//------------------------------//
// Chapter 24 
// Story: The Only Tree in the Forest 
// by Hap 
//------------------------------//

She hasn’t come back. Not in half a century.

There have been foals who came inside and borrowed books. Young ponies who threw books from my shelves, and others who clucked and sighed and put them back. Old, creaky ponies who lightened my shelves by one book, and sat for a time before replacing it and finding their way out.

The town has grown, and new trees have sprouted up. They have a hard time believing that there was ever a forest here. Though they are nearly fully grown, I still call them each “sapling.” 

Ponies like to sit in their shade and talk, or sip their drinks, or chase each other and laugh. I seems odd that I feel more connection to the ponies than the other trees. But it occurs to me that I have been around ponies for more of my life than I have been around other trees. I watch the ponies grow. I watch the town grow. I watch the trees grow.

But I do not grow. I am frozen where I am, neither rotting nor growing. Just… waiting.

Waiting for what? I do not know. But I wait.