The old oak tree would have outlived us all (short story)

Photo by Kevin Young on Unsplash

I don’t remember much from the first few years of my life. All I can say is that it was a very dark time indeed. Some kind of virus was going around the country and killing off all of my relatives. I could feel it in the air. Death. It was everywhere.

Every morning I would wake up afraid because I knew I would hear sirens of chemicals sprayed throughout the soil, and the air.

Through the water, and through my roots, I felt the distress accumulate in our community. Everyone was scared. It was a mass epidemic. Massive grandfatherly trees who had been around for centuries got the virus and were dead in a matter of months.

One of my uncles in a little village nearby was dead within a matter of days, even though he was one of the hardiest trees I knew.

My mother and father were long gone. They had given birth to me, or at least to my seedling decades ago. But the conditions hadn’t been ripe enough for me to blossom. Finally, a heavy rain came down one day, and a bunch of delicious Nitrogen-filled manure was laid down on the ground on top of me. I guess, some animal had decided it was a good spot to do its business.

And all of a sudden, the conditions were ripe for me to grow and come out of my shell.

I grew rapidly after that. It was a good time to be alive. I realized that if I can be strong enough to beat a virus that took half the damn oaks in this country, I was golden for the next few hundred years. I got a lot of strength from that one episode.

There were lots of animals, birds, insects, fungi, and other random creatures that intertwined their lives with me. There was this one vine that insisted on growing upon me, no matter how many times I told it I wasn’t interested in copulating.

This other fungi grew about in the moist and dark soil right underneath me, because it didn’t find any other shady spot other than mine. I was pretty peeved about that, as it soaked up all the good nutrients in the soil leaving very little behind for me. I had to send my roots deeper and deeper to find the good stuff.

There was this family of mice, and this other family of hawks that formed their homes right inside of me. One of them dug holes in the ground around my roots, or into my roots itself. And the other settled themselves on my branches high up, so they could watch when the mice came out of the holes and attack mercilessly. I hated watching the bloodshed every single day between the mice and the hawks. It was heartbreaking. But that was life, I guess.

I lived for many centuries, without any problems. The world around me ebbed and flowed, seasons came and went, the sun rose and set. Everything was right with the world, and I was content. Or as content as an oak tree could be.

I saw a lot of humans come and go as well. They had rather short lives, not more than 50 or 60 years. So they would come by, hunting for some deer meat or something else, and always take refuge under my shade from the blazing sun, or the ripening rains. It was always interesting to observe them, because they kept on changing how they looked through the ages.

One year, they would be wearing long skirts with bows on them. Another year, they would be wearing long strapping boots with baggy pants. It was a weird thing to watch them evolve so fast. I wondered why they went to so much trouble. They were the only creatures who changed their appearance so fast. None other did that.

In my final year of life, I was perhaps 500 years old. Maybe more. After a few hundred years, you really stop counting your age.

One day, I was waving about in the sunshine as I always did. The sun was bright and strong and my leaves were loving it. There was lots of water underground so I was happily feeding on an hourly basis with delicious and clean water.

The world was happy and I was happy in it.

A human came by that day. He had some equipment with him. He touched my bark here and there, measuring it for something. I was afraid they were going to put one of those skirts that they wore on me. I didn’t want to be adorned like that. It was embarrassing enough when my leaves changed colours, and dropped to the ground.

The next day, a whole army of humans came by. They were murmuring something about oak desks, and oak furniture. I didn’t really understand what they were saying.

Too late, I realized their meaning, when they pulled out one of those bitterly sharp chainsaws and started ripping through my body. Oh the pain. You can’t imagine the pain that I went through. It was horrendous. I can’t imagine anyone ever having to go through such pain. It was so much at certain times that I howled and yelled out in pain the whole time.

But no one heard my cries. Except my fellow oakians. They were all around me, some right next door, others far far away. But as we are connected through our roots, and through the underground network, they knew that I was going through something horrendous.

The humans, in particular, didn’t hear me cry and beg for mercy. I was an old oak, so I was quite wide in my girth. I had developed a bit of a paunch through the ages, which is quite expected. I also had a really tough bark, as I had gotten grizzled through the ages. I had to become so, in order to deal with the elements. The rain, the wind, the sun, and the daily ravages of living hadn’t gotten to me. They had just made me stronger.

But the chainsaw and its sharp teeth got deep into me. It cut through me, it felt like it was cutting through my soul. I felt my spirit separate from my body, and I felt dizzy from the separation.

Pain, pain, and more pain.

The next few hours which is how long it took them to sever me from my feet, my beautiful roots, were unspeakable. I wanted them to deliver me to death faster, so I wouldn’t have to go through such unimagined pain.

My fellow oakins sent me messages through the underground network, but I was too busy dealing with my pain to answer back. I think they must have gotten the message though.

I’m dying, I wanted to tell them. I am dying. After 500 years of living, these humans are cutting me away for some furniture and desks. Whatever that means.

I’m going to die soon.

My last day on this planet was not happily spent. I didn’t die peacefully and quickly in a hurricane or a flash tornado. I died mercilessly at the hands of an army of greedy humans. They seemed careless and cruel.

In my last moment of life, I saw the little mouse family standing there with tears in their eyes, mourning my loss. They would find another home, but it would never be as great as the one they had with me.

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