By now, Kane had grown used to silence.
It no longer unsettled him. It spoke — in rustling leaves, shifting wind, and in the way his breath moved when no one was watching. It was during one of those still moments, seated beneath the tall fig tree near the old path, that he noticed something odd about its trunk.
The bark — usually rough and unbending — had split slightly in one place. Not from violence. Just… time. A soft crack ran across its side, revealing the tender, living wood beneath. Pale, fresh, and unweathered by the sun. It startled him. Not because it looked weak — but because it looked real.
Kane reached out and touched the opening, tracing the space between the old and the new. For the first time, he imagined what it must be like to be the bark — always facing the elements, expected to protect, never allowed to reveal the rawness beneath.
That was how people lived, wasn't it?
He remembered how often others called him "strong" — for staying calm, for staying quiet, for holding things no one could see. And yet, no one asked what it cost. No one asked what he had buried beneath that strength.
There were days he wanted to speak. To cry. To ask. But like bark, he kept things wrapped tight — believing that to open up would mean weakness, vulnerability, risk.
But here was this tree, still standing tall, even with a part of it exposed.
Kane sat there for a long time, thinking about what he hadn't said.
Like the fear he'd had as a boy that he wouldn't be enough — not smart enough, not brave enough. The way he still sometimes flinched at praise, unsure if it was real. The dreams he carried in silence because speaking them made them too fragile.
All hidden.
All beneath the bark.
And yet, none of them made him less.
He began to wonder how many people he'd passed, admired, or even envied, who carried their own splits beneath the surface. How many smiles were shields. How many quiet souls were echoing with thunder.
He whispered, as though to the tree, "If I open up, will I still be whole?"
And the breeze answered not with words, but with movement — gentle and soft, brushing against his face like reassurance. The bark didn't answer either. It didn't need to. It simply showed him: you can break and still be strong. You can carry life beneath the cracks.
Kane took a small knife from his pocket, not to harm, but to carve — gently, on the exposed wood. He didn't write his name. He didn't write words. Just a symbol: a spiral, open and unending. It meant growth. It meant depth. It meant remembering that beneath all we show, something living still pulses — and deserves care.
That night, he walked home not taller, but truer.
He no longer wanted to be admired for being untouched by life. He wanted to be real. Soft where it mattered. Strong where it counted. And open enough to feel.
Because beneath the bark, Kane had always been growing.
And now, he was ready to live like it.