What if you woke up one day and realized that you are something else rather than you? This is the story of Watii who was not only a woodcutter but he loved his job and hobby. He was fascinated by how trees could be carved into anything durable with beautiful patterns. Therefore, he chopped lost of them just to explore their traits and get some good money in return. It is said that he cut over 100 trees in the first year when he started the job of felling wood.  So you can only imagine how many he has cut since then.

One day he found a tree that had lived in the land for over a hundred years. It was the largest and most beautiful tree in the Mt. Kenya forest. That night he retired early so that the next day he could awake at daybreak and go chop the ancient tree.

In the morning, he woke up and tried to get out of bed but something was amiss. He rolled over to ease himself off the blankets but he could not feel his feet. He tried to touch his feet with his hands but he did not have any hands either. In a panic, he started rolling back and forth wondering where his limbs went. Then he heard a slight pop sound and his whole body was in pain.

He howled in agony but no sound came out.  Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around him. Why did everything seem so bigger than him? His bed was way up above him. He looked sideways into the mirror opposite his bed and saw a seed lying there at the foot.

Watii laughed aloud over and over again while looking at the mirror. The little seed in the mirror moved. When he stopped laughing, the seed stopped moving. In shock, Watii rolled while straining himself to look into the mirror, clearly. The little seed rolled as well.

Trembling, Watii jumped up and down repeatedly and saw the seed in the mirror doing the same. Tired from the jumping and rolling, Watii continued to stare at the seed in the mirror. His gaze so sharp and contemplating that he could cut it up to its core with his iris alone. So tiny in the space it was. Suddenly, the door opened. As Watii was leaning on the door, his body rolled out to the garden. Watii looked up at his assistant tree cutter, Thomas.

“How dare you open my door without knocking? I have always told you to knock first,” Watii shouted.

Thomas just walked into the room while looking around and calling out loudly, “Watii! Watii! Let us go tree felling,”

Watii repeatedly screamed, “Here I am”. With no visibility of Watii in the room, Thomas left the house and locked the door behind him. Watii continued to yell louder but his voice was too inaudible for the human-sized ears.

Feeling dejected and worried, Watii remembered his wood cutting days. Then, a moment of introspection dawned on him. He accepted his fate and decided that he would grow to become the envy of the woodcutters in the area. He would be the most expensive wood ever cut.

Watii pushed himself into the ground and closed his eyes thinking of how big he would grow. At first, nothing happened but he kept on wishing and wishing. After some time he felt himself grow bigger. He felt taller. He opened his eyes and looked at his new feet. They were long and smooth. Then came his hands, a branch with two leaves.

But then a bird came and pecked at his new leaves and ate them and then went on his way. Watii did not give up. He wished to grow the more and he did with more leaves and a longer branch. As he grew, the wind came and shook his body side to side. His body withered due to the cold and repeated aggression on his body. After the wind, he wished to grow again and this time he was bigger and stronger than before. The challenges of growing up persisted. The sun, a beetle, a worm, a man trampled him but he was determined to grow. Finally, he became the enormous tree that he had hoped.

Feeling big and powerful, he looked around the land that he had covered. Below him, a rabbit walked towards his direction and sat under his shade. The rabbit looked so peaceful but then suddenly she was in pain. She contorted her body in anguish. Watii panicked and bent over to see what was happening. He whispered soothing words to the rabbit and the sound came out as a cool breeze. The cool breeze blew the sweat that formed on the little rabbit’s forehead.

Within a few minutes, something moved below mother rabbit and now under Watii were five tiny coneys. They moved closer to Watii’s branch and rubbed themselves on him. As if to celebrate the little bunnies, some birds came to his branches and tweeted loudly. There were also some butterflies that flew around him and the wind blew around his leaves.  Watii smiled shyly at first then he began a throaty laugh and the birds tweeted louder. He swung his branches in joy and closed his eyes to listen to the swish, swish sound they made.

In his joy, Watii failed to notice his past assistant Thomas lift his axe and aim it at his stem. All the birds, butterflies and rabbits scattered away in panic as the “hack” sound of the axe was heard on Watii’s stem trunk. The little rabbits shivered in fear and looked up at Watii. Watii bent his branches to guide them towards their mother, but Thomas’s axe hit the bent branch and it fell on the rabbits. Watii looked at his fallen branch, vehemently hoping that the rabbits were unhurt. After a while, one of the rabbits got from under the branch, then the rest followed and they all ran towards their mother.

Watii breathed out a sigh of relief, then turned to watch Thomas chop the rest of his stem. Hack. Hack. His axe sounded over and over. Watii remembered his past life when he did the same thing as Thomas was doing.  As his leaves and branches sagged, he wondered how many homes he had destroyed, how many little rabbits he may have hurt or killed. He felt ashamed. With a final sigh of regret, he bent his stem towards the path the rabbits ran through and hit the ground with a thud.

Sweating and breathing rapidly, Watii opened his eyes abruptly.  He was in his bed and Thomas was knocking on his door. “Wake up. Let us go and cut the old tree. I am sure we will make a lot of money from this one,” Thomas was shouting.

“Go away!!” In anger, Watii shouted.

“Fine call me when you are ready, Thomas responded.

When Thomas responded, Watii realized that his assistant had heard him. He let out a sigh of relief and rolled out of bed. He felt his hands and legs and looked at himself hard in the mirror.