By Tim Law
We just thought that the trees were blowing in the wind. None of us knew that in reality, they were waving to us a goodbye. And then, one by one, they up and left us. They did not die, not in the sense that we as humans died and went away. They did not all disappear in an instant either. But, over time, we all noticed and asked each other the same questions.
“Didn’t there used to be a great oak or elm on that corner?”
“I am sure that the forest near that camping spot was bigger, aren’t you?”
“Where did that tree with the rope swing go?”
“Who took all of the shade away from the communal swimming area?”
These and many more, similar questions were asked, questions that there did not seem to be an answer for.
What confused us most of all was the very fact that trees cut down left a stump behind. Council workers, lumberjacks, and everyday people who decided that they needed a tree for something other than shade and oxygen, when they removed said tree from the roots that helped it survive, well there was evidence. If the paperwork did not exist at the very least there was a hole where the tree had been, lots of dirt, and not much else. When the trees left us there was no paperwork, no stump, not even a hole. It was like these trees just vanished.
“What do we do?” we all asked each other.
“A true disaster,” suggested the environmentalists.
“A developer’s dream,” announced the town planners.
“An opportunity for invention,” thought the scientists.
And we were all of us completely correct.
There was no past event that even compared to what had happened to the trees. So, nobody knew how to react and what to do. The environmentalists had identified the disaster that disappearing trees had caused, there were so many disasters we could not agree on the main one. Empty plots of land that appeared when the trees vanished did present a wonderful opportunity for those of us who built houses, buildings, and community facilities. The wonderful scientists quickly highlighted that our source of replenished air had gone and so an alternative would be needed until the trees returned. We all wondered if they would return. Some of us had hope, and some of us had none. Most of humanity sat somewhere in the middle of that road, humanity is funny like that.
With the trees gone the insects and animals soon followed after. No more bees were pollinating, no frogs croaking, no birds singing, no flies buzzing. Grass stopped growing so cows stopped eating. Some things did die, but just like the trees, some things just went away. It was almost like Mother Nature had confiscated those things that made life good.
“God is angry!” the religious figures and true believers hollered from on high.
“The planet is sentient and knows we have done it wrong!” cried the voices of another group, religious in their own way.
“This air is the best that money can buy,” the consumers told each other.
“I’d rather die than buy air,” said a few, but their voices soon faded away.
And the rest of us, well, we just tried to live our new lives.
By the end of that fateful year, the human population had been reduced to half. None of us disappeared, but lots of us died. It was just the way things were. We remembered trees, animals, and a sky that was blue. Someone thought that perhaps these memories should be written down, lest they become forgotten. That was when we discovered we had forgotten how to write.
The following year we ran out of resources, the knowledge of how things are made had died out with some of the people. We began to thank the sun for rising, we thanked the wind for blowing, and we began to beg each other for food we didn’t have. Things broke down. We had no other choice but to break down too.
And then, when everything looked like it was going to collapse, that the end of humanity was moments away, the trees came back. They marched like an army of salvation, over the horizon and back into our lives. Yes, the trees came back, and we didn’t think to ask them where they had gone. We just welcomed them back with open arms.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 