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The Trees That Weren’t There Yesterday
First Line Fiction Prompt #102
He locked the gate behind the idling truck pointed down the woods road; with only two more trips to finish the job, he couldn’t risk a random visitor spoiling everything.
Right or wrong, win or lose, it had to happen now, or autumn would arrive, and he would fall apart.
The truck carried six trees.
Not saplings. Trees.
Each stood nearly twelve feet tall, its root ball wrapped in burlap and strapped upright against the wooden rack Henry Cole had built behind the cab. The nursery man had questioned the arrangement, then questioned Henry’s age, and finally stopped questioning anything when Henry paid cash.
Henry drove slowly.
The road had deteriorated since he was a boy. Branches scraped the mirrors, and twice he had to stop to drag fallen limbs out of the way. By the time he reached the clearing, the sun had disappeared behind the ridge.
Eleven newly planted trees stood in uneven rows.
Henry parked beside the twelfth hole.
He had dug them all himself.
That had been stupid.
At seventy-three, he had reached the age when people used the word stupid…
