A Boy And His Grandfather

• Hannah Smith, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2014

2024
When I was a child my grandfather and I would walk through the forest, every morning and every night. He told me how walking through the forest would help me grow taller. I was a short child and that is why I would walk through the forest hoping one day I would be as tall as the trees. But now they are gone.
I was still young when my grandfather started getting sick, too sick even to walk through the forest with me. I told him that if the trees could make me taller then maybe they could make him stronger. He would smile and give a half-hearted chuckle, but I knew he wouldn’t come. I continued my walks through the forest but it wasn’t the same. It was a sad and sorrowful walk now.
As my grandfather’s health worsened I began to feel his pain too. The only reason I went on my walks was because, although it saddened me, it also reminded me of happier times. All life started to leave my grandfather’s sorrowful face; he became pale and his hands cold. My grandfather was slipping away.
The days started to grow longer and my grandfather was not going to get better. I spent my days with him trying to grasp every last second I could with him. Except….except in the mornings and the evenings when I would go out and silently walk through the forests.
I’m not a very observant person but through my long and lonely wanderings I realised something, something no one else had ever noticed. If I didn’t know any different I would have said that the trees were dying. At first it was just a hunch, but as the days went by I realised that they were in fact dying. Then I realised something, the worse my grandfather got the more the trees wilted. What would happen when my grandfather’s time came? What would happen to the trees?
2025
Then it happened. My grandfather left the earth. That day was a sad day for me, but a dreaded day for the world. Not only had I lost my grandfather but the trees had all died, not just the trees I walked among but all trees across the world. Now, for generations to come, no-one will ever know how and why the trees died.
2045
I am older now with children of my own, they often ask me what happened to the trees and I tell them my story, the tale of the boy and his grandfather.