Talking Shit

Perception; the act or faculty of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.

My name is noah, i am 300 something years old. I am one of the last of my kind on this planet and soon I will be brutally chopped down.

I came out of my seed one sunny morning more than 300 years ago. My mother gave me shade from the harsh sun and let the good sun in, she along with the others sang songs all day that matched the vibrations of the rest of the world. I didn’t have to be told how to grow into a mighty tree and find my way through the thick canopy. We just had to be who we were meant to be.

The rains gave us our water to drink, the soil gave us our nutrients, the sun gave us our food and the world gave us life. Everything was readily available. Oh and what a beautiful life it was, all we did throughout our lives was make love to the wind, sing with the birds, and interact with the rest of the creatures that were on our branches, in the soil and in the air.

Somewhere in the middle of my life, we began noticing changes. The air became thicker, some of the creatures left and we felt that there was some disturbance in the energy field. This Disturbance as well as the changes we were noticing intensified as time went on but this did not really bother us, there was still enough for life to go on, i had lots of young children of my own growing underneath my canopy. Life was still beautiful.

It was not until about 100 years ago that i encountered my first human. They are a beautiful creature. So fragile yet powerful. They were free to move and experience the world in a different way. They were carrying around these objects which apparently were used to measure something in the air as well as the soil. they smiled at us and showed us so much love and care. It was a surreal experience. They said to us that they would protect us. Protect us from what? It was not another few decades that we found the answer to that when the next batch of humans came to visit.

They had different tools with them. They made a loud noise that scared all the birds and other creatures away. It was in absolute horror that we witnessed what happened next. Five of our kind were cut down and killed before the sun went down. We had been together for hundreds of years and within the span of a few hours they fell from their spots onto the ground crushing the younger ones below. Just like that our friends were gone and so were the humans. Many of the creatures that lived with us left too, being too afraid to stay. Our home had changed and we had to adapt. This is when this absolute irony dawned on me. The previous humans that came wanted to protect us from their own kind. There was a conflict going on.

Nothing was ever the same in our home. The young ones did not grow as fast and were not as strong, the soil was no longer as rich as we were used to having, the sun was harsh at times, the rains did not come regularly anymore and the air was very thick. We were now living in fear and we knew why. Humans terrified us.

As the years went by, more and more of our family were cut down by the humans. We didn’t know why and what we had done to deserve such a fate. We were forced to accept that any of us could be next.

Then came a time where there we did not encounter any humans. We had heard that the war between the humans had intensified, more and more of them joined our side and were dying in large numbers to protect us. We saw hope but the world was still getting drier, hotter and and wind was getting thicker. The force we once lived with was hardly recognizable. We were living in a different world. We sought some normalcy among all who were left and for a while it was possible.

Then one day we heard the sound of death again. The roaring, deafening sound of the devices that killed so many of my friends and family. The small group of humans that were protecting us housed themselves below our canopy’s. We heard from them that there was a big battle which they lost. The remaining ones were regrouping, for one more battle. We also heard from them that we were some of the last remaining trees in the area. TREES. That’s what they called us.

We could feel that the world would never be the same again and some of us opted to kill themselves before the humans could. Me some of the remaining ‘trees’ opted to go on living. This decision was made solely for the sake of the humans who were giving their lives to protect us. We knew it was too late yet we opted to die a brutal death by the machines of the other humans because we wanted to give hope to the group who had nothing else to live for but our survival. This sacrifice is for humanity or what is left of it.

The human is such a strange creature. So powerful, smart, capable of incredible love and also capable of shutting it down. I wonder why they could not unite with all their intelligence. They make life complicated when it actually is so simple. They could not be what they were meant to be, it was just never enough. So much conflict and destruction for such a sophisticated race.

And here we are today, as fate would have it I am the last ‘tree’ standing. I did not wish for it to be this way to be honest, i would have preferred not to be part of any of this. I long for the time when we could just be what we were meant to be. The time when we had no concerns. Life was beautiful and that’s all it was. I miss the singing and dancing. I miss the wind, my friends, my family and the creatures. Most of all, i miss being alive.

Now I bear witness to the last battle between two factions of a race that destroyed itself. My death is imminent and will happen today. Its a pointless battle yet I get to see the end of potential, hope and power. That’s what they had, and lost. If only they would have realized it…