Prompt: That is 'not' peanut butter.

Jillian sat under the red leaves of the huge maple that sat in the middle of the field. It was a very peculiar field, because all it contained was a crab grass, a multitude of gnats, and the tree. It was also very peculiar in the way that the tree would often speak to Jillian.

What are you eating, child? The soft voice of Mother Nora cooed from deep inside her trunk. Jillian had spread a blanket down over the sharp, crisp grass. “Ma made a picnic. She said to bring it here,” Jillian said, her green eyes impish and playful. Oh? Nora seemed to notice that Jillian was not telling her everything. Lordy be, she lived on this acre of land for how many years now? Fifty? A hundred? No one really knew how old the old maple was, but she was still as sharp as she was in her youth.

“Well….okay. Ma only helped me make the lunch,” Jillian said; “But Lukas is meeting me here for the picnic, not Ma. I have it all planned out, Nora,” but the tree would not listen.

I dislike Lukas, she mused. He tried to carve his initials on me. “Oh, Nora; he was going to put my initials in there, too!” Does that matter? Her voice boomed inside the girl’s head now. “Well, yea! It means you will remember us forever!” Jillian started to place china plates down on the blanket, opening up her picinic basket and preparing her meal.

I do not need to be humiliated and painfully tattooed for all eternity, Nora said, her leaves flapping in the coming wind, to remember a young boy’s rudeness and the lusting of some human girl. Jillian looked up at the tree, wondering what her face would look like if she had one; especially now, in her moment of spite. You don’t think I’ll remember you, child? I have had people put nails in me, and a man died once, down at my roots! You think I forget about them, child? Jillian began to quiver. She didn’t understand what was wrong with Nora; Every bird who dropped an egg out of its nest, in my branches--do you think I never mourned their loss?

Jillian stood up, fists at her sides. “Mother Nora! You’re terrible rude! Lukas will be here any minute now! Ma made almond butter sandwiches. She even used real peanut butter to make it thick! I worked hard on this picnic. I want to eat my sandwiches in peace!”

I suggest you eat under another tree, little Jillian; and Nora looked all twenty-five feet of trunk then; Because what you eat isn’t peanut butter. It’s a sandwich made of false impressions. You, you go fall in love! You go destroy a different tree, for the sake of your own longings! Go from me. I need time alone. The wind took her red leaves, now, and pushed them up in the sky. Before they began to fall to the ground, Jillian had left, her blanket, peanut-butter sandwiches, and china dishes left behind, forgotten.

Good, Nora said. A storm is coming, anyway. What a day for a picnic. Oh, what have I done?A leaf fell, landing on top of the whicker basket, and Nora felt completely, helplessly, alone.

It was the first time she had felt alone in a century.