Dlightning
In the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range running through Lancaster County Pennsylvania lives a small but vibrant farming community.
A young boy named Sil grew up there, a rough and tumble youth. He loved jumping off of rocks, catching crayfish in the stream, but most of all, he loved climbing trees. Sil, meaning of the forest, was a name bestowed to him by virtue of his family’s closeness to the land and the integrity they felt living in harmony with it. Sil, for one, was enamored by the strength and generosity of trees.
Around Sil’s thirteenth birthday his grandfather took him into the woods to go hunting. Hunting season is in the fall, and the maple and sycamore leaves crackle underfoot. They moved through the dense leaf litter with care, as Grandpa’s old horse riding injury made his knee stiff, and their progress slow. The elder guided Sil to a special hunting spot deep in the forest, where a clearing, nestled between the rolling mountains met a small stream.
As the pair settled in they came to find that Grandpa’s ammunition belt was empty! While preparing for the hunt the evening before, Sil must have set the rounds down to bring in firewood. After their long trek, and disappointment, the pair decided to eat lunch under a big white oak.
Grandma, being the thoughtful caretaker she was, had packed them ham sandwiches and ripe Lambert cherries. Contentedly they munched on the cherries, spitting the pits onto the ground. Sil thought to himself, these pits look a bit like bullets. “Hey pap-pap could we use these?” inquiringly, pinching the cherry pit between middle finger and thumb. Grandpa knowingly replied, “I like that kinda’ thinking, it’s worth a shot.”
Grandpa carried extra black powder in an old bull horn, in case of a misfire. He packed his musket meticulously, using just enough black powder, and wrapped the largest and toughest cherry pit in a small piece of canvas before ramming it down the barrel.
They waited in silence, carefully situated downwind from the deer’s path of travel. Eventually, a young buck entered the meadow trotting along, contentedly eating the roughage from senescent blackberry bushes.
Grandpa lifted the long rifle barrel and without hesitation fired. The deer, stunned, snorted aggressively and shook its head in furor, then bounded off into the forest. Grandpa rarely missed — the shape of the cherry pit must have thrown his shot off course. “That was a beautiful animal. See you around young buck.” Grandpa farewelled, as the echo of the gunshot bounced by one last time.
The pair head home empty handed, as Grandpa uncommonly did.
Two years later, in the cool sunny days of Spring, Sil noticed a deer in the distance with an oddly shaped third antler protruding from the middle of its head. Sil watched as the deer foraged its way across the field. As it came closer he recognized that this was no ordinary antler, it was a cherry tree in full bloom. Struck with wonderment, could this be the deer that Grandpa had shot with the cherry pit? It had to be, nothing else would explain it! Sil stood in awe as the buck retreated into the forest.
Summer this year was unusually hot and dry for Pennsylvania, and many of the community’s crops failed. Corn wilted and produced few kernels, squash bloomed but never reached full size, and the beans were scraggly and weak. The tight-nit farming community had plenty of cows, but they were for milking, not meat. Sil toiled to save the remaining crops, carrying water from the stream on the edge of the family property.
Later that year, during hunting season, Sil traveled on his own to his grandfather’s secret hunting spot deep in the forest. There, he set himself up by a wild apple tree where deer were sure to visit. Sure enough, a short time after, Sil heard rustling — the sound of a deer trotting through dry leaves.
Suddenly, there it was, directly in his line of sight, the cherry tree buck standing firmly in the clearing, just ahead of him.
Sil couldn’t believe his eyes. The tree affixed to the deer’s head had bright red cherries hanging from every branch like a Christmas tree. Sil, struck by its beauty, paused, but then a grumble from his stomach reminded him of his charge — to bring food home for his family. This time loaded with real bullets, Sil raised his rifle, and aimed in the direction of the buck. One deep breath, hold, and BOOOOM the gun thundered, echoing off the hills and throughout the forest.
