Two Week Writing Challenge - Day 3
3. Dancing: Who’s dancing and why are they tapping those toes?
The Windson Tree
It took three days for the conquerors of Windson to slaughter every last native. On the third day, when the streets were wet with blood and the stench of burnt flesh permeated the air, a little sapling grew from the red stained earth. As years passed the sapling grew and grew until it was a thick trunked tree. The tree was the color of ash and it never borne fruit nor leaves, no matter the season. For years, this remained so.
On Charlie’s tenth birthday, he walked toward the tree. He stopped at the base where the thick roots curved up from the earth and the dead yellow grass sprouted. He pressed his palms to the tree’s trunk and found that the cracked bark was cool to the touch. He tilted his head up and saw a ruby red apple dangling from one gnarled branch. Charlie raised one hand so that the very tips of his fingers could graze the bottom of the brilliant colored fruit. In that moment, just as his fingers met the skin of the fruit, Charlie left his world and entered a new.
This new world was made almost entirely of shadows. From the shadows emerged three pale, long-limbed nymphs. They pirouetted on the tips of their toes and fluttered their arms in elegant arches. Their ribs were visible through the thin stretch of translucent skin and their cheeks hollow. Their eyes were gouged out from their sockets. The depth of the black empty pits was endless. Hypnotized, Charlie watched these skeletal creatures dance, ignorant of his terrible fate. For no child left the Land of Shadows once touching the fruit of the Windson Tree.
