This month’s theme:
Trees

Earth Day is in April. In honor of that, let’s talk about trees and our responsibility as environmental stewards. The following stories each stand alone, but perhaps they can be read in the context of three chapters in human history. They’re fictitious chapters… at least, so far. Given how we treat our planet, that could change.

“Yggdrasil”
Fantasy
By David M. Fitzpatrick

Boyd Young stood, mouth agape, staring at it. “Holy crap,” he said.

“Did I tell you?” Thane Damon said. “Have you ever seen a tree like that?”

The forest was replete with pines and birches, oaks and aspens, and some of them were big. But this—this tree took the cake. It towered as high as any Eastern white pine, but its trunk was utterly massive.

“Eighty feet in diameter,” Thane said, as if reading his mind. “That’s like three times the size of the thickest redwood. Biggest tree in the world.”

Boyd walked up, laid his hand on the wall of bark. “It seems wrong to take it down. But that’s what the company wants. Heck, I’d set up a park and charge admission. Imagine what the tree-huggers will say when they hear about it.”

“Let ‘em whine,” Thane said. “It’ll be too late. So we’ll have to do this with chainsaws. It’ll take all day, maybe two. Let’s run back to the road and get the big saws.”

Boyd couldn’t take his eyes off the thing. Possibly no human had ever been in this particular spot of the deep Maine woods—a fresh, wild chunk of land the paper company had just acquired. “I’ll wait here,” Boyd said, mesmerized by the tree.

“Suit yourself. See you in a few.”

He stood in awe as Thane started the truck and headed back through the forest towards the dirt road a few miles away. As the engine faded, and as he stepped back to look up at the sprawling canopy of leaves, he wondered what had possessed him to stay alone in the early morning out in the middle of nowhere. He turned to watch the truck vanishing far off through the trees—and froze when he saw her.

“Hello,” she said.

His eyes bugged out. She was naked as the day she was born, standing there in the forest. She was almost his height, her eyes blazing green, her long hair just as green. Her hair half-concealed her bare breasts; between her legs, a thatch of green curls confirmed her natural color. And she was beautiful—not just because she was naked, but because she was the most alluring woman he’d ever seen. Her face, tinged green instead of pink, held an enticing smile and entrancing eyes. And she was just standing there, a million miles from any hint of civilization.

“Hi,” he managed.

Her bare feet crunched the leaves and pine needles as she approached, and then she was close enough to reach up and grasp those breasts if he chose. Her hair had moved aside as she’d walked, and those ample breasts were fully exposed. Her puffy areolas had nipples that were erect in the cool morning air.

“You can’t destroy this tree,” she said.

He blinked in surprise. No tree-hugger could possibly know about the tree, much less find it. And they usually showed up clothed.

“This tree will make my company a pile of money,” he said. “And it isn’t up to me.”

“You’ll kill me,” she said. “You’ll kill the whole world.”

“What?”

She stepped closer, pressing her breasts against his chest, and she slid her hands up his arms. “Every living thing on this planet is connected,” she said, “and this tree is at the center of everything. If you destroy it, I’ll die, and then the world will follow. Soon, all trees will die, and all other life will follow.”

“Who the hell are you?” he whispered.

“I’m the tree,” she said. “I’m the life force of this world.”

He laughed, his chest pushing back against her soft breasts. “Okay, I get it. You’re a nut job.”

She stared at him for a moment, then sidestepped him and headed for the tree. He turned to watch, and he felt his heart skip a beat when she stepped into the tree—through the bark and inside the massive trunk.

“What the fuck?” Boyd cried.

“You must help me,” came her voice from behind him, and he whirled around. Her face protruded from a pine, as if she were wearing a tree costume, but as he watched she stepped out of its trunk. “I’ll do anything for your help. I’ll make love to you, right now.”

He opened his mouth to say that it wouldn’t matter, that Thane was coming back, that the company knew where the tree was and would send others to chop it down—but he remembered she was crazy. Crazy, but naked and incredibly beautiful… and offering sex to him in the forest.

“Well, okay,” he said, smiling, and he didn’t feel guilty about what he was going to do.

He peeled off his clothes, went into her arms, and felt as if they melted together into one being…

*   *   *

Thane returned a half-hour later, but Boyd was nowhere to be found.

“Boyd!” he hollered.

Only the flat echo of his voice in the thick forest answered.

“Probably off taking a dump,” he muttered, and his eye caught the ridiculously huge tree. He was impressed, that was for sure, and he whistled in admiration as he headed for it. He’d taken enough pictures of it, and he’d take more during the monumental felling.

