Money Tree

There are always spaces in the world that go unnoticed, little areas marked off by the arrangement of houses or the arbitrary division of land. One such place existed between the playground of an elementary school and the backyards of several townhomes on the edge of a neighborhood. Two fences ran the length of this border, one of light wood, the other of dark, but both six feet high and topped with sharp diamond edges. Near the school, these fences rub shoulders and allowed for no small children to lodge themselves in between. But as the playground curved around toward the East and the neighborhood in the opposite direction, a space opened up between the fences; a dark space hidden from the world.

Trees grew along the playground side of the fence, climbing high enough to hide the houses from the children and the children from the houses. Seeds fell and landed around the row of trees, spawning little saplings that were happily destroyed by the children at play. But one of these seeds fell in just a certain way, caught a certain amount of wind, and ended up in the small space between the fences, not three feet wide. There it grew undisturbed, a tree of white bark, until finally it pushed at the walls of its mutilated kin and grew no more. It watched the seasons pass, watched the world grow up around it. It even saw Jenny and Robert walk onto the playground that night.

They stood by the swings for a while, held hands as they walked under the monkey bars. Words and kisses were exchanged, until Robert waved goodbye and walked off in the direction of the school. And so this is how we find Jenny, lost in the afterlust of her nightly encounter with Robert, eager to get home, out of the cold, into the warmth of her bed, to diddle away the butterflies in her stomach.