Born Different

BORN DIFFERENT Flashfiction Scene by Dennis Lowery
Flashfiction Scene


She had been born different.

Not like the others.

As she blossomed, they became afraid of her—she would frighten the other saplings they nattered to each other;—she would disturb the structured order of their hard-grained, unclaimed ignorance. Her difference was too much for them to comprehend. And lack of comprehension breeds fear and suffocates compassion.

One dark, moonless night, the elders—those oh so majestic leaders of the grove—replanted her, moving her to the edge of a cornfield, out of sight and out of mind, far from her roots.

She was now alone. Not likely to be visited by the humans that frequented the trees in the park to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the hypocritical forest as they walked its paths.

But something happened.

The so-different tree took root, right where she was and drew sustenance from the earth and sky. Those things not controlled by any. No one could deny her access to them.

And she grew.

Her branches reached for the sky, and the leaves caught the fire and ember-color of sunrise and sunset. The most powerful color in the world because it signifies the cycle of life for each day. The energy within that turns our world.

As she grew, she became, in a word, magnificent. There was no one, no tree, like her.

The farmer who owned the cornfield came upon her when, in season, he worked his field.

Seeing the beauty that grew upon his land, something as equally nurturing (maybe even more so) as the food-crop surrounding them, he cleared a path to and around this little tree. He now could sit on his back porch, cool drink in hand, and with a clear line of sight, watch the tree as dusk turned to twilight and then to night.

He went to bed happier than he had ever been.

In time, the farmer and his young wife had children. And they grew, too. From the tree’s full cloaked spring and summer to the leaf-thinning of autumn and bare branches of winter, they climbed and swung from her limbs. Their laughter tickled her until she, too, would laugh… a rustle in the breeze. Making a sound that carried but only other trees would understand.

The trees in the forest often heard it on the wind and wondered… who could be so happy?

I shouted my love for life

in red, for all to see

No matter that I’m tucked away

that does not bother me

Cause all I know is who I am

and that is all I can be

A simple thing who loves the world

I’m a happy little tree.