“He felt safe in the oak tree’s presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.

One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it the next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into the trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; it’s heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside- just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it had left had not been able to stand without it. “

Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged (Part One: Non- Contradiction)