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Write a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree.

Posted in Spring on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 150 stories

Generations

Submitted to Contest #90

“Come on, hurry up!” I shouted. Mary was so slow. Although she was a girl. “I’m coming, wait up!” I heard her high voice yell back. She was out of breath already. I could run for hours like this. I guess mom was right. Living in the city does make you slower. “I win!” I say as I slam my hand onto the tree. I scraped a bit of skin off, but nothing could ruin this moment for me. Mary arrived a few seconds later huffing. “I told you it wasn’t a race.” She puffed. “Yeah, cause you are so easy to beat.” I pushed my tongue out at her. I waited for...

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Limbs of Time

Submitted to Contest #90

“Grandpa? Are you really going to tear out that stump?” “Yes, Rowan. It is ruining the yard.” “No it’s not!” Rowan looked horrified, “It’s my stage and my reading place and my dinosaur mountain…” The tears were starting to well in his eyes. My dad looked over at me and all I could do was smile. That stump was more to me too. I continued to rock on the wooden glider and let my mind drift back to the mid-1980s. I could see my brother’s green short-shorts, knee-high tube socks, and skin-tight t-shirt. The ponytails on both si...

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Love, Hope, and a Price

Submitted to Contest #90

The green leaves were a vision in perpetuity in the rainy summer evening. The clouds hid the sun behind her shaded groves. A sliver of light still managed to escape and came down on the leaves like heaven’s grace. It was a sight to behold. Four strangers stood around it in a not-so-random pattern, attention rapt on the sifting sunlight in the weathered vane, set against the backdrop of rain and hail.            If you were to ask them what they were so caught up in, they would not have ...

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Willow’s Tale

Submitted to Contest #90

Lewis             “We’ll be together soon. I promise,” she says, attempting to rest her ghostly hands in mine. “I swear.”             “How though?” I ask, looking into her remarkable green eyes.             “I found a spell,” she whispers, a twinkle to her eyes.             “What?” I ask, surprised.  ...

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The White Oak

Submitted to Contest #90

Mary didn't know which woke her first, the sound of shattering glass or the feel of cold rain on her face, but she was yanked from dream to reality so quickly that her brain wobbled. She kicked her legs out of bed and yanked the tangled sheets from her feet.  “What the...?” She blinked her gummy eyes and looked at the offending window. A branch had fallen and hit the lower panes, dumping smatters of rain and frigid air into the bedroom. It dawned on Mary that it might be time to have the tree looked at. Damn… that was going to be expe...

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The Old Lady Is About To Perish

Submitted to Contest #90

 “The Old Lady is about to Perish” read the email header. Ramya was intrigued, she had subscribed to this news website after she heard her grandfather's stories about this sleepy little town. Nothing of interest ever happened there, she only glanced through it sometimes to get some small-talk material with her grandfather, who was rapidly losing his memory and only remembered his youth and the lazy days in Mahanagar. Named so, as it was designed to become the epicenter of economic growth in the area but became a town nobody knew about. ...

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I Was Once a Tree

Submitted to Contest #90

“I was once a young man not too much unlike yourself, and I thought the world open to me if only I could live long enough. I covered deserts and scaled mountains, trying to find the one thing that would extend my years.” “Did you find it?” The old man grinned. “What do you think? “At last, only a few miles from the village from whence I came, I found an old spiritist who told me that she could make my life last for centuries if only I wished it and would give her all the knowledge I had gained in my travels. I agreed, of course, and after ye...

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The Tree of Love

Submitted to Contest #90

In a meadow filled with wildflowers stood a single tree. The tree itself was nearly two hundred years old. It had seen many people throughout the years. It had seen happiness, sadness, life, and death. The meadow was a beautiful place. The tree had seen many changes in the meadow, but it had always remained beautiful. Perhaps that was why people were drawn to it. When the tree was just a young sapling, it had been marked. Two lovers had carved their mark in its bark, hoping to eternalize their love. “Marcus, you can’t do that!” th...

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Tree of Evil

Submitted to Contest #90

---Rayna--- The little boy gasped in awe. Most people did the first time they saw it. I’ve even seen some people cry at the sight. I think it is over rated. It is just a big giant tree, that dumb, stuck up, annoying, greedy, evil, people lived in. I am one of the few people who thinks that the Queen, King, and their children are that bad, but they took everything from me, so the least I can do to repay them is to hate them. The little boy ran forward across the great bridge and into the town with his parents. I just stayed and waited. I w...

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What a Tree Did For Me

Submitted to Contest #90

It was Earth Day 1989.  McDonald’s was handing out sapling pine trees to the children who were brought in to the store. My little brother wanted one.  The saplings were pathetic little sticks that you put in the ground. Like my brothers turtle and several other life lessons, my parents most likely thought the tree would die.  But they helped him choose an empty spot in a corner of the backyard and he planted it. And in time took a picture in front of it. The yard was so empty back then. Dad planted a maple sapli...

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The Family Tree

N S

Submitted to Contest #90

There has always been that one empty desk at the farthest corner of the classroom. It was a rickety small black desk that didn’t match any of the other student desks. Many kids had taken it upon themselves to trash the desk even further. Gum and tape stuck to the bottom of the desk and awful crude drawings covered the top. Only today, that desk was no longer empty. The kid occupying the desk was unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time. Nobody had seen him before, but he seemed to fit in with the classroom. His dark black hair covered his ...

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President Tree

Submitted to Contest #90

Disclaimer: Facts provided throughout this literary journal may or may not be true. Do not use to reference any relevant information regarding that of the beloved George Washington. Please enjoy! Saturday February 22, 1738 Garnets and looms do not cease to amaze me, yet, for reasons I cannot explain, my father’s cherry tree is where I write this. My sister Betty, my brothers and I have named him Robbie. The shade of Robbie’s leaves and ants along his rough bark delight me with the simple wonders that can never be explained. I had to contes...

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Tree Line

Submitted to Contest #90

I stood under its branches as they reached heavenward, the thick canopy of leaves soaking up the sun. I looked at my son standing opposite me, the limited light showing his face, dappled like leopard skin. This was our birthday ritual, to visit the oak tree as a family.  My grandfather had brought my father here every birthday morning for the whole of his life, as had his father. Then up until his accident, my father brought me too. Here I was, continuing the tradition with my son. Why the tree was held in such high esteem by my ancesto...

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The Grand Oak

Submitted to Contest #90

I’ve never seen a hotter summer than that one in 15 years. My clothes were clinging on with the sweat running down my face, back, and every single spot of my body that you can possibly think of. My clothes, all black, were not helping. The Grand Oak was the only source of shadow; however, no one wanted to stay under it because of the loop hanging down on one of its thick branches. “Do you have any last wishes?” the Priest asked. The man sitting on the ground with his hands tied in the back said nothing. “You killed two men. You stole. Yo...

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A Mighty Oak

Submitted to Contest #90

I’ve been standing in this exact same spot for over four hundred years. I am a mighty oak. I provide shade in the summer, food for animals in the autumn, oxygen for people and animals everywhere. I have stood sentinel before there were roads, before there were cities and towns, before there were buildings, before there was anything except the forest. I was once part of a vast, never-ending woodland. As far as the eye could see, there were trees. Not just oaks, but ash, birch, hickory and walnut trees. Everg...

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