Jones tree
Jones is exhausted after school.
Beneath his bright, yellow backpack he wobbles up the street.
So small beneath his outsized potential.
He scans the horizon for the ice cream truck but it is not there. Like the brave warrior he is, he brushes this disappointment aside. He will show me his tree, his favourite tree.
It’s the third one.
He runs to the tree like a long lost relative, throws his arms around it. Can you remember the last time you did that? That something in this world struck you with such urgency you had to run to it? Not out of obligation, but passion. You burned for it. Not a second could be wasted. You just dropped everything and ran toward this light the future cast back to you.
I ask Jones what the tree’s name is.
“Paper.”
Sometimes his is such a small, unpredictable voice.
We talk to Paper for a little bit, and then Jones kisses him goodbye and we continue home. There is a giant stick. Things in a box. A white dog with crazy eyes. A university student speeding powerfully by on her skateboard. A truck that looked like the ice cream truck but was not. Another dog. A squirrel who made eye contact and then disappeared into a trash can.
These children, they give so much of themselves. Everything they have. Nothing held back.
And Jones is tired. He sits on the sidewalk, turns his attention to the ants. So many tiny ants. He marvels as they vanish underground and then reappear, each one the same, each one different, each one on a mysterious and dangerous journey upon which much depends.
