Creative Writing on Photograph

We recently visited the Museum of Photographic Art in Balboa Park. While we were there, we were told to choose a photograph, and write a story about it. The picture I decided to write about showed a marble building. The structure was supported by Classical pillars, but one was missing, and had been replaced with the trunk of a tree.

The Pillar

The architect tore his hair in revulsion. He begged and pleaded, but there was nothing he could do. His work of art was no longer his property. He stared at his defaced masterpiece, trying to see it as it once was. He visualized the building, jutting out of the earth, as if it were part of the rocky outcrop on which it rested. The gleaming white marble shone in the mid-day sun, its seams so perfect, it appeared as if it had been hewn from a single piece of stone. The symmetry and geometric perfection was the product of years of careful intellectual deliberation and dedication. Now his magnum opus lay ruined, and the distraught architect felt as if a part of him had died.

The building had stood proudly for years, a monument to human capability, and a standard of excellence by which all other buildings had been measured. It was in the seventh year of the structure's existence that the problems had started. A vandal had carved a cruel groove into a formerly immaculate marble pillar, an action akin to putting a cigarette out on the canvas of a painting. Mortified, the architect had immediately ordered an identical pillar from the masons who had cut the original. Several weeks later, the new pillar had not arrived. Upon questioning the stonecutters, the designer of the damaged structure found that his order had been canceled by the owner of the building, the city, who had said that an alternative solution had been found.


The architect had hurried back to the monument he had labored so hard to create to see what marvel of technology had allowed them to repair or replace the pillar without constructing a new one entirely. When the building came into view, its designer gasped in horror. His once perfect construction had been desecrated. Where the damaged pillar once stood, a tree trunk had been put into place, its roots still caked with mud. Horrified, the architect rushed up to one of the buildings occupants, and demanded to know what the purpose of the tree was. "Oh its really quite noble," said the man, admiring the clumps of dirt that now lay strewn across the once spotless marble floor. "The tree represents a fusion of the new with the old, modern technology with the primitive wisdom our society has strayed so far away from. It's really a superb improvement to those horrid marble pillars. They looked so unauthentic, so man made." The man scoffed and continued on his way, leaving the architect motionless, stupefied by the explanation. He stood there for a long time, his confused expression never changing. He stared at the tree, as if he was trying to bore a hole through it with his gaze. The tree, unaffected, stubbornly remained.

Several years passed. The architect had moved on to create new buildings, never returning to his raped masterpiece. The tree at first bore the weight of the marble roof stoically, but as the trunk dried out in the intense summer sun, the wood of the tree became brittle, and began to crumble under the immense load. The roof began to sag on one side,the soft marble stone warping slowly. The resulting crease in the roof began to collect debris, adding to the already massive weight supported by the tree. The demise of the building was a slow and painful one. When the roof eventually collapsed, the structure was abandoned, as architects of the caliber of the creator of the building were few and far between, and those who were available refused to work for the city, as they had heard of their treatment of their colleague. So the building was never repaired, and as it was now structurally compromised, few ventured near it. The forest surrounding the city began to reclaim the land, and as each part of the structure fell into disrepair, more foliage arose to take its place. Soon the once proud marvel of architectural design had been reduced to no more than a moss covered heap, indistinguishable from any other hill in the forest.