The tree tunnel A story by Charles Roberts

 

    She could see it well; the road; it was straight; straight as an arrow for two to three miles.  Old oak trees overhung it, they were there before it was ever thought of.  They’d been planted to build ships out of, but by the time they’d grown large enough; the ships were being built of steel.  Planted before the car became the only form of transport in this part of the world.  The trees were so old that they met forming a tunnel; with the road running down the centre, but it wasn’t a dark tunnel because, although the trees met over the top; light flooded in through the leaves and branches, rain filtered down through the tunnel roof, but the mist, when there was any, clung to the trees.

          There were times, after heavy rain, and it became sunny and warm, that you could get a thick mist which you couldn’t see through if you were driving, but if you stopped and exited the car you were head and shoulders above the mist, just.  On days like that you had to drive slowly, otherwise you could go off and into the trees; and they were very unforgiving.

          The number of times she had heard about serious accidents on that stretch of road were uncountable; she had seen the aftermath of many of those accidents as she had driven either to or from work, and a shiver ran down her spine at each one she had seen.  Drive carefully she had always told herself when she had seen the debris at the side, or the bark knocked off a tree trunk.

          They couldn’t cut the trees back and give the motorists somewhere they could have a greater run off before hitting the trees because they had a preservation order on them, every single one of those trees had that preservation order on it.  All the highway authority could do was to clear any branches and make sure that low branches didn’t interfere with the traffic.

          In the spring she loved to open the car window and smell the wild garlic which grew in abundance in the woodland.  She also loved to see the fresh new green buds bursting on the branches and the Bluebells in flower, they started at the tree line and disappeared into the woods on either side.  At the weekend people would park on the grass verge and walk into the woods just to look at the profusion of wild flowers, and may be pick some to take home with them, but that was against the law, so they did it quietly and smuggled them home in carrier bags.

          Then in the autumn people would stop to gather the nuts from the trees, hazel, horse chestnut, and walnut, also to pick blackberries from the brambles which grew in the woods.  You would get masses of people coming just to look at the wonderful colours of the leaves on the trees.  Then you had to drive carefully because the road would get covered in leaves; all the colours spread out across it, stretching out into the distance, browns, reds, oranges, salmons, and pinks covering the black tarmac. 

          It might have looked very pretty, and when they were dry the passage of the vehicles blew them off the road. But it could also be deadly, the combination of leaves and rain made it like driving on ice, so one false move; whether intentional or not and you could find yourself looking very closely at large tree trunk which had embedded itself into the side or front of your vehicle.  She stood looking down its length, it was winter and there was a slight dusting of snow.  She could see tyre tracks in the snow, the grass verge unblemished by anything, virgin snow they called it.

          Then there were the animals you could see, if you were lucky, rabbits, foxes, squirrels, pheasants, partridges, and if you were extremely lucky a badger or deer in the early morning or late at night.  People knew they were about so drove carefully so as not to put them in danger, and the odd snake would slither across the road.  She stood looking down its length, and could see them standing at either side, and looking across at something; a noise made her turn to look across at a police car and fire engine parked on the opposite side, firemen were cutting the roof from a car which had slid and hit a tree.  An ambulance drove up and stopped behind the fire engine.

She turned and looked down again and saw them all standing, looking back at her, some waved, others nodded, she was still standing opposite where the vehicle had skidded into the tree; she could see the marks in the light covering of snow going from the road, across the verge and sideways into the tree.

          Out of curiosity she crossed to see what they were doing, the roof was off the car now and the paramedics were slowly and carefully lifting the body out of the wrecked vehicle and placing it carefully on the waiting stretcher.  She looked down at the face of the person who was now on the stretcher and being wheeled to the waiting ambulance; she looked into her own eyes, glass from the broken side window had cut her face and blood came from her nose where the airbag had hit her.  One of the paramedics pulled the white sheet over the face she was looking at as they pushed her lifeless body into the back of the ambulance.