Bitter Is the Salt

A curved tree, as old as time, its bark dried and grey overhung the lake. Marta chose a path that led around the bloodstained bramble bushes. She placed a bare foot upon a solid branch and clambered through brown shrivelled leaves and dark sprouting fungus. Within moments Marta was seated with her legs dangling down into the cold water. She felt the current rippling between her toes, and gazed at her fractured reflection. Marta knew the tree’s grim history, for it was nicknamed ’Old Man Death’. Bent and cowled it represented despair, and many had slipped from its boughs.