The Walnut Tree
It was a cloudy day when I walked up the hill to the mother tree.
She was struck by lightening some fifty years ago and bared a scar straight down the trunk.
Her fruit, often seen as a nuisance, had fallen. Walnuts rested around the base, some scattered down the hill. I could smell the distinct bitterness of the tree coming up the hill.
I picked up one of the fallen fruits. Once green on the branch, was now black and decaying on the ground. Needn’t to discard the fallen, I knew the heart was still good.
I began tearing away the husk with my bare hands. The oils stained my finger tips brown. My fingernails darkened from clawing away the peel.
The smell of it—so bitter, so pervasive.
Once I reached the shell, I thought about how I was going to break it open. I could do as the crows do: toss it in a street and wait for car to run it over. But a car wouldn’t pass by here for miles.
I carried the nut back to the shed, rattling it next to my ear. Once inside, I sifted through the landscaping tools. A hammer would do.
I cranked my arm back and in one swift whack, the head struck down on the nut directly on the pavement. The shell shattered into many pieces, splinter off around the meat of the fruit inside.
As I pulled apart the fragments, a few jagged edges bit into my fingertips. There’s nothing sharper than a walnut shell. It’s almost as if it doesn’t want you to get inside.
When I pulled out the heart of the nut, now stained in my blood and the oils from its own cage, I devoured it.
It was bitter, earthy. All that in one bite. I’d need ten more to get any real sustenance. And yet,
I wandered back up the hill to the old walnut tree.
