Restoring a Giant – Flash Fiction Challenge

/ JoHawkTheWriter

Title: Restoring a Giant
Source:  Flash Fiction Challenge
Prompt: Write a story that goes in search of trees.
Word count:  99 words

The forest of Laurel’s childhood was gone. She remembered great stands of the mighty American Chestnut tree, which grew nearly one hundred feet tall with trunks ten feet in diameter. It was once the most common hardwood tree in the Northeastern United States. The tree’s wood was rot-resistant, straight-grained, and it produced nuts that fed cattle, hogs and other wildlife. Laurel remembered eating roasted chestnuts every fall.

A tree that had survived for 40 million years, disappeared in 40, destroyed by the chestnut blight. Her children worked to restore a forest they had never seen and could only imagine.

*** To learn more about restoration efforts, check out The American Chestnut Foundation (here).
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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

13 thoughts on “Restoring a Giant – Flash Fiction Challenge”

  1. a forest they had never seen – that was heartbreaking. I imagine this is our sad future, where the next generation sees trees in books and media files.

    Liked by 1 person

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