By Jordan Stosius
All around her, she watched as her friends died. A crack, a splinter, the deafening crash, a fall. The final gasping breath—the forest’s song now silenced into death. She stood, her roots entrenched, a witness to the forest's final breath. Unable to do anything but listen to their echoing cries, she stood helpless in her vigil. It hadn’t always been this way.
As a small sapling, things in the forest had been peaceful. The birds sang their sweet songs, nesting in the branches of the more wizened trees. The rabbits, snakes, and stoats made homes amid their sprawling roots. As a little tree she knew that one day she would also play host to all the woodland creatures, providing food and shelter, and possibly even a back scratch to a particularly itchy bear.
When she grew, her branches stretched towards the sky. She became more aware of the world. The wood cascaded out in all directions. The racing river wound its track along the tree. The icy water fed her growing frame, and with each drink she climbed towards her aim. She dreamed of joining the ancients’ lofty choir, their wisdom vast, their branches reaching higher. A dream that was possible, until the tree eaters came.
These beings came with hunger without end. Wherever their feet touched the earth, trees toppled. With them, all the creatures they sheltered. The tree eaters ripped through it all. The birds no longer sang, the rabbits fled in terror. The bear put up a fight for a while until it, too, they devoured.
Yet her—they left. Adolescent and thin, her bark still smooth, her branches soft and flimsy. Alone she grew, with only the river’s hum—a song that whispered what the world’s become. Decades passed like fleeting, distant dreams; she watched the water lose its glassy gleam. Her world grew quiet, choked by smoke and stone, and still, she stood, unmoving and alone.
But the tree eaters returned. They came back slowly at first. They laid down paths as black as moonless night for their malevolent machines, which belched noxious fumes. Then faster came their kind, in droves and throngs, with steel and flame and shrieking, endless songs. They built lifeless hollows in which to dwell. Forced to watch as the world she knew was consumed. Aching for her friends and the life they once shared, she knew she could never enjoy this new world. She strived to grow indifferent to it.
Standing alone in an empty field where the tree eaters played and lounged. They sat beneath her singular canopy. Content with the destruction they had wrought. Oblivious to the cost that was paid for their comfort. Yet she maliciously managed her indifference.
That was until the agony came. It came from the river. The fresh mountain waters she had grown to love were not fresh and clean anymore; they grew harsh and foul. The water soaked her roots, burning her from the inside out. Starting as a slow ache, it built to a writhing, sizzling burn, a burn that dissolved her every fiber, her very will.
While she was dying, she watched as the tree eaters multiplied, the fish floated up their bellies to the sun, and the clear sapphire blue of the waters turned a vile, sickening black.
But silence reigned. No seedlings stirred the ground. No creatures roamed, no rustling, hopeful sound. The grasses lay decapitated and torn,their lifeless stalks left broken and forlorn. Her bark grew thin, her final breath released; her aching heart gave way to gentle peace. And in the quiet, no one sang her song. No voice remained to know she’d once been strong. A fading echo lost within the mist, a ghostly trace, a fleeting, formless bliss.
The silence now was heavier than stone, a weight she bore within her hollowed core. The crack, the crash, the gasping breath still rang—a phantom chorus where no voices sang. The river, once her faithful, endless friend, had turned against her in her bitter end. Yet in her stillness, rooted deep and wide, she felt the forest’s memory abide. Though hollow now, her branches weak and bare, the ghost of leaves still trembled in the air. And as her final breath began to fade, she thought of songs the birds and rivers made. Her roots, limbs, and every aching scar became the soil beneath a distant star. The world grew still, the quiet stretched so deep—an endless hush, a long and dreamless sleep.
Spending most of his life as a nomadic laborer and struggling prosaist Jordan Stosius is currently a high school teacher of English Language Arts in Hanoi Vietnam. He is also a writer and content creator, when time permits.
Comments