The Memory of Childhood Like Slowly Dying Truffula Trees

A/N: I posted this a while ago on my tumblr and intended to write more before posting it here, but...well, that never happened. Here's the quick, rather depressing, oneshot anyway though.


Once-ler only vaguely remembers his father. What he does remember though, is happy—warm.

He remembers the slow, steady rhythm of his father's heartbeat beneath his hands as the man hoisted him up to take him to bed, tucking him safely in beneath the covers. He remembers his father's wild, ever rising and falling voice filled with adventures and ideas that always seemed so fantastic, so utterly improbable, when heard by Once-ler's small ears. He remembers his father's dark, fitted suits whose colors fell into that deep impossible chasm of the bluish black of midnight, where you could never tell exactly which color it leaned more towards.

In the most vivid memory Once-ler has of his father, Once-ler is sitting in the kitchen at the table watching his mother cook. The crisp, buttery smell of bread dough baking fills the room, his mother humming some old southern tune as she works. Just the day before she and his father had sat him down on the beaten, paisley sofa in the living room, smiling as they stood before him, hands intertwined, and told him that he was going to have a baby brother, or maybe a sister, and wasn't that wonderful? While he wasn't so sure how wonderful that really was, they had both been smiling so brightly that all he could do was smile too.

His mother smiles just as brightly as she dances around the kitchen in his memory, slowly weaving mumbled words into the tune, and when his father walks in she smiles even brighter, lips pulling back to reveal shiny white teeth.

"First loaf'll be ready in half an hour or so," she says, her thick country accent curling into the pronunciation of each word. She pulls him into an embrace and he pecks her on the cheek, smiling back before letting her go and turning to Once-ler.

"Are you helping you're mother out?" he asks, each of his words slow and sure and pronounced just like they always are with no accent to slur the words together. ("Always sounds so educated," he remembers his mother saying proudly whenever his father would speak at length.) "Your mother is probably going to need a lot of help from now on," he adds, placing a hand on her shoulder.

His mother laughs, turning to look at Once-ler as well, and says something. Once-ler doesn't know what. He doesn't remember anything else except for the fact that it might've been the last time he heard his mother laugh and actually sound like she meant it. Because after that, one chilled day in October, his father walked out the door and never came back.


End