Shorts: A Collection

22. The Wishing Tree (Short Story)

The view outside was bleak, rain relentlessly striking the bay windows and soaking the concrete earth. The dark clouds and failing sunlight created a moody, thunderous aura across the sky adding highlights to the landscape. Across the road, menacingly edged by blue light, stood The Wishing Tree. All of my life I had called it The Wishing Tree without a second thought as to why it carried this title; another local story lost in time, no doubt.

But this particular evening my eyes were drawn constantly and inexplicably to The Tree. The gentle, soothing sway of its branches in fine weather were a delight but this evening despite my efforts to go about domestic tasks I was more attracted to the sharp movements of the wind lashing the boughs erratically. Here, framed by the faintest edging of the wan sun and the inky clouds, it looked imposing and altogether sinister.

Before the major roads and bypass were laid this village was primarily fields, a typical rural area filled with the decidedly working class. As the industrial revolution spread throughout the country, coal mines were opened and the need for concrete and terraced houses and roadways outweighed the necessity for green pastures. Most of the fields were torn up and put to use.

But now that I think about it, there was a story I remember hearing at school. It was in History, and the teacher was an old, local man who had long since forgotten the importance of following a curriculum or lesson plan. The other kids had realised that if they asked him a question about the history of one place or the events of another he'd forget he was supposed to be teaching and start talking- probably most of the kids had zoned out or were passing messages, but I was fascinated.

A farmer and his wife had a well-established farm and managed to support a very modest life. When the mines started opening, however, half of their farmland was to be flattened to make roads and homes for the miners. Of course, no amount of protesting would change the powers that be. The day for eviction was set.

In a bid to prevent (or at the very least delay) their eviction, the farmer took his gun and an axe to the mine opening to destroy the pit props and equipment, however he had misjudged his timings and the already-unstable pit prop gave out on top of him, crushing him within seconds.

The wife was distraught and left with no support, no home and no income. She had lost everything. And so on the day of eviction she left her front door with a length of rope in hand and hanged herself on a tree, in the place where every visitor to the village would have to pass. Around her neck on a piece of string was a note, written with the help of the village teacher who was a friend. By the delicate framing of the morning light her body swung gently in the breeze, the note fluttering serenely at her breast.

"My only wish is for this land to be unspoiled and green, as God intended," the note read.

I stopped suddenly. How odd for the main road to be built on such an awkward angle, leaving only a small triangle of grass between rows and rows of houses. What a strange turn of phrase for the dead woman to use.

I looked up again at the angry branches of The Wishing Tree, directly opposite my house, whipping so violently in the wind. I could almost envisage that poor woman's body being pulled about as she hung suspended from its boughs. Suddenly... suddenly the gentle whisper of the branches in fine weather didn't seem so wholesome anymore, and The Wishing Tree wasn't a fanciful childhood tale: it was a reminder of death and loss and the inexorable march of change, and now I see it I cannot avoid the bitter irony. The Tree will certainly not die or change but it will serenely oversee the world around it do so- perhaps the final wish of a dead woman did not go unfulfilled after all.