen tree used to be the greatest in the forest. All the squirrels stored their nuts there, all the birds built nests there, all the bears slept under there. Now, the tree just laid there without purpose.

Until one day, a human artist plucked off a piece.

With a misshapen chunk of charcoal in hand, the human started to draw. Across the unburnt area that escaped the flaming catastrophe, the artist sketched a beautiful picture.

The trees themselves didn’t know what the symbol was, but they did see the crowds of other humans that visited later, pausing before the charcoal sketch and snapping at it with their phones.