When the smoke cleared, Sil watched as the young buck sat down slowly, his legs buckling beneath him. “Oh no,” Sil thought, “I hit him.” After a moment Sil walked over, the buck’s labored breath shallow and weak. Something was off, there was no gunshot wound. At the last moment, Sil must have pulled the trigger instead of squeezing it. Sil was delighted, he had missed!
It seemed the buck had also suffered from the long dry summer and the burden of a tree growing from its forehead. Sil sat with the deer for a while, petting his neck. While comforting the exhausted buck, Sil picked cherries from the tree sprouting between his antlers. Sil fed cherries to the deer from the palm of his hand and packed the rest to take back to his family.
One year later, during supper at the farmhouse, a gunshot rang out in the corn field only 150 yards away. Sil ran outside to investigate the commotion. As he stepped off of the front porch, Sil saw a hunter walking from the woods. No sooner had his bare feet hit the long grass of the yard, did he lay eyes on the cherry tree buck in the cornfield, motionless. Devastated, Sil advanced furiously at the hunter, “You had no right to hunt here, get off our land!” chasing him away.
Sil rushed to the side of the cherry tree buck, but it was too late.
In normal circumstances, Sil and his family would harvest the deer and use every part, wasting nothing. But, this was no ordinary deer. Sil staggered to the barn, gathered a shovel and started digging a hole alongside where the cherry tree buck lay. Sil delicately buried him in the middle of the cornfield with his nose facing south towards the sun, the cherry tree above ground, surrounded by a set of antlers.
In the years that followed, the cherry tree grew to be the biggest, strongest, and most prolific fruiting tree on the farm. So, if you ever find yourself in central PA, and notice a cherry tree in the middle of a cornfield, check to see if there are antlers firmly wrapped in the roots on either side of the tree.
This story was intended to stir up feelings, and we share the emotions of characters in a compelling story. Sil’s dilemma, to feed his family or take the cherry tree buck, places the conundrum in the reader’s hands. Neurochemicals, oxytocin and cortisol, are released when a story connects with our emotional minds, altering one’s brain chemistry, influencing behavior and recall.
When oxytocin is produced in the brain it triggers us to believe someone is trustworthy, kind, or generous. Often referred to as the “bonding hormone”, oxytocin motivates cooperation with others by enhancing one’s sense of empathy.
Cortisol is released when we feel stress. When you are stressed, your heart rate quickens and your focus increases. For a story to successfully trigger cortisol, it must first earn and retain your attention with growing tension in the narrative. A story with a positive resolution can help reduce cortisol levels by providing a sense of closure or relief.
Storytelling within a digital environment has surprising new capabilities to present generative reader-aware "story-lines". Designers can craft a journey that feels like a great novel, with the customer as the main character. The Cherry Tree Buck, as told here, follows a more traditional storytelling format. Digital experiences, are a little different, they capture and influence a customer story from the customer's first encounter with the product to their final purchase. Each interaction becomes a plot point. Each choice the customer makes shapes what happens next.
- Onboarding as origin story - frame setup steps as the beginning of the user's journey
- Goals as quests - "Find the perfect apartment" feels different than "use our search filters"
- Indicators of progress - clearly show where the customer is in their journey and what comes next
- Emotional highs and lows - spot significant moments, like a story's climax, and support the customer's emotional journey
- Natural stopping points - give customers clear places to pause and return, like chapters in a book
- Return visits as sequels - design for customers who come back, building on their previous "story" with your product
- Confirmation pages as resolution - make success feel like a satisfying conclusion
Stories stick because they engage the whole brain. You felt something when Sil had to choose whether or not to shoot the cherry tree buck. In digital experiences, story is the difference between a customer who simply transacts and one who remembers how your product made them feel.
This was once in the storytelling section of my book, Your Cup of Tea. It was removed for length and a more practical story was set in its place. If you liked this, you’ll enjoy the stories in the book.
