Faded Lights: A Collection of Short Pieces

Nonfiction: Help Seeking

TW: Violence, suicide, sexual abuse 

It was young and defenseless. And I killed it.

Despite the cold of winter, the inches of snow filtering into my boots, and the frigid temperatures, it stood nearly as tall as my 7-year-old self and even looked happy. With green leaves jutting from its brown branches, it was a piece of life in the dead of winter.

But I hadn't cared. The small sapling, destined to rise dozens of feet into the air, was protruding from the ground in the perfect place for a fort.

I trekked the forest behind my house for nearly an hour looking for a place, and in the glistening sun, this small clearing with a large pine tree to the north, was it. The growing oak tree was the only thing standing in my way of obtaining the real estate for my tree fort.

At first, I grabbed the trunk, no rounder than a dollar coin, and bent it toward the ground. My hands were numb and the shade of peaches from the cold. I could barely feel the scratchy bark, the trees only protection, beneath my palms. The tree creaked but refused to snap. If it had a voice, I believe it would have begged me to stop. It had a life to live and it wasn't going to give up that easily.

I bent the top toward the trunk of the tree, putting pressure on it with all my might. Birds squawked in the distance as the wood beneath me groaned, starting to give way. I, too, had a life to live and it included a tree fort.

It snapped.

Not a good, easy to remove snap. No. Not even half of the trunk snapped, and when I let go of the top of the tree, the sapling sprung back up to life. The green leaves shimmered in the now setting sun as the tree stood up straight, proud, and tall. It was determined to survive. It was only slightly maimed from my interaction with it and swayed in the chilly breeze as if to say that I was nothing to it.

With part of it snapped, I grabbed hold and moved it side to side, back and forth, up and down, and twisted it like a bottle cap, but it held on for dear life.

Frustrated, I pulled the kitchen knife from my red backpack and began to saw away at the trunk. Each fiber of the tree snapped away with every push and pull of the knife.

I focused entirely on my task. I ripped the remains of the tree from its trunk and stood with half the sapling in my hand, its green leaves sagging toward the snow-covered ground. All that remained of the young tree was a stump in the ground that I could dig out later.

The best part was that I could use the top half of the sapling to start my fort with.

As I stood back up, tree branch in hand, pain shot through my leg. I looked to see a pool of blood beginning to form under me. I took a quick moment to investigate the damage as I pulled my knee up to see a vertical slit in my jeans. Beneath the cloth, my flesh was pulled apart and was easily the width of my pinkie with blood spilling from it. The slice was almost too perfect like the cuts crafted purposefully in movies.

I set the branch down, its green leaves crumbling against the snow. Convincing myself 'it was just a scratch', I hobbled back to the house.

Before I left the forest, I looked back. In the sun's golden rays, the snow glistened and every other footprint of mine was bloodied. Next to one of my red footprints was the trunk now splintered and dead. And across from it was the branch, still as green and alive as I found it.

But it wouldn't be alive for much longer. I killed it and it would be browning by morning. It no longer had a chance to grow.

Not surprisingly, no one was home. My parents would be at the hospital for my aunt who was dying of cancer and my grandmother was still at work. I threw my jeans away after putting ointment in the large cut—which stung horribly—and slapping on a knee-sized bandage.