The Rickety Old Tree House

The Rickety Old Tree House

"But the tree house doesn't go with the design for the backyard, Dad." I'm trying to convince my father to get rid of the tree house for our home's renovations.

"No! Son, just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there!" He keeps on answering. "Build around it!"

"We can't build around it, Dad. It's too ugly."

"Take it down when I'm dead. You won't have to wait long. I'm an old man. I'll die pretty soon."

So be it. I let it go his way. I don't know why he wants to keep that tree house. Its planks of wood are infested with termites; they crunch when you step on them. The paint has peeled off and it's replaced by thick green moss that hangs from the roof. I'm sure that it will only take a strong gust to take it down but, no, it stays up there. When I look at it, I feel more exhausted than I already am. The thing is tired, rickety and old but it persists.

Every time when I get home, that's usually at around five and the sun is setting, I would catch Dad, staring out through the window in the kitchen that overlooks the backyard. I would catch him smiling at the tree house as the sun sets behind it. The fading orange rays of the sun shines into his eyes, making those conjured tears glisten. I would watch him gasp a little, as if the first part of a sob, and he would cover his mouth with a quivery hand. The tears would fall right before he'll see me and he would wipe them away, grin and proceed to prepare dinner.

A few weeks passed by and Dad was right. He did die pretty soon. I manage the funeral and the whatnot's. I was sad, at first. But then, I already saw it coming. He was an old man after all.

And in the terms he stated a few weeks back, I sign the papers to jumpstart the renovations. The very next day, several areas of the house, those that won't stand for much longer, is taken down to make room for the renovations. And in the afternoon, the renovators picked it last since the backyard was the last to be improved, they plan to take down the tree house.

"I'll do it myself." I put out my hand, asking for the sledgehammer that the renovators have brought to tear the tree house apart.

I climb up the tree house's creaky stairs with the sledgehammer slung across my shoulder. I look around trying to decide where to start wrecking things. Which one of the parallel windows shall I sledgehammer first? I pick the one where the sun isn't shining in. I pick the one where the sun is shining out of, the one overlooking the house. I stroll over to it and raise my sledgehammer up high. But something won't let me bring the hammer down.

Something in the way the sunlight shines through that seems awfully familiar.

I look out the window and down to the house.

Dad is by the kitchen window, twenty-five years younger, beckoning me inside the house. "Come down from there, Michael! It's dinnertime!" He calls out.

"Haha!" I say, putting my fists to my waist. With the sun exactly behind me, my shadow is casted all over the backyard. "I will not leave my fort! No one can make me!"

"Are you gonna make me come and get you again?" He asks but I don't answer. "Gosh, you are, aren't you?" Seconds later, he comes out bustling through the backdoor, a shirt tied around his neck, an improvised cape. "It is I," he says in a funny voice, "the taker of children who refuse to come down from their fort!" He makes whooshing sounds, running around the backyard before climbing up the tree house's stairs.

He will go for me but I'm armed with an aluminium covered carton sword. He tries to get me but I slap my sword across his face with a victorious laughs. We just play there until the sun finally goes down.

I can't bring the sledgehammer down. Not now. Not ever. Is this what Dad sees during those afternoons? It is. It definitely is.

I get down from my fort and return the sledgehammer to the renovator. "What about the tree house?" he asks.

"The fort stays. We build around it."