• Stillness. Silence. The aftermath.

    A calm, core-chilling breeze awakened me, preceded and followed by an empty silence. I could hear but one sound – my own thoughts. Nothing else remained. My limbs bore the weight of the entire forest, its roots being my own. As if out of pity, the great solar being in the sky graced my pathetic existence with its presence, slowly rising above the line of the horizon. My body was more than accustomed to the new found warmth from the sun it now received, warmth that had, until recently, been filtered by the forest’s canopy. The green luminosity that had once made the forest glow was merely a shadow of its former self, a dark and pitiful shadow. As I reminisce about the past, my spirit lay weakened within me as I reluctantly gazed upon the scene around me. Or, rather, the lack thereof.

    I remember the exact year, the exact month, the exact week, the exact day it happened. I remember. . . The very foundation of the forest trembled in its presence. Without warning, the plague descended upon us. A shrill, almost deafening sound disrupted the peace of my humble abode. That sound. . . It was a frighteningly piercing trill, a trill that sounded peculiarly familiar to the screech of a thousand cicadas just emerging from their decade of slumber. Yet these were no ordinary flies, bees, or fleas. Surely, there were thousands of these odd creatures, in colors I had not yet seen: bright, almost blinding pigments, loosely adorning their bodies. I shudder to remember just how massive these wingless insects were. Swarming in groups of hundreds, with mighty iron jaws, they desecrated my sanctuary. The horrible memory of all of my friends and family being torn apart, limb by limb, has embedded itself in the form of a scar in my subconscious. Not only did these monstrous insects completely obliterate my woods, they also built themselves a symbol of their traitorous victory. After living peacefully among us, these creatures built themselves massive cubical mounds along where my relatives once stood. Oh, every time I hear the grinding of those iron teeth at work, I quiver all the way down to my roots. If only scars could heal. If only.

    Not one day goes by –not one day- that I have not thought of that horrific and thoroughly unnerving event. All the while, ever since, I have heard tale of distant relatives in the most tranquil places on Earth. From the luscious, rain forests in the south, to the untouched, barren Alaskan tundra to the North, all had been uprooted to suit the needs of these treacherous creatures, the creatures that had eaten away at everything I had ever known and loved. In the distant tropical rain forests to the south, my species has been reduced to mere thin sheets of our once proud existence. Even in the barren Alaskan tundra, our kind has been mercilessly tossed aside in order for the strange insects to burrow into the ground for their precious fuel. Millions of my species have fallen victim to the cruel fate bestowed upon my forest sanctuary, while the so-called lucky ones bear the overpowering misery that I have accepted upon myself. Not once did we ever ask for such a punishment, nor did we ever do anything to deserve such a cruel twist of fate. Not once. So, I keep asking myself – Why?