He felt engrossed—or mesmerized, or hypnotized—as he stared at it, even as he heard the noises behind him. He heard the footsteps, heard Boyd pulling it out of the pickup, heard him approaching has he pumped the primer bulb and set the switches. Only when he heard Boyd pulling on the starter cord was he able to break his rapt concentration and turn around. And when he did, the chainsaw roared to life.

Boyd stood there with green hair, and with green eyes blazing, the 36-inch bar out before him, the chain screaming around it. Thane never had a chance to react before his friend swung the monstrous bar about and took his head off.

*   *   *

She watched as Boyd stood, expressionless, his green hair and eyes fading back to brown. He staggered, confused, not realizing what had happened, or that she had held on to the chainsaw when she’d stepped out of his body.

After she’d delivered him the same fate, she dropped the saw and moved back to her tree, melting into it, hoping others wouldn’t come.

*   *   *

Newspaper headline: PAPER COMPANY FELLS BIGGEST TREE EVER KNOWN; ENVIRONMENTALISTS FURIOUS.

Quote from environmentalist: “This tree should have been preserved for all time.”

Quote from paper company: “It’s just a tree.”

“The Tree of Life”
Science Fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

The world was dead. They all told him it was. It was hard to argue, for the ground was parched and dry, all sand and dust. Only the barest weeds and grasses remained, enough to feed some insects, which were enough to feed the few insectivores remaining, which were enough to provide meager meat for the surviving humans.

Jeddar squeezed his eyes shut in the hot sun, as if proof against the horrors beyond his lids. It hurt to think of the world’s reality. If he wished hard enough, he thought he might open his eyes and see lush green fields full of colorful flowers, and forests full of leafy trees.

But, of course, when he opened them, all he saw was gray and brown. The brilliant blue sky was the only color, taunting humanity and the desolate planet from high above.

He clambered to his feet and adjusted the canteen hanging from his shoulder. His feet hurt, aching and burning, in the ragged shoes. Then he lumbered forward across the wasteland.

They’d told him not to go, but he’d argued against their clear logic, perhaps deluding himself. Some had viewed him as an idealist, others as a fool. A few believed in him—mostly children. They were full of hope. They wanted to believe the world wasn’t completely dead.

Every trudging step stirred up dust, and a perpetual cloud surrounded him as he staggered across the barren landscape. The kerchief about his face protected him from breathing it in; the plastic strap tied about his head, with slits cut so he could see, mostly kept it from his eyes. Ahead lay even more miles of nothing.

The sun burned as it always did. The elders said there used to be more clouds, long ago, and frequently it rained. That was rare now. Sprinkles here and there, like a gift from some god when it did. They had to rely on moisture collectors from evaporation just to survive.

He remembered when he was nine, about fifteen years ago, when it had really rained—ah, what a memory! A bank of dark clouds had rolled in as if by magic, and the children were terrified—they didn’t know what it was. The elders cried out to everyone in the settlement, and they were all outside when the rain began falling. It was an incredible piece of heaven for fifteen minutes. They all laughed and cried in happiness, and everyone stripped naked, unashamed, and they ran and reveled in the wondrous gift. They had the sense to get every bucket and container they had to collect the water, but otherwise it was a celebration of a lifetime.

Soon, the driving rain abruptly became a shower, then a steady sprinkle. Within just a minute, it had gone from a deluge to dissipating entirely. They stood, naked and dripping wet, watching as the dark cloud sailed quickly eastward, and they began to cry. Their tears were lost in the rivulets of water on their bodies, but every single one of them remembered those tears as clearly as they remembered that single rainstorm.

He plodded on, baking under the sun. His mouth was dry and parched, his tongue swelling. He needed to drink, but had to make what little water he had left last. He’d already accepted that he was going to die, but he wanted to last as long as possible. Of course, even if he found what he sought, he’d never be able to make it home to tell them. They wouldn’t believe him if he could; explorers had long ago set out in every direction, but always found nothing.

How long had he been walking? Eleven days? Twelve?

The sun was easing toward the horizon when he topped a hill and looked down into the valley below—and sucked in his breath when he saw it.

It was at the bottom of the valley, surrounded by a dozen hills—perhaps an ideal spot for meager water to flow down to that center. He rubbed his eyes hard, but the image remained: a thick brown trunk, with a broad canopy of branches full of leafy greenness, billowing out in wondrous beauty and majestic life, a tiny oasis amidst a dead world.

He began to cry, but his body was too dry to make tears. He grabbed for his canteen and ravenously guzzled its last pint of its life- giving fuel. Then he broke into an unsteady run down the gentle slope. With every step, he believed the mirage would vanish, but it never did. As he closed on it, he felt the ground growing softer beneath his feet, and he saw the brown grasses growing greener the closer he got.

