Match Sticks

Tuesday night

Match Sticks

Cold December still sky offers a single shooting star as I walk out the door and sit on my favorite deck chair. By now I have learned not to sit and wait for another. One is fine enough for inspiration and to wait for another would be like flipping a coin until it finally landed on its ridged edge. Standing impossibly.

The evergreens stand, as they always have, with their full compliment of needles. They find no need to change with the seasons. But those other trees, they have been blown to skeletons by the recent fall winds and now stand like match stick landscapes.

They are the true artists. They create, flourish, die and do it all again each year. They have no fear of the unknown. While the evergreen holds its ground and sees the world around itself in turmoil. "Not me." she insists. "I shall remain this shape. I shall remain this color. I choose certainty over hope."

And hopeless it seems for months on end. These once leafy trees stand like match sticks with no striker. Birds use them to rest briefly but, finding no food, move on. "Silly tree!" thinks the evergreen. "You have given up your greatest quality and stand dead in the ground." Who could ever love you knowing that you will be bare and cold?"

The fir reassures herself. Surely this is a better life. She knows what tomorrow brings. She is safe. She breathes in the winter storms without fear. She is covered in snow which only serves to insulate her from the cold. What could that match stick tree possibly do to protect itself? She imagines such a tree will be easy prey for wind and the axe. Probably destined to spend the next year curing under a tarp next to a house miles away from here until her bones are dry enough to be burned, slowly, one at a time, until she is no longer. Remembered simply as something to stave off the cold during some future winter storm.

The fir has written the story of her life as a rough draft. Never to be edited.

And then, Spring. The match stick landscape and the striker are reunited. Life begins again and the daring artist is reborn. Chance taken. Coin flipped and landing, impossibly, on its ridged edge.

Reviews

[Myra Fellows]

Really cool observations. I imagine you do sit on the deck having these thoughts. Interesting that the trees are "shes" in this current climate. Seems perfectly fine to me. My car and my boat are both strong women.
I thought of the leaves as clothing-like a fashionista. The evergreen wearing the same boring sweater with some dumb embroidery. Shabby. Blah.
I was there on the deck listening-and that is a true mark of a great story.

[Phillip W Parsons]

Thank your, Myra! Such a thoughtful review. When I decided on a writing site (writerscafe) and tried to open an account, I found that I had already started one years before. The only story on it...
Match Sticks.
I barely remembered writing it.