propagation
by Justis Ward
You haven’t slaved at anything until you’ve gripped your knotty, weathered stump and pulled, pulled, pulled so hard that your trunk creaks and groans under the strain. Pulled so hard that your branches tremble. Pulled so hard that your right foot bursts free from roots and soil and convention.
You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen your foot—your now-free foot—fit perfectly in the muddy mold of the walking trees. The trees with bark the color of almond shells.
You haven’t stared at anything until you’ve stared at your kin, a tree with bark the same color as the soil he came from, dash past you. Northbound. His eyes wide with fear and hope and destination.
He was a little tree with short limbs that swung like a storm was on top of him. Back and forth. Back and forth. And his feet did the same, floundering loud and clumsy across the wet earth.
But I’m not one to judge because at least he was running.
“Hey!” I yelled after him, tugging on my left stump still buried beneath the earth. “Hey! Where you going?”
I pulled and pulled—no different than I did on my right foot—but the roots and soil and convention clung tighter to me than before. They knew what I didn’t know. They knew what was coming. Who was coming.
Bang! A sound like thunder cracked and boomed from south of the grove. It pressed against our trunks with such force that the whole forest went silent.
The frame of the little tree jolted, and he fell to the ground, as if all his strength had left him at once. But even then, he struggled forward, still determined, still northbound, dragging his broken branches through mud and mire.
I wanted to help him. We all did, I think. But then we saw the walking trees, the ones with bark like almond shells. They’d come through our grove before. But never like this. Never with a collective wrath so fierce, so fiery, that I felt the need to pull back my leaves so that they didn’t catch aflame. And as the walking trees came, I thought not of the little tree, laid out flat in dirt and decay. No, I thought of myself and of my right foot, now uprooted, free, exposed.
But the walking trees didn’t pay me any attention. They marched past me, straight to the little tree, picked him up, and brought him back to the center of the grove.
First, they beat him. Right there in front of us. They wanted to know how he did it. How he got loose. How he learned to run. But he didn’t tell them. So, they cut branches from our canopies and whipped him. We all stood by silently. Pathetically. The whole grove. Just watching. Sap poured out of his trunk. Thick as nectar, red as cardinals.
But he didn’t say a thing.
The walking trees grumbled and spat something about “emancipation propagation” then angrily tied a rope around him.
Propagation.
They believed they knew his secret—our secret—and in ignorance, they threw the loose end of their rope up and over one of my branches.
You haven’t felt anything until you’ve felt prejudice grip a knotty, weathered rope and pull, pull, pull so hard that your trunk creaks and groans under the strain.
You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a little tree rise higher and higher and higher into the air. Seen him kicking wildly, still trying to run. Seen the walking trees secure their rope to your trunk and just walk away.
You haven’t stared at anything until you’ve stared at the uprooted, free, exposed body of your kin, swaying, swinging, hanging from one of your branches. Stared into the face of that little tree, his eyes wide with fear and death and desperation.
So don’t you judge me for putting my foot back in its hole.
You would’ve done the same.
Justis Ward
Justis Ward is a Georgia native whose writing, more often than not, speaks to the agonizing beauty of suffering. Justis has flash fiction and poetry forthcoming in Lullwater Review and Paper Dragon, and while he is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University, his next big project will be publishing a collection of poetic prose.