Writing Prompt: The tree stood tall and proud.

Morning all. Quiet morning today. No sign of Darnell chasing anything. Although how any creature could run in this heat I do not know. The humidity keeps ratcheting up so I am sure we will have rain soon enough. Mostly because I don’t think the air can actually hold much more moisture before it just becomes too heavy to count as air. Admittedly that could only translate into a five minute spell where the air off loads just enough moisture to be a gas again but I have my fingers crossed for more. For now though, I will uncross them for the morning prompt. Hard to type with crossed fingers. So timers set and lets get started.

I don’t know where this is going, but I like the scene set up. I need to think more about Christopher and what sort of harrowing situations I can put him in. But it is interesting enough to think about. At least for me.

Wednesday, July 17^th: The tree stood tall and proud.

The tree stood tall and proud.  It was at least a hundred years old.  Tests confirmed it.  Christopher was fairly certain that was why they left it in place.  Once the tree was part of a vast forest.  Now it stood alone, the area around it scraped back to bare earth.

‘Well not entirely bae any more,’ he thought.  It had been completely bare the last time he visited.  Shockingly so.  Now the landscape featured the various rectangles that were the foundations to the new houses that would form the center of this subdivision. The streets were laid out, the gas mains, water pipes and fiber optics needed already in place.  The electric wires were buried as well instead of being strong through the sky on poles. 

Someone told him it was done to keep from ruining the aesthetics of the place.  As the gentle rolling hills were scraped flat for foundation building when the trees were harvested, Christopher had a hard time with the concept. The houses were going up fast.  Now that the foundations were laid and the concrete cured, the other materials were being brought in. 

He could see one of the large trucks laden with timber passing by the newly erected sign at the edge of the subdivision.  As it turned it narrowly missed taking out the sign that read Hundred Oaks Community, Coming Soon. There was a picture of the tree they left standing drawn on the sign and a price range for the houses listed below. 

Turning away, Christopher looked at the tree.   Looking at it he could see it had been given its own little island amid the concrete.  Because they leveled the ground around it, the tree had its own small hill on which to stand.  The streets all curved around it.  There was plenty of space so the tree was not crowded.  it was not like the tiny little saplings in small squares of earth one found lining sidewalks in some places. Someone had take the time to make sure it’s root system was protected. 

It still looked strange to him.  He had been in communities with names like River Run where there was no river in sight or Woodland Park where there was neither a woodland nor a park in sight.  Staring at the tree standing alone he wondered which was worse; eliminating the feature you named the area for or sequestering it like a museum exhibit.  He couldn’t decide. 

‘And it isn’t my call to make,’ he thought.  He strolled forward, his camera slung around his neck as he looked for the shots he needed while staying out of the way of the construction site.  He was here to take photographs for the company website.  While he would be sent back once the houses were built and the area around them landscaped, they wanted a few construction sites and many images featuring the tree they left behind.