Forest Fruit

Forest Fruit

The trees are crying out for help.

She is a little girl standing at the foot of ancient trees, whispering in the night, Why do you mourn?

03. Third Era
Faeology Science Fiction Fantasy
Flash Fiction Short Story

Sarah is a little girl standing at the foot of the great giants. They stretch their limbs, achingly, up to the sky, those ancient trees.

She cannot see the forest for the trees.

They sing to her, call to her, draw her out of her bed at night until she comes to them, lays her small, cold fingers against their peeling bark and stares up so high, high, high, wondering why she can never see an end to their multitude of branches.

Why do you mourn? Sarah whispers, knowing what the people of her small town do not, that the trees want something she does not quite understand. Why do you cry in the middle of the night?

We are dying, they would say if they could speak. There are no young ones of us like there are of you, and no one listens when we stretch our branches and call out to be rescued.

She is a little girl standing at the foot of the great giants. She looks about and sees a forest, that ancient forest, then she scrambles up the sharp and peeling bark. Its brittle edges scrape her shins and knees, but she climbs higher and higher until she reaches the branches where the dark fruit grows. Her father harvests the fruit. The town harvests the fruit and sells it in faraway markets where it fetches a high price, high enough to put wood in the stove and plainer food upon their plates, but only barely high enough, only barely enough fruit to feed them all.

The little girl takes down a piece of fruit, two, three. She shimmies back down the peeling bark and scrambles into a heap beneath the trees. Shooting upright and brushing herself off, it is quick work to determine her own health. The scrapes will heal, the scratches are red for such a short time. They are trees, no forest to stand and grow into ancient.

Then Sarah begins to walk, the fruit under her coat, until she passes through all of her tiny town and to the other side. Moonlight plays with her hair, wondering where she is going. She stops by the river and leans over to unbury her little box of summer treasures: a sea shell, favorite stones, her mother’s laughter and scent in a bundle of dried flowers. She pulls out the box and puts in the fruit and buries them over again.

Sarah stands under the moonlight and listens, listens, listens.

The trees are no longer crying.

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Faeology Science Fiction Fantasy

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