...The Son, the Father, and the Tree

The Son, the Father, and the Tree

Page 3 of 3

     The branches were not kind to him. The leaves were nicer. The birds pecking at the other fruit only turned to glance at the boy tumbling head over heels before returning to their morning harvest.

     On the last branch before the ground the boy landed with his stomach, which knocked the breath out of him. His rope belt caught on the bark, but held together. The boy cast a nervous glance below. He had slowed enough, however, to wrap his arms around the branch and lower himself feet-first to the ground.

     His father watched as the boy returned to natural breathing rhythms. In his hand, the boy held a slightly scraped young fruit.

     "That one is young," the father said.

      "It was the last one the thieves had not touched," the son said.

      His father smiled, slow and wide. "So now you believe the ravens are thieves?"

     The boy bowed his head. "Yes, Father." He offered the small fruit. The father studied the fruit for a while before he took it. The son looked up into his father's eyes and saw them shining in the breaking light of the new day.

     "We will take this one home and let it ripen. Then we may eat it," the father said.

     The stinging and pains from the tree did not seem to hurt so much anymore. The boy wiped the grime from his hands onto his bag, where the roundness of the fruit he had picked no longer pressed against his hand.

     The boy reached into the bag and felt around. His cupped hand brought out a wet green mash with a sliver of thick skin attached.

     The father looked at his son's hand, and then at the bag, and then he started laughing. The boy tried to wipe the crushed fruit on the bag, but the father swiped some of it with the tip of a finger. He placed the finger in his mouth and sucked off the fruit mash.

     "We will also take that one home, my son, and scrape it out of the bag for our meal," the father said. He gestured at the tree blooming with feathers and leaves. "We have to be crafty, like our little thieves."

     The father clasped his son's shoulder and together the two went home, pausing only to look back and see the tree backlit by the colors of the new day.

End