FLASH FICTION WEEK 2025
First-Place
BY A. K. COTHAM
Previously published in MicroLit Almanac, July 2023. Copyright is held by the author.
THE GUIDE leads us to another tree, and this one is “unique in all the world,” he says. I wonder who else in our little group, besides you and me, knows that line from The Little Prince. The tree spreads away over our heads, casting welcome shade, but close up, we see it is two trees — a Douglas fir and a ponderosa pine — grown and curving together like waltzers.
The guide’s voice pitches in excitement as only an expert’s can when talking about their one true love as he explains how long ago, nobody knows when or how, these two species came together and now the world has this: one “pistol-butt” cylindrical pine trunk, curving close to the ground, and about a foot off the ground, what looks like a giant branch but is actually a slender, sturdy fir growing straight out of the pine’s bark. The trees bend away from each other in a distorted V, but never quite separate, since their canopies are so rich that their branches intertwine above our heads.
“It’s not grafted, it’s not a nurse tree, it’s not any of that,” the guide explains. He wants us to understand. He has never seen a tree like this before, and he’s seen a lot of trees. How does the fir acquire water, through the pine’s vascular system or through its own root system? Did the fir germinate in the pine’s bark, full of deep, protective fissures that can create such a home? “It’s such a special arrangement these two have,” he says.
I listen and take notes because I want to give him and these two trees, and all these trees — these gloriously and wildly leaning canopies, these stretching ligaments of bark — the respect they deserve. “I am in the presence of something special,” I write. I poke you and ask how to spell “ponderosa” because I can’t decide if it’s “-der” or “dor,” and you confirm, then gently also correct “germenate.”
You remember everything, even without notes. I’ve always admired that. The species of trees we’ve seen on this tour, the birds that roost in them, the bugs those birds eat. Facts upon facts are scribbled into my notebook with my increasingly wobbly handwriting, but they stay in your head with ease. How root systems talk to each other. The fish we saw yesterday in the river. The name of the river. The name of our guide.
Who now takes off his hat to wipe his brow and field questions from our small group. I turn to scratch the bark of the ponderosa, which we were told smells like vanilla, and it does.
“Careful, you might get a splinter,” you murmur.
“That’s OK,” I say, and it would be, because this waltz of trees is us, our bark and branches weaving and bending together, and this will bring both of us comfort when, someday soon, I become nothing but splinters.
***
A. K. Cotham lives in Northern California. Her fiction has appeared in places such as CommuterLit, MicroLit Almanac (the original publisher of “Autumn Canopy”), 50-Word Stories, Microfiction Mondays, Every Day Fiction, and Black Fox Literary Magazine. Two short stories have been performed by Sacramento Stories on Stage, and a piece won third place in, and earned a Pushcart Prize nomination for, Brilliant Flash Fiction’s 2022 writing contest. Her work is at akcotham.wordpress.com/.
Just love this story!