“My Quiet Place” — FWG Flash Fiction for 5/24/2025

Having a quiet place to think is good, but only if you think things through.

The prompt is:

https://pixabay.com/photos/tree-bank-nature-resting-place-2923837

MY QUIET PLACE

I found my “Quiet Place” about twenty years ago. An idyllic garden with a not-so-comfortable bench surrounding an old live oak. I like it despite the bench having seemingly been made specifically to break one’s back, and the tree dropping pollen like a yellow rain. In fact, I like the spot for those very reasons, because they keep everyone one else in the neighborhood away. Like I said, it’s a quiet—and lonely—place.

So, imagine my dismay when I got here after a hectic week only to discover the tree bare and the bench smashed.

“Damn kids,” was my first thought. The Harper boys are always causing trouble. How could they kill the tree, though? Poison? Some invasive insect species? Then it came to me. It wasn’t the Harper boys on their own, it was their father behind it.

Old Man Harper is a developer infamous for clear-cutting forests to build ugly condo complexes. He’s had his eye on this beautiful garden for years, having petitioned the Town Council at least ten times to let him put up another of his hideous human hives. He was blocked every time because of the tree’s historical significance, though. Somebody or other was hanged from its branches centuries ago.

But, of course, if the tree is already dead, there’s no reason to protect the park. I bet he had his good-for-nothing sons sneak in at night and do his dirty work. The thought filled me with rage, and right then and there, I decided to fight back. Like Odysseus resisting the Sirens’ call, I chained myself to the tree and tossed the padlock key into the bushes.

That was five days ago. I guess I forgot that nobody but me ever comes here. Now I’m tired, hungry, and thirsty. So very thirsty…

THE END