A boy sat down beside me where I stood. “Thanks for the shade,” he sighed as he leaned against me. The back of his baseball cap brushed against me and fell to the ground. And there we sat. No words were exchanged. I think he fell asleep, but I can’t say for sure. After an unknown amount of time, he grabbed his hat, hit his leg with it a few times, and placed it on his head.

“Okay, bye now,” he stated, standing up and walking away. His red and white plaid shirt faded into a blur in the distance as his khaki pants almost made him look half-nude. Then, he vanished from sight completely.

Weeks had passed and he found me again after a baseball bounced in my direction. It missed, but just by a few inches. Just as the last time I saw him, he sat down and leaned against me. “Thanks again.” What about the ball? I thought he was chasing the ball, but it still sat where it stopped. Where did this boy come from? Was there a baseball field nearby?

“Jack!” An older man – probably his father – came running toward him just a minute later. He leaned over and grabbed the ball. He exchanged some words with the boy, Jack, and then sat next to him. The man patted him on the back after a minute, then they both stood up and walked away. Jack forgot his hat this time.

That afternoon, clouds started to accumulate in the sky. Greyish shrooms of anger hovered overhead and scattered billowing white fluffs skyrocketed towards the sky. Jack returned back to me and sat down just as thunder emanated from the grey sky. He grabbed his hat and placed it on his head. “I better wait here until this thing passes,” he murmured to himself as the rain began to sprinkle. Lightning began to strike the fields around me. Then, I felt a sudden shock of light ripped through the middle of me followed by the sound of the sound of an explosion. Boom! The heat was so hot that it split me into pieces, causing parts of my trunk to shred into large shards of death. One of the shreds was shaped like a knife the size of the older man that followed Jack, and it fell right onto Jack’s head. He was instantly killed.