Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful lady called Tehilla. Now Tehilla was not just any lady, she was very well known all across the land, and not just for her beauty, but for her talent. She was an amazing writer. Whenever she sat down to write it always turned out to be a masterpiece. Everyone who read the tales she spun was captivated by her craft and with each tale she spun her fans grew in number. Singing her praises and chanting her name waiting for when she'd drop her next masterpiece.
Amidst the great crowd of supporters though there were foes, people who were jealous of the attention Tehilla was receiving, and writers who also wanted what she had.
"Surely she must have a secret. There's no way she's just churning her masterpieces so easily with so little fuss. We need to find it somehow."
Some of her greatest rivals formed a group and they agreed to take turns following her and watching her closely. They had hopes that perhaps she'd been outsourcing her writing to someone else, or maybe even a group of people. If they tailed her carefully they'd be able to find out. And so it began.
They watched and watched and watched and watched, but they couldn't find anything. For nearly two months they watched her closely. In that time she had released 3 best selling books and 2 trending short stories that everyone was raving about. Her haters were starting to lose hope. Perhaps she's just that good, perhaps she's who she said she was. But some didn't give up. Their jealousy and hate were enough fuel for them to continue.
One day, someone finally noticed something. Every time Tehilla wanted to start a big new book she'd take a trip to the park which was about an hour away from her house. Then she'd go under the tree in the park with her pen and paper. There she'd jot down the ideas for the new book. Once in a while Tehilla's fiance would join her, but he never really said anything in those times. He'd just sit beside her and use his phone or put in his earpods and listen to music. At first, they didn't think anything of it, but one of them decided to observe from a closer distance and what they found out shook them to the core.
They heard a voice. Not Tehilla's voice or that of her fiance who was also lying beside her. But this voice was calm, still, almost celestial even. It was..., it was the tree! They scrambled away nervously doing their best not to arouse suspicion. Who was going to believe them? Who was going to believe that the tree spoke? Who was going to believe the great Tehilla got her ideas from the tree? No one, that's who.
They needed to get rid of the tree. That'll show her. She'll be down and they'll have their time to shine finally. It was going to be far easier than they thought. They didn't want to arouse suspicion and so they hired someone to chop down the tree in the middle of the night when no one was there, and by the morning it was done, the tree was cut to the stump, and everything from the trunk upwards was disposed far across the city in a junkyard.
When Tehilla saw this she was distraught. But rather than mope, she went back home. Days later she released another book. This one was different from her previous books, everything, even the writing style and perspective was different. The name of the book was "The Whispering Tree". The book went on to become her most sold book of all time and it just felt like from there all her subsequent books were even better than the last.
Her rivals decided that it was best not to compete and some of them even co authored some of her books. It was at that time they realized she had no secret, she's just that good.
Tehilla went on to dominate the writing scene globally all her life. In her latter years, she published her last book before retiring titled "The Final Blossom." In the book, the final statement was bewildering
"The oaks told me everything. I only wonder why they chose me."
Cover image generated using Leonardo Ai
