Fan Fiction ❯ Tree Thoughts ❯ Tree Thoughts ( Chapter 1 )

Tree Thoughts

by P.H. Wise

 

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The old oak had been growing on top of the hill behind Jim Morris's house for as long as he could remember. Old and gnarled as it was, its expansive branches still held an impressive canopy of leaves, tall and dark against the blue sky. Excepting the tree itself, the hill was covered in grass, brown and dead now in the summer heat.

 

`I'll show her,' Jim said. `I'll show her.' He stomped towards the hill, clutching an old worn length of rope. The grass crackled as he passed. It was a deer-path that he was following, and it was in no hurry to get him to the top of the hill where the oak stood waiting. Still, he was a stubborn man, and he had never shied away from toil. Up he went, following the deer-path's roundabout route up the hill. Clenching his jaw, he went.

 

When he reached the tree, he tied the rope into a noose and threw it over one of the lower branches, tied it solidly, and then scrabbled up the trunk of the tree and on to the branch. The oak leaves scratched his face uncomfortably, and he scowled. Jim was allergic to oak. His eyes began to itch. That just made him angrier. He put the noose around his neck. Every bit of sense he had ever possessed screamed at him to stop this, to climb down and step away. This was a stupid, foolish thing to do. But every bit of sense he'd ever had didn't do him much good just then. Not after what she'd said. What she'd done. The look in his eyes was strangely triumphant as he jumped off the branch.

 

The weathered rope creaked as the full weight of Jim's body hit the noose.

 

It held.

 

As he hung suspended by the neck from the old oak, Jim's sense of triumph faded quickly. With an uncomfortable suddenness, his common sense reasserted itself, penetrating the gleeful fog that the thought of her grief stricken face had thrown up in his mind. `Jim,' it said, `You've gone and done a stupid, stupid thing. You had better pull yourself off of this rope and get down before it's too late.` He couldn't reach the tree. He grasped at the noose, but he couldn't seem to grasp it. His fingers just wouldn't close properly around it. The world was growing dark for Jim.

 

He passed out. A few minutes later, his corpse adorned the old oak like a Christmas ornament.

 

`Well, I never!' said the tree.

 

The End