Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil
A True Story

It wasn’t a usual morning. Our teacher hadn’t shown up yet and a bunch of the girls in the class were missing.
“What happened?” I asked my friend Mike.
“You didn’t hear? Anthony, a kid from second grade, got hit by a car last night. Flew something like fifty yards. Poor kid, died when he hit the ground”
“What, where?”
“By the ice cream shop. He was with his family and they were biking and he tried to cross the street at the wrong time. Got goddamn blindsided.”
“Jesus. Jesus…Where are the girls then?”
“In the classroom by the end of the hall.”
“And the teacher?”
“All the teachers had to stay in the principles office.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s about this.”
I got up and put my book bag underneath the chair and looked down the hallway each side. No one was coming. I walked out of the sixth grade classroom and down the hall to the stairway. As I passed I heard girls crying. I walked to the stairwell and stopped for a few seconds. I was deciding if I wanted to walk back past that room and hear it again, or take the long way. I decided to walk back the short way on the off chance the teacher came by and wondered what I was doing. It was doubtful given my classroom antics that they’d chalk up my leaving to being upset.
It’s amazing how they stereotyped us as children.
As I walked back I saw the most popular girl Penelope crying in the back of the room surrounded by the other girls as they all hugged each other and wept.
It wasn’t sadness that overtook me. I was more off put. What were we going to do now? Plus, nothing like this had happened before. I walked back into the classroom and sat next to Mike.
“What did this kid look like?”
“Well, he was short, kinda pudgy. Had real short light blonde hair…I don’t know, he looked like a kid.”
“Christ, and he was at the ice cream shop last night? Which one?”
“Chips.”
So I had seen him. I was at Chips with my parents getting burgers and ice cream. I remember seeing a kid I recognized and I put my ice cream all over my mouth and made a stupid face at him. He didn’t laugh or anything. He was on his bike and he had his helmet and pads on and everything. His parents were there too. They were getting ready to cross the street as we got in the car.
“Mike, I saw him last night. I saw him right before it happened. I made a face at him, and then I left. I saw him. I might have been the last person in this school to see him…”
* * *
Three days later a moment of silence was held outside before the pledge of allegiance as they put a memorial tree in the center of the grass in the parking lot. They put a plaque with Anthony’s picture and the date of his birth and death, 1991-1998.
The tree stood there as a reminder of Anthony. It wasn’t even that any of us knew him. He was our first death. Real life death. The tree stopped blooming the year after it happened. Every day at recess it stood there, without leaves, a tree of ash connecting our world with hell. To this day, as I pass by my grade school in my car, I still see it. The tiny birch Yggdrasil that died young, a constant reminder of death from a memorial of life.