Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
One of the Facebook groups I am on posts a weekly prompt – genre and words – to which one is to write a short opening paragraph as would fit into a Facebook comment area. This week’s challenge was: Genre – Either romance OR horror; “The tree grew tall.”
The tree had been watered by the blood of patriots long ago. Its roots were entangled with buckshot and cannon balls. Fifty years later, when its limbs had regrown strong and round, people decorated it with Strange Fruit. The ropes remained long after the bones had fallen into the leaf mulch below. Yesterday, a family had hid in among its ground cover ferns and blackberries only to be pulled out by immigration agents and beaten before being taken away. The tree had had enough.
(Words 84; first published 7/10/2026)
The tree had enough? Uh oh… No one should make a tree an enemy.