THE SYCAMORE TREE

The sky blacked out. It began to rain, but he didn’t move. Bigger droplets and more of them fell ever faster. So, it rained harder upon him as he stood in front of his father’s grave. The stone darkened in seconds, even quicker than his clothes. The big sycamore beckoned him. It beckoned him and it offered him many minutes of shelter beneath thick green leaves. He briefly considered this offer. It was a kind offer with no strings attached, but he graciously declined. Partly, he declined because he was soaked by the rain, but mostly he declined because he wanted to remember his father, and he required continuity of thought to achieve this. His father had died twenty-nine years ago. He was now thirty-eight. He was beginning to forget what his father had looked like; this saddened him deeply, but it was an inevitable fact of life, memory, and ageing. For the rest of his life, memories of his father continued to blur, despite this visit. On his deathbed though, he remembered his father with a vivid and wonderful clarity, and he took this memory into the next life, assuming there was such a thing.

©Dan McNeil 2004.