Cut Down

stump

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Emory heard that you could tell how old a tree is by the number of rings in its trunk. He had no idea how to figure the age of the stump in front of his place. The city had ordered the beautiful shade tree cut down because it was a hazard.

Pity. He used to sit underneath it with his grandchildren and read to them. He played hide-and-go-seek with them behind it by never quite hiding. It had been his harbinger of winter and his herald of spring.

Now, like him, it was just a broken relic of the past.

It’s Wednesday and time again to participate in Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 25 July 2025 edition of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

I feel fine, but since today is my 71st birthday, I thought I’d write something about aging. Since the tree stump looks so sad, that’s where the muse led me.

To read other tales based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.

far futures

Cover art for “Far Futures: Book Four”

My crime noir short story “Last Wish of a Dead Man” is now available in the Raconteur Press anthology Dames, Derringers and Detectives: Moggie Noir. The story requirements included a hard-boiled detective, a murder, and especially a cat. The third in my “Margie Potter: Haunted Detective” series made the cut.

Also, my horror short story “Haunting Chloe” is now available in the ghost story anthology Haunted Places (universal link) by Blackbird Publishing. Pick up a copy of each, give them a read, and don’t forget to leave honest reviews at Amazon and Goodreads.

Additionally, my short story “Awash On Titan’s Shores” was accepted into the “Far Futures: Book Four” anthology, to be published this coming December.

The same publisher included my short story “Confluence” in Book Three of that series last year.

37 thoughts on “Cut Down”

  1. I, too, was saddened by the image of a tree trunk that you used for a drabble. I feel about such deadwood as if a human body were left unburied and on display. If the tree was a hazard that could not be left standing because it had been killed and could do harm by falling, then complete its removal by digging it out, perhaps to plant another in its place.

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  2. For some reason, the comments editor froze before I could finish adjusting the text I was formulating. Thankfully, I had essentially completed one thought. But, had I been able to continue, I would have added my wish for your happy 71rst birthday.

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  12. Happy Birthday, James! A sad and true story. We get old, and our houses, gardens, trees, do too. It’s a reminder that nothing lasts.

    But stumps, left alone, make great homes for insects and other critters, fascinating fungi, mosses, and a lot of life on the seemingly dead wood. And eventually other saplings will sprout there.

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  18. I agree, that having grown with a tree, you can create fondness normally associated between humans and their pets. Grief for an old friend is very real in this case as the tree is part of their life stories.

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