A Short Story by Jack Mint
William unfolded the buck knife and knelt in the grass behind his family’s homestead. He meant to carve the initials of the woman walking through his sixteen-year-old dreams. However, his knife could not cut the bark of the tree. He tried to start again the first initial of the girl he thought was the prettiest in his tiny, rural school. The bark seemed hard as stone. William went to the neighboring tree and carved Sue Ellen’s initials next to his without any problem. He thought it was strange but went to bed to dream of her gentle smile.
William asked Sue Ellen to marry him a few years later and she said yes. He went behind his house to build a corral. He forgot about the tree he could not carve and swung his axe at the trunk. A jolt rang through his strong body and he shook his head in disbelief when he saw the blade did not bite into the bark. He took one more mighty swing at the tree and the axe shattered in his hands. William scratched under his head under his hat. William was young, but he was not prideful. So, he built the horse corral next to the tree so it could shade Sue Ellen’s horses.
William and Sue Ellen had a son and he became strong and ambitious. William never told anyone about the tree so that people would not think he was strange. Besides, Sue Ellen and the horses enjoyed the shade in the summer.
William eventually died and his son Barret took over the farm. He grew the simple farm to be twice as big as before. Barret meant to build a bigger house than what he inherited from his father.
Barret went out with a chainsaw to cut down the tree by the corral. When he put the spinning blade to the bark, the chain sparked and snapped. Bewildered, Barret dropped the saw when he saw no damage to the wood. He got into his tractor and pushed the tractor’s bucket into the tree, but it did not budge. He took a diving run at the tree but was only thrown into the steering wheel when the tractor stopped dead in its tracks. He floored the accelerator until the tires were halfway buried in the ground.
The rage wouldn’t let him go. Barret poured gasoline all over the tree and set a match to it. The flames crawled up the trunk and died. Barret pulled his hair from his skull when he saw the tree yet again, undamaged. Only the leaves burned. The tree was branches and twigs in the middle of summer bloom.
Barret was not beat yet. He piled wood all around the tree and ignited a bonfire Barret fed all night. The tree did not fall.
Old William may not have told anyone, but his son told anyone who would listen about the unbreakable tree. Newspapers came from around the country and soon the world to document this natural abomination. Scientists could not break off the tiniest twig to try and study what made the simple tree indestructible.
Nothing was supposed to withstand man’s ingenuity and ambition. However, that tree was a testament to that failure. It was not hidden in the dark like the ocean’s bottom or far away like the stars. The tree stared them in the face.
The military wanted to replicate the armor of that tree for their tanks and ships. A general suggesting a nuclear bomb. The president authorized the military engineers to dig six hundred feet below the tree to place the bomb.
What started with a country boy’s knife was about to end with the most technological weapon of destruction ever devised. Everyone watched either from the bunker miles away or by the countless cameras as the earth sprung into the sky. Helicopters with men in radioactive suits flew to ground zero and found the tree was gone.
Before anyone could celebrate, the earth cracked in half and drifted apart in space.
Perhaps what would have been better is if they had done what William had done and simply moved the corral over and let the tree shade the horses.
