Beaker Park sat nestled amongst blocks and blocks of residences, many of which were painted quaint and faded shades of blue, red, tan, and yellow, always wrapped in white trim. The old oak tree, which was perched mostly still in the middle of the field, was a beacon in the neighborhood. Sure, there were other trees in the 5-acre park, and there was the HOA-conforming landscaping around many of the homes that formed the perimeter of the park, none were quite like that old oak. The giant tree loomed over the park such that it’s shadow painted houses many blocks away, and it’s top could be seen from the gate to the subdivision, a few miles away.

That old oak tree had a trunk like you couldn’t believe. Every now and then the kids that played in the park would try to wrap their arms around it, to see just how big it was. One of the houses a block away belonged to Mrs. Ellis, who used the idea as an assignment for her 6th grade math class for the last 10 years. The class would take a Friday field trip to the park and have to measure the length of the arms stretched out, then add them up and back-calcuate the trunk diameter by the circumference. From there, they would be required to research how old the tree may be based on its size.

It was a fun experiment, the principal at her school had complimented her on it years ago. The problem with experiments though is that the result is always initially unknown. Such was the case on April 14th, 2006. As Mrs. Ellis sat on the bench about fifty yards from the tree, she watched a couple of the kids pushing each other on the swings that’d been strung from one of the branches that was bigger than some whole trees.

As they swung back and forth like those pendulum toys in the science classrooms, her stomach turned and her eyes began to water as she saw thousands upon thousands of leave’s simultaneously break free of the tree. Many of them were carried south by the wind, and many more drifted toward the earth. As they were hitting the ground, she broke free from her frozen state, and started running toward the kids which she could no longer see in the flurry of the leaves. She could hear them though, screaming out for her, for their mothers, for anyone.

Mrs. Ellis closed the gap within seconds, and as she burst through the whirlwind of green, she could find none of her students. Less than a minute later the leaves were gone from the sky, and they came to rest on the cool ground. She struggled to speak through the tears as she realized that just like the leaves from the branches, her class was all gone.