Coward

It was just a pear tree. A simple, old pear tree. Beautiful, still sitting in its same spot. The fruit, still delicious every year. I could see it from my window. And every year, it broke my heart.

I’d killed her. I’d killed that girl under that pear tree. What’s more, I’d gotten away with it. “Suicide”, they’d said. But the pear tree speaks a different language. One that only I can hear when it cries at night as the wind barrels through it.

She was 20. I don’t know what it was that attracted me to her. She was awkward and visually plain; short with brown eyes, and dark brown hair that was either in a bun or ponytail. She was wasn’t what you would’ve called “a looker”, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.

Me? Just an average “joe”, except my name is Andy. I’m an introvert; what most refer to as “weird” and “isolated”. It’s true though, I can’t stand public settings. Truthfully, I just can’t stand other humans. Mostly, I enjoy my solitude. But when I see her, even from my window, I feel a strange, overwhelming need to be near her, to fill a void of loneliness I didn’t even know I had.

That day I’d been contemplating suicide. But over the years I’d learned that I was just a coward. She never spoke to me. But only because I never looked up if she was nearby.

By nightfall, I was drunk and stumbling home. I’d been trying to convince myself that today was the day. Today I’d sleep; tomorrow would begin with the stillness and complete silence of my breath, my heart, my being. And it would be that way forever. This time, I wouldn’t be a coward.

As I approached my drive I noticed the girl was sitting under the pear tree, unconscious. Well I thought she was unconscious. I fell hard to my knees and the sound of the thud spooked her awake. She screamed and jumped to her feet; all I could think to do was push her. Hard. Suddenly, she was limp and sliding down the tree. I was confused, scared, drunk. A coward.

I ran to my house and grabbed some rope I’d been saving for me. In the front of her house was a patio chair. Once the knot was ready and the chair in place, I hoisted her over my shoulder and slipped the noose around her neck. As I stood behind her, holding her up and slowly lowering her body, the rope started to tighten and I felt her body tense up. Before I could kick the chair, she woke up.

I fell backwards and watched as the chair fell and she began to panic, frantically pulling at the rope around her neck. I’d tried to cover up a murder. Only I hadn’t murdered her when she hit the pear tree; she’d only been sleeping when I approached her. But I’d been too drunk and panicked to even think of all that.

She kept struggling. And I just sat there and watched until she finally stopped moving. Her body just swaying from side to side and her face, frozen and ugly. Lifeless. And that damn pear tree had witnessed everything.

The next morning I heard the sirens blaring and the muttered, scattered voices in the crowd. And then, the sobbing, searing sound of a woman who’s just lost her child. The one the pear tree has trapped in it roots and bound to its energy.

I should have told them. I should have confessed. But I’m just, a coward.