As a child, I played outside with the boy next door, beneath the tree in his front yard. The tree was, perhaps, as tall as the house it nearly kissed with pink blossoms in the spring that gave way to tiny red crabapples, hard and smooth. As autumn approached, the fruit fell to the ground, though some, instead, found refuge inside the tire that clung with chain to the strongest bough. The chain slowly eroded the bark as we swung from the tire below. Chopped down years later, devoured by disease, these memories are all that remain of the tree.