Short stories +++

The Hill

So, here is my newest story. It was homework for my English class.

I'm not too happy with it, but decided to put it up anyway.

Hope you like it...

Votes and comments are appreciated ;)

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When I was a little child, my parents used to take me to a hill. We would walk over to the park and sit under a big ash tree. In Autumn the ash tree would always be the most colorful, without any rotten brown leaves, and in winter no other tree would be draped as elegantly in flowing, white snow. When spring came the leaves would be the greenest in the whole park, and in the summer time all the birds would be singing from the top branches in that tree.

I loved walking in the park, that was the one place I felt as though I was never alone. The trees were my companions, and the wind would walk with me, always whispering secrets or telling me about the wonders of the world.

Then after Christmas one year, the workers came. All over the town posters would hang, screaming about what was going to happen with my beautiful park. The blueprints were published. All the commotion died down as the idea made its way into people’s minds. No one wanted to save the park any more, no one except for a little child. I was the only person left that cared.

During the first weeks of January, builders set up their trucks and started filling my park with monsters. The real monsters that ate children’s fantasies and dreams.

When February came, the monsters came alive. They would puff steam and scream at the trees and animals. The only time they were still was at night. Night was when I would sneak out to talk to my trees and whisper to the wind. Snowflakes would swirl around me before softly landing on my nose. Winter would soon come to an end.

March was occupied with wet snow, squelching beneath the worker’s fat boots. The snow would splash everywhere when the monsters gnawed at the trees and ate the bushes and shrubs.

In April all the snow had melted and I would normally be playing in the park. Now the monsters were playing and my heart was melting. The monsters bit into the ground with such force that the whole park would shake. Luckily my big ash tree was still there and I could talk to it when the workers were not looking.

On the first of May the monsters moved to a different part of the park, and construction workers filled their places. They brought new monsters and started to flatten the earth. All the animals were gone and my only company was the big ash tree. I could still talk to it and the wind.

When the first day of June came, the construction workers were almost done flattening the first layer of my beloved park. More of them filed in every day, some moving on to the second layer. School ended meaning I had more time to spend in the little bit of park that was still open for public. My tree had not yet been cut down; it’s leaves flowing like green waves on the branches. The warm summer wind was softly blowing through my hair trying to comfort me.

In July the firs layer became completely finished, the walls poking up through the ground like knives. All that remained was paint. Local kids were hired to do street-art on the walls, I was among the lucky few. For the whole of July I worked on my part of a wall. I painted a tree with a girl sitting under it. The wildlife growing around them, looking like a perfect memory from my childhood.

School started again in the middle of August, but I kept working on my painting in my spare time. Now the second layer was almost finished and people had started to move things into the first layer. It was supposed to be a mixture between a rock avenue and a skate-park.

“Wake me up when September ends” by Green day was the first song to be blasted through the speakers in the first layer, ‘Sk8ers Paradise’, when it officially opened in September. While work was still continuing on the second layer, there were wild parties and competitions in ‘Sk8ers Paradise’.

On the fourth of October they invited bands to play for the grand-opening concert of layer two, ‘The Music Workshop’. There were a lot of good bands and street-artists from all over came to check out the new walls designated to them. People moved in old furniture, making a fun and welcoming environment perfect for rock ‘n roll.

In November it started to snow, a lot. School was busy and the new hall was constantly used for competitions for skaters and rock-concerts for bands who wanted to get famous and needed a place to start. The snow slowed everything down, not as many people were coming as there had been in the autumn. At ‘Sk8ers Paradise’ there was a continuous beat, leaving old people and parents aggravated and annoyed.

December showed up faster than expected. The year had gone by faster than I would have thought. All the complaints from people living near the former park had ended in that there were no more speakers in ‘Sk8ers Paradise’, but people would still bring their own music. The bands in ‘The Music Workshop’ were becoming regulars, not only gaining fans, but popularity. All in all everything had worked out fine, but I always had the feeling something was missing.

One day when I was walking in the deep snow, I came across a familiar sight. I saw a tree covered in snow and icicles, looking like it came straight out of a fairy-tale. It was my ash tree.

That day I sat under the comforting and welcoming branches of my tree and listened to the wind. It told me stories of far-away countries, but I only really listened when the whispers told of the secrets in my own town.

As I sat under my tree, I realized that it had slipped more and more out of my life. Then I realized that old friends can leave your life for a while, but can never fully be replaced. There will always be a little part of you that remembers that true friend, and that part of you will always lead you back to where that friend is.