The grot

Broken swollen soaring feat, searing feet souring fate, trying yet dying to neither the less or to forever remain never.

When I was about 11 I found an acorn on the side of the road. I picked it up and took it home. I planted it an inch down in a pot of moist peat to germinate it as my recently dead grandfather had taught me.

When it sprouted I moved it to a bigger pot. I had a little note book and measured its height and leaf growth. After a month or so it was a sapling – I had nurtured to life an incredible living thing, something that could last a thousand years.

After 2 months it was 4 ½ inches tall and had 6 perfectly formed, light green, trembling oak leaves.

Then I stopped watering it.

One by one the leaves curled up to a crisp brown. The embryo trunk dried to a kindling stick. I left the dead tree in its pot for a month. Then I pulled it out and threw it out of the window. It hit the ground not too distant from where I had found the acorn.

Looking back I only remember one thing about my grandfather’s funeral.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel like it – everyone was weeping. I was in a world of my own, distant away from everyone else’s misery.

Apparently I was too young to understand. Apparently not caring about death means you don’t understand it.