The Fallen Elder

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The Elder didn't fall to the ground. It fell into the forest, and the forest caught it.

The trunk crosses the road at a forty-five degree angle — massive, dark with age, moss-covered along its upper face — and extends west into the trees where, over a hundred yards away, it has come to rest in the split of another Elder Pine large enough to hold it. The two trees are locked together at that distance, the fallen one braced and still, as though it simply leaned and stayed.

The trunk itself is staggering up close. The bark is ridged and ancient, furrows deep enough to lose a hand in. Standing beneath it, the diameter overhead is beyond easy measure — ten men standing in a circle with arms outstretched could not reach around it. Moss covers the upper surface entirely. Ferns grow from the larger gaps where moisture has softened the wood over years of rain.

It did not fall recently. The trees around the impact zone have grown back toward it. Undergrowth has colonized the length of it. Whatever disturbed the forest when it came down has long since been absorbed. Only the tree remains — unchanged, unhurried, suspended between the moment it fell and the moment it finally reaches the ground.