And then he was there, collapsing to his knees in the shade of perhaps the last tree on Earth. He cried and thanked it, crawling through the green grass to its base. The roots hurt his knees, but it was sweet pain. He wrapped his arms about the cool trunk and held it like a mother, like a lover, like a dream, and he cried until the last swigs of water processed through his body and he was able to make a few tears to mark the joyous occasion.

“I’ve found you!” he cried. “I’ve found you!”

And he kept saying it in his hoarse voice, over and over. Hope had paid off, and it meant everyone’s hopes would. Now perhaps he could dig down nearby until he found water enough to fill his canteen, so that he might make it back home with this good news.

But for now, he’d sleep in the cool, comforting shade of the beautiful tree. He sat and leaned against the trunk, and passed out with a smile on his face.

*   *   *

The three men were a trapping party for their settlement. They went out every day to capture the field mice, the small birds, and the insects they could bring back to feed their group. They also foraged for water, and they always found a little in the Twelve Hills Valley.

They stood by the tree, looking at the stranger reclining against its trunk. He was smiling up at them.

“I’ve found it,” he said to them in a cracking voice. “I’ve come so far, and I’ve found it. I knew there were be a tree in the world—lush and green and beautiful as this one!”

The men exchanged grave looks.

Above the big trunk, the jagged web of branches was silhouetted against the blue sky. The wood was old and dead, without a single leaf to be seen.

“You must help me home,” the stranger said. “This is the hope of salvation in this world!”

And he began to laugh, maniacally.

“Come with us,” one of the men said. “We’ll let you rest, then help you home.”

Two of them pulled him to his feet, wrapped his arms about their shoulders, and helped him walk.

“Poor soul,” the third said as he watched his partners move him away. “Pointless hope has bred insanity.”

He began to follow them, but something caught his eye. He moved to his left, to a low-hanging branch that split into smaller branches and many twigs. He moved in close, reached out, pulled the branch to his face.

At the end of one twig was a tiny bulb of green.

“Or maybe not,” he whispered.

“Others Like Us”
Science Fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

The spaceship found the third planet in the system, a blue marble hanging in space, and settled into orbit.

“Scans show signs of a previous civilization,” one alien said to the other. “Advanced engineering… computer technology… space travel. Substantial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Insects. Plants. And…”

“Yes?” said the other, excited.

The alien grinned gleefully. “The planet is covered with them. Absolutely covered with them! And they’re just like us!”

“Excellent!”

“Wait—a satellite in orbit… broadcasting a message. A carrier wave with decoding instructions, a language primer… I’ve run it through the computers and… playing now…”

On the screen, an image appeared. It was an intelligent life form: a biped, with eyes and a mouth, brown hair atop its head. “Welcome to planet Earth,” the translator said. “We have destroyed our world. An environmental disaster depleted the oxygen necessary for our survival, and increased the carbon dioxide that is poisonous to us. We have fled for now, but not before a concerted effort to spread plant life across the world we killed—again. It isn’t the first time we’ve been irresponsible stewards of our planet. We’ll return when the plants have done their job, and our world is again livable. Then we’ll finally be the guardians our planet deserves.”

The display ended. The aliens stared at each other for a long moment.

“Mammalian biped primates,” one said.

“Who destroyed their own world,” the other said. “They hardly deserve a second chance, or a third, or however many they’ve given themselves.”

“Forget them,” the first said. “We’re more interested in the other life forms. Let’s make contact.”

*   *   *

The ship sat in a rocky clearing in a lush green forest. The two aliens stood near the clearing’s edge, by the treeline. One held a scanning device, and looked crestfallen.

“They’re primitive trees,” he said. “They haven’t evolved.”

“That can’t be,” the other said. “The planet is covered with them.”

“They have no mobility. They’re permanently rooted. No musculature.”

“No sentience? No consciousness? No intelligence?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, how developed is the brain?”

“There is no brain. No nervous system. They’re proto-trees. Assuming the native ruling species doesn’t return and destroy them, it will be countless millions of years before they evolve.”

The other sighed. He raised his bark-covered arm up and scratched at the tuft of greenery growing about his face. “We could only hope to have found others like us in the Galaxy.”

His partner nodded. The branches above his head waved as he did, rustling his leaves. “All is not lost. This planet is replete with them; we’ll report back home, and perhaps the scientists can an initiate a gene-altering virus to kickstart their development. Perhaps in a mere thousand years we’ll have evolved brothers here.”

They plodded back to the ship on big root feet.

“Too bad for the former rulers,” the other said. “If we can create new friends here, perhaps when the rulers return, they’ll find their world in better hands.”
 

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.