A Little Tree in the Desert

Somewhere deep in the middle of the desert, a seed started to sprout. As the wind blew layers of red sand across the earth, as the sun beat down hard, as the rain failed to show itself again and again, the little seedling reached tentatively above the surface, feeling the first shock of hot air. The days wore on. The seedling grew, dancing in the wind, soaking up the sun, feeling its tender edges rubbed raw and smooth by the constant battering of sand.

Its slender body developed a thick crust of skin. It grew arms, and more arms, and on those arms sprouted fingers, and tiny flecks of green leaves. The leaves absorbed the sun’s rays, passing heat and light and nutrients down through the trunk, into the roots that stretched far down into the cool earth, so deep they had found water. In turn, the roots passed this water upwards and outwards to every fingertip, every leaf, until the tree grew so tall it felt as if it must have a view of the entire desert, and that this desert was the whole world.

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