Juan Olazar

It started with the guava tree. Arístides, my neighbor, swore its roots were wrecking his driveway. I told him the tree had been there longer than either of us, and if anything, his cracked concrete was more the fault of time than roots. He said the law was on his side, jabbed a bony finger at me like I was a criminal, and stormed back into his house.

I’m 56, and I’ve lived in this same house in Fernando de la Mora, a suburb of Asunción, Paraguay, since I was twenty-three. My daughters grew up here, the youngest left just last year. That guava tree gave us shade in the summer, fruit in December, and a place to sit when the world felt too loud. I never thought I’d end up defending it like it was a family member.

Then one Sunday morning, I woke up to a sound no one in Paraguay should ever hear before breakfast: a chainsaw. I ran out and saw Arístides and his idiot nephew hacking into the trunk like it owed them money. I shouted. He shouted back. His nephew didn’t even look up, just kept sawing, the saw biting through bark and memory.

I didn’t think, I just moved. I grabbed the saw and threw it to the ground. Arístides stepped in, all puffed-up chest and blind rage. He called me a coward. I punched him.

He dropped like a sack of wet flour. His nephew froze. I stood there, fists clenched, chest heaving. The guava tree leaned behind me like an old sentinel.

We haven’t spoken since. He didn’t press charges. Neither did I. He built a corrugated metal fence between our yards. Looks like a junkyard barrier. No more shared tereré, no more Sunday conversations about fútbol or old times. Just silence and rust.

Still, the guava tree stands. Bent, scarred, but alive. Some mornings, I sit beneath it alone, sipping my mate, and wonder how two old men ended up like this. But I don’t regret a thing. Some roots run deeper than concrete.