MicroHorror

Mother’s old house stands in the forest, almost forgotten, but not alone. The window panes smashed like broken teeth–the good wrought iron fence sold for scrap.

Mother told me that when Great Grandpa died they had no doctor or undertaker. So they planted him in the earth behind the house. They dug with their bare hands. Her father didn’t say any prayers, but told them of how Great Grandpa once had been jailed for stealing a pig.

Mother said they buried him deep that autumn, and she imagined him frozen in the earth waiting for spring like a fresh seed as the snow blew the last of the orange leaves.

Spring came with white wings against blue skies, and the children played tag and blind man’s bluff where Great Grandpa lay.

When summer came, blowing warm, the first sprout of the Bone Tree broke the earth. The new bud grew strong on their laughter and their smiles until he finally grew stout enough for her and her brothers to climb. They’d sleep sometimes in the afternoons, cradled in the branches, until the sun would set.

In the fall bats roosted in his ivory limbs and hung like ripe fruit.

The Bone Tree had grown a face that could smile and even cry when it watched them through the windows. The children grew strong as the Bone Tree’s roots, and as tall as his old limbs. And he watched her brothers go off to a war and never come back, and he watched Mother’s suitors come by the dozens until one of them finally made her heart ache when he left. And the Bone Tree gave his blessing, and she was swept away.

Now Mother’s old house stands almost forgotten, by all but the Bone Tree.