Saturday 7 April 2012

Fly posting is illegal

I am a tree. Nothing spectacular, there are only 30 rings in my main truck, I'm only 15 feet high. Humans have a name to describe me but I'm not really that bothered what it is, I know who I am. I live in a park right near the main entrance so I am the first tree people pass when they come into the park. Usually no one notices me but just recently a few humans have. More about that later, first let me tell you a few things about us trees.
We were here before the first dinosaur was born, they walked amongst us, eat our leaves and fruit, rested in our shade from the midday sun and scratched their backs on our trunks for a hundred million years. Other creatures also lived amongst us. Strange crawling creature with many legs and flying things, much smaller than the dinosaurs. Some laid their eggs on our leaves and when they hatched the young eat the leaves. We didn't mind, we've got plenty of leaves and could always grow more. Some bored holes in our trunks, again not much of a problem, our trunks are pretty tough.

Then the comet came and the dinosaurs went, we survived, our seeds lying in the ground until the sun reappeared and life giving water fell from the sky and we began again to populate almost every corner of the world. The insects made it as well. I guess their eggs were tough enough to stand the cold and the darkness, Something else made it through the cold and dark. Small, covered with fur, fast moving, they had the new world to themselves and they prospered They became familiar visitors, running up our trunks to feed on the nuts, berries and seeds we produced. Again we didn't do anything to stop them. They were doing us a favour, spreading our kind over much bigger distances than we could spread them ourselves.

Immense long periods of time past even by the standards of a species that lived as long as we did. We changed and our types multiplied as did the insects and the furry animals that that lived with us. There were other flying animals, covered with feathers. We welcomed them. They made the nests high in in our branches, sang their songs of joy and love and warning while we listen in wonder. They eat our seeds just as the furry ones did and helped us continue to prosper.
 
In time a larger furry creatures started living with us. Some became expert at leaping from tree to tree in search of food, hardly ever going down to the ground where it was too dangerous for them. Their constant chatter was pleasing. An agreeable period of time.

Then came the ice, In the cold lands we were wiped out in our billions. In warmer parts of the world less water fell from the sky and fewer of us grew.
 
Some of the larger leaping creatures were forced to venture into the open land, developing tactics to keep safe from the large meat eaters that also walked in the treeless lands. We couldn't understand this, we never eat each other, why should they. Little did we know that one day these upright animals we helped nurture would tear us down and devour us with an almost desperate frenzy.

Then the ice went as quickly as it came and we spread into the empty lands. So did the upright animals. At first they were no bother, cutting down a few of us to burn on their fires. Then more people came with a new way of living. More trees were cut down so the humans could grow their tall yellow grass and fence off fields to imprison the animals they eat. The land changed into huge treeless plains but some of us made it. Then came more people and they cut down almost all of the great oak trees to build creatures that ran on the surface of the sea and fought each other with great crashing noises and billowing smoke.

Then the humans discovered the remains of our long dead ancestors and burnt them instead of us. Now those of us who are left stand like me in a park or patches of woodland, small remains of a lost empire. When I look to where the sun rises I can see the sea, hear the children playing on the beach, watch the traffic go by. If I turn to where the sun is highest in the sky, now the big white thing has gone I can see an oak tree. It has 600 rings in it's trunk and the oldest tree I know thought there are trees much older. Birds still sing in our branches, insects still eat our leaves and seeds and grow and prosper and still we look after the humans, we breath in carbon and lock it inside us and give off oxygen which they breath in, then they breath out the carbon for us to breath in.

A neat arrangement that should keep us going for ever. But no, in lands far away where great forest once stood the humans are destroying us and possibly themselves. In the end who will be left, them or us?
In this wider view of the world the pinning of this notice on my truck is but a small matter but I would sooner the humans that did it understood our relationship and what we have done and are still doing for them and show some respect and stick their notice somewhere else. Please.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Cracking stuff - I really enjoyed it!

I will return to lurking now :)

Mick Rogers said...

Quite a good article done in a different manner; I liked it and that's what counts to me