redorange sunflower

a girl plants a tree. she waters it and lets it grow. small birds nest in it, and insects crawl on it. the sun shines on it, and the branches widen. there are no fruits but flowers fall sometimes in large-ish numbers when the wind blows. the girl reads under it, sleeping in the light of the sun low in the sky when tired. three times she shelters beneath the branches in rainstorms, confident that the tree will not let itself get struck by lightning. she buries a box of old secrets like a time capsule in the soil of its roots.

the girl is soon a woman. she is standing a little way off, next to a car with a man who is surveying the land. "This tree is obstructing the path of the proposed road," he says, checking his map. "And it's not marked on this chart."

"I don't know it either," she says.