THE WEIRD TREE

I saw a weird-looking tree today. It was caught in the security lamps lighting up the car park; they made it look eerie in the dark.

The tree was about thirty feet tall but clearly had once been much taller. Half-way up the trunk, in one clean swipe, it had been lopped off in its prime; instead of a crown of leaves and twigs, it just had a square, flat top.

I don't know much about tree surgery, but there would have had to have been a reason why someone chainsawed a tree half-way up its trunk. There were branches, even with leaves, lower down, sticking out like spindly arms. Just like every other tree, the branches got shorter as the trunk rose into the night sky, and then abruptly stopped.

I stood there looking at the tree for a while. I watched my breath expand into the cool night air - a fine vapour twirling and disappearing into the darkness. Then I reached into my pocket, fished out my phone to take a photo... and found it had run out of battery.

It's bugging me a bit. Why was that tree not allowed to reach its potential? Why was it only allowed to be half a tree? Do people even notice that kind of thing, or do they just park their cars, bleep them locked and crunch off over the gravel? Was it unsafe, the tree? Could it have fallen on vehicles in a sudden gust of wind? Why not remove it altogether? Why keep it locked in the humiliation of only ever having got to the half-way mark?

-

The wedding was great. Everything went according to plan I think, and the whole thing was a perfectly elegant and eloquent reflection of Megan and Adam, which is just about how it should be. They are such lovely people. Of course, as is always the way with these things, there was always going to be someone with something to say in my ear:

"Could be you next year, Matt."

"Oh I doubt that somehow," I replied, sadly. "Seems quite unlikely."

"Well, you never know."

 I stared at the fireplace thinking about how I don't want to get into that conversation again, thank you very much.

-

Does the tree care about safety? It was made to grow, wasn't it, and it was here long before cars were. It seemed a bit ridiculous, standing there in the soft lamplight. How tall could it have been, I wondered, if it had made it - if it had got there?

I'm always wondering things like that.