Roots Remember

This day in history, Henry Ford patented the soybean car. Atypical. Even amusing.

The car wasn’t meant to last – it would wither into the soil, with corn growing where the engine once slept.

Sometimes the smallest, unseen roots yield the sweetest harvest.

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If there was one thing Elias Goh had lots of on his hands, it was time.  And the retired horticulturist spent it squatting beside stubborn saplings near his Housing Board apartment. The young trees asked for patience, as trees were wont to do.

Elias worked where few cared to look. Neighbors scoffed at the slow-growing saplings, chiding Elias for wasting time and community funds. His daughter asked, “Dad, why all the worthless effort?” But Elias knew that growth pushed back against being hurried. 

And then…

A notice that inflamed the skin, in angry, red ink – a redevelopment notice. 

The government had marked the land for demolition. Total destruction –

Including his little green labours of love. 

Still, Elias, ever stoic, never raised a word in protest. He never wrestled with negative endings. With meticulous fervor, he labeled his saplings and left them behind, along with a set of cryptic instructions. 

“Growth is timeless.”

After Elias stopped tending to the unfortunate saplings, they caught the eye of Ah Lam, the assistant groundskeeper. The plants leaves touched together, almost pleading. He remembered Elias’ words :

“Roots matter.”

He took the sapling and replanted it in the estate’s community garden – before any demolishing could reduce it to nothingness. 

The onset of El Nina meant the painful and inevitable – a drought. 

Yet, the tiny, relocated sapling came to the fore- the fruit it bore , ravishing and juice-filled. 

The harvest had come – out of season. 

Children began to gather, in droves, beneath the now-revered sapling. 

They never knew its planter. The one who nourished it – nameless. 

But the lone sapling’s fruit had given him one. 

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Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

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