Below is this week’s story for Friday Fictioneers based on this lovely photo prompt from ©Sandra Crook. Thanks Sandra, I think if I look at it long enough I might find a poem or two in there as well.
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Friday Fictioneers prompt for March 13, 2015 ©Sandra Crook
Genre: Fiction
A Tear in the Fabric of Reality
Oh no. No, no no.
I’m over-reacting, or so everyone will say. But once seen, these things can’t be unseen. Or should I say, once unseen, things can’t be put back into the picture.
The picture being the view from the house where I grew up. A line of trees on top of that low hill, the line of trees that could be seen from every direction for miles around. My marker for home no matter where I was, standing proud even in my mind’s eye when I was far away.
Gone.
Chopped down.
Ripped from the fabric of my reality.
©Siobhán McNamara
Thankfully these trees are still very much a part of the fabric of my reality 😉 ©Siobhan McNamara
And what a gorgeous reality it is, Sioban! I enjoyed your interpretation, but so glad your story is indeed fiction 🙂
I felt for your poor narrator. Nothing sadder than a chopped tree.
What a beautiful view you have!! Losing a landscape like that would truly be terrible!
Great story 🙂
Dear Siobhán,
I guess this is what they refer to in some circles as progress. My eldest son lives on a farm in Upstate NY. Last year a tornado took out a one-hundred year old tree in their backyard. They were devastated. I felt your narrator’s pain. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Dear Siobhan,
Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take the sunken eyes and learn to see….
Your story is beautiful and bleak and perfect for the prompt. So much changes irrevocably when a tree is destroyed. Very well done.
Aloha,
Doug
It’s horrible when something that’s been so solid in your life for so long is suddenly ripped away. You described it beautifully.
Trees are so precious. Great title.
We used ti have a beautiful tree out back that provided us with much of our summer shade. One of those summer’s it was struck by lightening and split in two. So sad.
The view you have of your home is beautiful. I can see the line of trees. So glad this story was fiction. I enjoyed reading it.
I am an unabashed tree hugger (I do indeed hug them) and lover… a cut tree, is forever a scar on our earth. I was glad to see this was indeed fiction; your writing is so visceral, I gulped. That sense that home, our markers, the familiar is gone… is too sad. Wonderful piece.
I grew up in Kansas where tree rows were an important part of farming. Of course, the rows are carefully planted–almost manmade. Still, without them, we’ll be headed straight toward another Dust Bowl. Never underestimate the power of trees.
All my best,
Marie Gail
I feel the same way when I see an area cleared for yet more malls/business/homes and all the trees gone. Even worse if it were in a place I’d lived, loved, and cherished. Lovely story filled with a pain that we would do well to try to avoid giving as much as possible.
janet
Beautifully told. We’ve cut a tree last year that the parents planted too close to the house and now it cracked the yard and stairs. I’m still sad about it. Trees almost always lose.
A sad story. I like your thoughts on things seen and unseen – lots to ponder there. What a beautiful view you have.
Well done. There are often “places” which become markers in our lives. When the disappear it is as if we loose a little of ourselves. Well done.
The chopped down trees .. that’s so sad.. Trees tie us to the soil…
Lovely story, Siobhan. People don’t seem to realize everything has a place in nature. Trees are there for a reason. They hold back things such as the mudslides we’re been seeing. Well done, and I’m also glad it’s fiction. 🙂 — Suzanne