A True Story Based on Fictitious Events:

[Bermuda]

A true story, based on fictitious events: The Germination of Developmental Trauma

In a field of corn, beaten down by the overbearing sun, there lived a withering stalk. The withering stalk knew nothing of life outside this sun-parched field of cracked earth and ants and was resigned to live and die by tornado or fire, if not by the sun itself. It didn't bother grow as tall as the others and didn't care one way or another. It grew thin and brittle, little by little, until the stalk gave way under the weight of its solitary cob. There it toppled over, in a most unplanned way, sending up a dust cloud in its wake. The cob laid in the tilled-out trenches of forgotten corn until a family of spiders took shelter within its fibrous husks. As unpleasant as it was, the kernels were finally not alone. It sat for only a short while until the crows took notice. They came in droves, ravenously jabbing at spider and cob as if it were filled with the last kernels of hope. But the crows were more desperate than thorough, as they tend to be, and left a single shrivelling black kernel, unwilfully clinging to the barren ear of corn. One hopeless little black kernel, no life to be seen.

The little seed was stuck to the dead plant just waiting to be set free, until all at once el niño came blustering in. It rained for days on baked clay earth causing flooding all throughout town, because water just can't sink beneath the cracks of pavement-like ground. There the cob floated, and eventually drifted away, far from that field of corn, the spiders, the crows, and the clay. It settled in a puddle an unfathomable distance from which it came. It wasn't long before the sun showed its face again, replacing the puddles with fields of blue flowers and perfumes of purple sage. And through all these changes that occurred all at once, the most unexpected thing happened within that tiny seed. It started to grow a tail, or at least that's what it thought. How could a kernel, black and shrivelled, be expected to expect an unexpected thing as such taking place? "A tail? That can't be any good!" It exclaimed to itself as it tried in vain to pull away. The root was planted, and there was nothing to be done, and the sun did what the sun does. The process had begun.

But alas, the problems were not over for this little seed. It soon started growing and even sprouted a leaf. The hard shell it once had fell to its side, exposing vulnerable new life festering just inside. Then, as it tends to go, the worms in the dirt also began to grow. What it didn't know, is that the eggs were attached to its shell the whole time, and they were just waiting patiently for the plant to grow. That's when the rootworms started doing what they do, and they chewed, and they chewed, and they chewed, and they chewed. The little plant had a bad start to life, and life before life, but rather than stop it, it just grew to the side. It is a little ugly and yellow, but who would know? It laid in a field of flowers rather than in neat little rows. While it laid there it thought of it's mother plant and the disfigured seed, and felt quite forlorn, but felt different rather than indifferently. Ants came and pruned away at its sad yellow leaves, and the sun came out like flames from the east. And despite that everything seemed to work against the grain, the mangy plant lost it's branches and straightened it's stalk again.

The worms grew into beetles, who tried their best, but with every clip they took from the top, the stalk grew thicker and stronger at its base. The shrivelled black kernel of corn who was taught to loathe the sun, learned that the sun was critical to overcoming other plagues that would come. Maybe the stalk will always feel alone in a field of pretty flowers. It will always look dishevelled, feral, or weathered, and time will tell if it can produce healthy seeds, but maybe there is more beauty in things out of place. Especially when the expected would have been erased, just like the others, its brothers and its mother, fallen together in neat little rows, eaten by crows, sunken beneath the rains, never to be seen or heard from again.

[NarcKiddo]

I think that is beautifully written.

[Bermuda]

Thanks NarcKiddo.

There is still some possibility that someday someone may happen across that spot and recognise that plant from the weeds, but I tell myself it's unlikely, and no one will know that it's me. It's among my greatest fears, being found, along with toppling head first in the ground. And sometimes I worry about the damage I may spread, simply by existing, perhaps better left unsaid... Are those pests I carried with me still there? Like the burrs that still tangle my hair while I sleep, and those freckles like scars, a constant reminder to keep. But I know if I hide amongst sagebrush and blossoms that no one can discern an ear of corn from an imposter. I'm just a foreigner, nothing to see here. I'll just play dumb, like I wouldn't know corn from wheat, that I can't pick out grey tassels from golden and sweet. None the wiser, for now, I hope anyway. I'll hope it and hope it and hope it away.

[woodsgnome]

What a well-crafted peek at the life within our lives, and the hope that somehow re-emerges, even after the fears and disappoinments that it might -- but only might, not find, yet again, that hope.

The piece is very reminiscent of that classic tale -- The Scret Gardn.

Thank you so much for the inspiration to share this here.

[BecomingMe]

And despite that everything seemed to work against the grain, the mangy plant lost it's branches and straightened it's stalk again.

Inspiring  thanks for sharing