Flash Fiction
“Are you sure you want to put it to the burn?”
The tree stood tall, cold, unmoving, unresponding, unperturbed by its death sentence. The ancient trunk wide and almost cylindrical, its circular circumference made shaky by the tough, dark-brown bark hanging on the surface, clinging and groping resolutely on the smooth skin that discarded it. The trunk was, in a word, broad; in two words, broad and old; in three words, broad and old and tall. Its wise head rose unchecked over the ground, the saplings, the shrubbery, the roofs, and the swaying heads of lesser trees before diverging and widening and splitting and thinning and crisscrossing into a shady, branchy canopy. The branches all long and nodose and interconnected; dense and impenetrable in the center, proud and reaching and flexible near the ends, crowned and robed with explosive green foliage, crawling with insects, laden with inedible fruits. Reaching far and out, blocking sunlight and competition, dominant and unchallenged, respected, revered, solid. Anchored firmly to the ground, indestructible roots clutching the vast Earth in a steely grip. Undaunted, unflinching, unapologetic. A constant presence, a steady presence, an unquestionable presence.
“Yeah, toss it in.”