Tag Archives: tree

June 26, 2014

Bruised Heartwood – Friday Fictioneers

I’m currently on the road and writing this in a hotel. As always, I wish I could read more of the other stories but I should be able to pretty soon in the future.

Bruised Heartwood

The gnarled old oak tree on the hill loved Jenny. He loved watching her spread her picnic blanket in his shade.

“I’ll dress up for Halloween,” he said, and propped a goat’s skull in the crook of his branches.

But no one saw or cared, even Jenny who was at a party.

His heartwood was wounded deeply, and tearing up roots long planted, he rampaged through the town.

They caught him, cut him down, chopped him up. “Trees go bad,” they said.

But Jenny didn’t dance around the fire they made and her heart ached, although she didn’t know why.

17 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, love, tree | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 6, 2014

Snowing in Summer

By David Stewart

The Snow Tree

“Daddy, let’s go! Let’s go!”

My youngest daughter Terri was bouncing up and down with impatience. I could understand. The weather was broiling and the whole world was sunnyside up.

We walked to the cemetery slowly, keeping under the shade of the trees. Then we saw it up ahead, the snow tree, gently shedding its delicate frozen blossoms.

It seemed like half the town was there already, making snow cones and throwing snowballs that melted with a hiss as soon as they left the shade of the tree.

It was amazing how incurious our town of Gooseneck was. The tree was obviously magical, but there it was, dropping snow all year round, so what were you going to do?

Terri and I played under that tree every day that summer. But it was the last. The town ran into budget problems and sold the tree to a casino for fifty million dollars. We were sad to see it go.

Although, not as sad as we were when we realized that the tree had been planted to keep a pack of ghouls that were buried in the cemetery frozen for all eternity. They were pissed when they thawed out.

Nobody saw that one coming.