Joshua Triezenberg

Bloody Charlie

The smell of a freshly cut tree on any other day would not have smelled so splendid. It was well worth time, as it’s recently cut limbs and breathless leaves rustled one last time in the moonlit autumn breeze. Sap oozed from the bare stump like blood from a wound that, if given quick, and proper, treatment, may allow you to live on with scarred remembrance. This tree lying flat on the front lawn had been an eye sore since the day my wife and I had moved in. The branches, long been dead, rapping on the window pane in the wind like an uninvited visitor constantly begging to be let in. Frankly it gave me the creeps and to say that my wife was any more a fan than me would be the greatest understatement. That’s why I chopped it down.