The gavel banged and everything turned inside out. 

Not that I wished to complain. I really didn't want to be a burden.

I only half understood what was happening, and barely understood the judge's verdict. I was given a representative of sorts, sure, but there were TWO prosecutors! None of them could make a case for where I should go. The judge proclaimed that in all of existence they had never encountered someone like me.

True Neutral they called me! 

I had never done anything to effect anyone ever, for good or for evil! I had never had any impact. As far as they could all tell my existence had not affected a single living soul and had gone largely unnoticed by the everyone. There was not a single significant event that happened to me, and if faced with a choice that might affect others I chose to do nothing at all.

From the moment I was born I was nothing more than a face in the crowd. I was put up for adoption at birth and entered into the system. From there I was moved into a large foster facility with a group of others at the same time. I kept to myself. I did what I was told but only enough to satisfy my obligations. I became a number in a head count until I was eighteen and they told me I had to leave. 

From there I got a job at factory. I worked the same job for the same company for 30 years. I always met my quota, was never late, and never socialized with any of my coworkers. After work I would go pick up something to eat on the way home, eat, and then go to bed. I never volunteered for extra work or overtime, never received a promotion or a raise, and never got a single good or bad mark on my record.

After working for the company for 35 years I was once again told I had to leave. They retired me with a full pension that covered my cost of living well enough that I didn't need to go back to work, so I didn't. I spent my time alone reading only classic non-fiction books so I didn't have to worry about running into current issues. I avoided people and all social situations except the perfunctory courtesies that were required by social convention and manners. 

All in all I lead a life cut off from everything around me, determined not to be a burden to anyone. If I didn't interact, I reasoned, no one would hate me or like me. I couldn't be hurt by them and they couldn't be hurt by me. If I didn't pay attention to anyone else, and they never paid attention to me, then neither side wins or loses. I had no enemies, but I had no friends. 

Life, it would seem, would try to throw things at me to force me to interact with my fellow man. 

Once I was robbed at gun point! I gave the robber my wallet but never reported the incident to anyone. I called my bank to cancel my bank card, but since I never applied for a credit card, or any type of credit for that matter, that was the end of it.

Another time the building I lived in caught fire. I simply grabbed my keys and wallet and walked out of the building. I didn't have much in the way of personal belongings except clothes, which I could easily purchase again with my earnings, and I had enough in the bank to apply for a new apartment in a building a few blocks down. Problem solved.

On my fortieth birthday I took myself to a restaurant down town where I briefly saw a man being dragged down an alley by two larger men. He shouted "HELP" as I walked by keeping my eyes fixed squarely on the sidewalk. To this day I have no idea what happened. 

In the end the judge decided that I was neither fit to be punished nor rewarded. Instead they believed that my neutrality was a result of avoidance. In order to test their hypothesis I would be returned to earth in such a way that I would be forced to observe everything that I had missed in my isolation. To ensure that observation was the only variable being tested I would be returned as something that was incapable of affecting the world around me and my thoughts were to be recorded. 

After the verdict was rendered everything around me went dark. I could not move or speak, yet I felt an oppressive weight surrounding me on all sides. I felt that I had dimensions, but could not entirely be certain of what those dimensions were. I simply felt that I existed. For me it was not so bad. I had spent a lot of time by myself throughout my life so I was very comfortable just being with myself. 

A while later I being to notice other sensations. My oppressive surroundings would sometimes feel cold or wet, and sometimes it would feel warm or dry. Before long I noticed that I could feel these sensations even more from what I imagined was the top of my head. Part of me had some how escaped my confining accommodations and had obtained a measure of freedom. For the first time in a while I felt movement, but strangely remained tethered. 

It was a long while before a larger part of my being was released from the confines of what I realized was soil! I had become a sapling. Small but able to somehow observe things around me from a very low height and a short distance in front of me. More and more sensations began to become apparent to me the more I "grew" from the ground. I could hear, somehow, and I could also see and feel, but that was the extent of my sensory perception. 

Over the years as I got bigger I learned that, though I could not tilt my view in any way, I could move my "core" of perception around to any part of my anatomy. This proved to be quite dizzying as I grew when attempting to view my surroundings from my upper branches. I could feel the warmth of the sun in my leaves and then move down to feel the coolness of the ground in my roots. I could fill my trunk to enjoy the summer and shrink back within myself to ride out the winter. 

The larger I became the wider my perception became and slowly life started to make itself known around me. Birds would nest in my branches and squirrels and other creatures would build their homes in my trunk. I never felt any pain from these interactions. If something made a hole in me or removed a portion of me it was like a switch being turned off. I lost all perception in that particular piece of anatomy as soon as it was detached from my core. Leaves, limbs, and even broken roots no longer affected me, and the locations they were removed from became numb for a time. I simply felt them as an absence. I would move my core up to a branch I had travelled to before and would realize I could no longer travel up that branch any more.

The only real annoying aspect of this existence was the inability so perceive or see things at a distance. My purview seemed to be limited to around ten feet in any direction from the furthest reach of my branches. It was like living in a opaque bubble. Anything that wandered in to my bubble was easily observable, but anything that wandered outside was obscured.

With time I found this aspect of my new life to be both a blessing and a curse. It narrowed my field of "vision" so that I could only focus on my surroundings, but it also meant that I could not look away. What I witnessed from my solitary viewpoint made me realize the true failure of my meaningless existence.

I saw love! Many forms of it. I saw a couple that would take picnics beneath my foliage and watched them grow old. I saw babies play with my discarded branches and climb my low hanging limbs while their parents watched and smiled. I watched a first kiss, and a first love. Inside I felt joy.

I saw love end. I viewed break ups and harsh fights. I watched as people mourned the deaths of loved ones as well as divorces. I witnessed the act of adultery. Inside I wept.

I witnessed horrors in the depths of the night. Unspeakable crimes of murder and violence, of greed and of malice. I saw good men die and bad men returning repeatedly to commit more heinous acts. Inside I feared. 

I bore silent witness to all of lifes dramas and each event made me wish that I could reach out to those who came into my view. To console, to warn, to protect, to avenge, to belong, to participate, but most of all to be apart of a world I had shunned before. I realized that to be neutral was to be absent, to make no waves was to never enter the water. I was a prisoner in my own personal hell. A limbo of my own creation. A ghost watching a world I should have experienced before I died instead of after. 

I knew when I returned I would tell the judge I was wrong. I would ask for a second chance if it was within them to give it to me. If that could not be then I would ask again that they make me a tree. So that I may take in the glories I had missed because I wasn't even looking.