Willow Tree

     I've always had a certain fasination with willow trees. I think they're exceptionally graceful and beautiful the way they arch and dance in the wind. This story was inspired by that fascination and what it is like under those arching arms and peaceful breeze that floats through them. This was an assignment to look through something elses eyes and if I changed anything about it, I would most likely add time passages to make it flow more smoothly.

     I sit here with my roots stuck deep in the ground. Dug deep under the layers of dirt which have been placed upon them. The ground is rich and cool where I sit. When I was a sapling, I was confined to life in a plastic black pot until people came and they took me away. That was many years ago. Those people planted me next to the creek, deep in a field. I have  watched generations come and discover me and use my arch of arms for shade. I sit and I watch and wait and have many stories but they are all very slow and move like a never ending river.

    The most recent is Molly and Thomas. They are both young, but not children still. Molly discovered me first when she was a child. It was many years after she came to visit the first time. But she brought Thomas with her and they kept coming back. I watched her and Thomas grow. I saw them argue and kiss and come and go.

    Molly has blonde hair and always sits by the roots of my trunk. Thomas, who has brown hair, always sits at her feet, leaning against her legs. When they argue it seems like such trivial matters to a tree like me. But many things humans do seem like trivial matters to my kind. When they were at the peak of time before they became adults, I watched Molly and Thomas and listened to their tearful conversation. Something was happening, and I had seen it once before. It was just before the weather became so painfully stale and dry the creek had almost nothing left.

    Molly was distressed. I ruffled my arms and moved them about, the only way I could show my disapproval of this. I had always favored Molly over Tom. Molly’s hair gently blew like my arms.

    It was in this moment of noticing this small detail that Thomas got down on one knee. I wasn’t sure what this detail meant but I knew it was a tremendous change in the way things would always be between Molly and Thomas.

    After this moment it would be many years before I saw them again. But the wind blows and the trees whisper and the bond between the two became united by law. The ceremony was outdoors and the trees spread it quickly. I was sad I did not get to see it because it sounded like a slow beautiful event that us trees like.

    The next time I saw Molly and Thomas there were two children with them. Molly had changed her hair and the body of an athlete Thomas once had was beginning to fade. The lines in their faces had become perceptible and marked the wear they had endured, much like the cracked bark that covered me.

    As time passed, they never left again. I watched the children grow and soon the girl looked so much like Molly when I first saw her I couldn’t see a difference. Thomas and Molly grew older together and I never saw them argue anymore, I only saw a gentle touch or a constant hand to hold. Their hair turned gray and the trees whispered as usual and Molly and Thomas were buried together at the cemetery closest to the creek which they had spent their whole lives around.