Axe [Discontinued]

Flower

I stood there by the stream gazing into my reflection. I looked tired, dirty, hopeless...a foolish 12-year-old boy. The fact that I had ever thought running from my problems was brilliant had long left me now, and all I could think of was how disappointed my father would be.

Taking refuge in the forest had been the only right thing I had done, as I had a great abundance of resources, but it didn't help that I had no sense of direction—and most of all—no knowledge of survival. My future was hopeless. I was hopeless. And for the first time in my life, I knew I was lost.

Tears swam down my cheeks and I wasn't ashamed; there was nothing to be ashamed of anymore. I sat down on the ground, crawling into a ball and forcing my face into my knees. I was probably miles from home by now.

They'll look for me, I thought, trying hard to reassure myself.

How do we know? Responded my dirty conscious, its voice ringing in my head, After all the things we've done, why would they come and find us? Don't you remember the reason we left in the first place?

My mind immediately brought me back to earlier today. I had been standing in the chicken coop, extracting the lazy chicken's eggs from their nests, when the coop door had creaked open. A bold, muscular man I knew to be my father strode in.

"How's the egg collectin' goin', son?"

"What? Oh-fine, I guess—"

"Good, good...I have another job for you and it ain't one you've done before," my father interrupted, beckoning me to him, "Come, son."

I hastily walked with him outside of the coop and into the large cornfield where he stopped stiffly. Curiously, I watched as he lifted his hand to cover the sun from his eyes, and searched the line of trees that marked the forest beyond.

Quietly, I asked, "Father, what is it you say I haven't done? I have watered the corn before,"

Slowly, he looked down at me. I could visibly see the creases in his forehead as he smiled. It dumbfounded me; he had rarely been pleased enough to talk to me, yet along smile at me. The fact that my father could have been this happy meant something special, as it always had.

"You'll see," he assured me, and immediately, he started to walk through the field.

As we made it to the beginning of the forest, he motioned me towards a trail. It was filled with thickets and vines barricading the path. My father effortlessly pushed them aside, merely grunting at the small cuts and thorns embedded in his hands afterward. The shade of the trees felt relieving from the blazing sun, and the greenery was enough to take anyone's breath away.

Soon, we had made it to a path from the main trail where we turned. The path led to a small opening in the trees. There stood an axe in the wood of a stump, accompanied by a fresh pile of cut firewood.

"This," my father said loudly, "Is what I need ya to do,"

"But father I've never—" I was cut off as he laid the axe in my hands.

"Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, I ain't goin' to make ya cut them trees yerself. Come on now, boy, let's go; I know you'll be makin' me proud when yer firs' tree is lyin' on the ground."

But I didn't make him proud when that tree hit the ground. I never got to see his face after it fell. All I saw afterward was his hand, sticking from the trunk like a lifeless puppet. And it was all my fault. I had killed him.

That was why I had run away, that was why I was sitting by this stream balling my eyes out. That was why my mother and sister were probably wondering where we were, our supper neatly waiting on the table. But it would never be eaten; my father was gone and I was never going back. I knew that.