Breaker

They called it breaker.

No one climbed it anymore, despite its bough, crotches, and burls having placements ideal for such things. It begged for a fort or even a tire swing. The tree seemed a haven for kids looking to live out fantasies of flight and fights with dragons.

The trunk, stout and lumped with misshapen growths, stood in the midst of broken dead ground. Rock had been removed, but the dirt was of a hard quality only found in California. The state's lack of true seasons, beyond I think it's Fall and Summer, as well as its penchants for droughts, lead to dirt in need of moisture and thus a disposition nearing cement. The tree itself, a live oak of a massive nature, lived up to its name and stayed green.

The first branch shot forth at a height easily reached by a jumping seven year old. Said branch remained strong under weight, thick as a wrist and near enough burls that played the part of footholds. The spacing of the leafy offshoots thereafter were ladder like. A child, joyous and lost to the thrill of the climb, scaled it with a ease lent to kids without fears or concerns found in the confined souls of adults.

That is when the tree struck, or failed. Once the child was high in its embrace, grasping a branch, preparing for his or her next upward movement, weight resting fully upon the thin bough, it would break. Sudden and terrible, thus torn free of the life source of the trunk; the branch would fall to the hard unforgiving earth, clutched within the trembling grip of a terrified child.

That once sure and strong child would break on the ground, holding the oak's sundered limb.

And so the kids would stay away, for a generation, for the memory of children is flimsy and prone to forgetfulness.

Then it would break them, to remind them.