[Winter Contest Entry 2019] The Emerald Sentry

I am the guardian of this grove. Here—beyond the forest of oaks, elms, maples, firs, and more—I stand atop this hill. Atop this modest mountain, where I can see beyond the green horizon, I remain vigilant. The entire orchard stretches out in a shuttering sea of leaves and greenery. The raised canopies, the fertile soil beneath, each a result of our dominion over this land. How fortunate am I in my ability to overlook such tranquility, such bliss, such serenity? I felt that it would last an eternity.

Daily life among the forest begat an abundance of sounds from the whistle of wind between branches and blades of grass, to the splattering of water droplets crashing from the sky, to the calls of mammals, birds, and insects that live among us. It spun in a circle, a never-ending cycle of birth, growth, maturity, fruitfulness, propagation, aging, and death. Until whence came rebirth, and the cycle begins anew. For my hundred years as guardian, this was the essence of existence, alas, until the upright mammals came to our land.

These mammals, they are fragile and wary. They take from the forest, harvest, and use materials to settle in clearings. They travel, scout, and hunt. Some have even made it up to me on my virtuous zenith. They partake in the fruit, the bounty of my cousins, as well as hunt the other lesser animals amongst us. They move and migrate, not often content with sitting still. They will never know the fulfillment of watchfulness. When the cool frost of winter comes, they will move on. Maybe they will stay if they are adequately prepared this cycle. All beings need warmth, but they are more susceptible to the cold than most. While some animals sleep or hide, they can do neither and must withstand the brunt of the season of death, or they will cease to be and return to the Earth that birthed them. A requirement of the desired warmth happened to be the branches of my kin. Mostly they were harvested from those that dropped to the forest floor. However, sometimes they required more and had to take from my family directly. They used sharp, stone tools in this regard, a pain we feel on a subconscious familial level. Nonetheless, we persevered, and we gave from ourselves so that they might persevere as well.

A hundred years this continued until more upright mammals came, although these ones were surely of a different clan, having forged weapons of ore, iron, and steel. Their loud instruments allowed them to ransack the settlements in the grove and captured those who came before them. My precious jade ocean became bathed in red. With the arrival of the warriors from the east, the grove changed forever. Parts of the forest became a coppice, and other sections were cleared entirely. In their place, the creatures constructed homes made from the bodies of my relatives and burned them for warmth even more often. The land bled gray mist up towards the sky and many of the animals that called the valley home left to preserve themselves.

It might have been another hundred years before a greater torment came with the arrival of mammals dressed in red. They fought those who were here before them who donned blue. The tools they used to decimate each other cracked the air like lightning. The projectiles hurled through the air into others of their kind, spilling forth a red sap as they fell towards the ground. Many errant shots plunged into us, as well. The coppices were raped and flattened. My family was chopped and toppled, then forced into the forge to make more of their instruments of destruction, and war machines of malevolence. I still subconsciously hear their screams of agony, yet there could be no revolt and no justice, a foreign and unattainable concept for our kind.

The drums of war sounded for many cycles. With the tribulating events surrounding us, our nature could not be stopped. Rebirth, growth, spread forth, and death. These cycles lasted longer than any did previously, or thus felt as much. Nonetheless, these times did pass as well. However, our time with the blue settlers that drove back the red did not. They remained and cleared more groves to sustain themselves through the seasons. The structures they built from lumber were accompanied by those of stone. Grass was cleared to make paths of earth fit for traversing on the soles of their delicate, mobile, fleshy roots that they clothed with hide. The grove that I watched over became replaced by a lattice of boxes that these mammals found suitable to live and deal in. Their civilization spread and their population grew. They innovated and became smarter as well.

Eventually, the mammals traveled up onto my magnificent hill, the secluded sanctuary that protected me from their influence. Many of them walked up my cliff and joined me in my existence. The view I treasured, I had to share with them as well. They looked at what I saw and swelled in awe. It inspired them and some of them treasured it too. Children came to play. Young lovers came to betroth. Elders came to rest. I had grown lonely, and yet their company had I learned to treasure as well. However, it had not been another hundred years before the next large-scale war between these people. The land once again became tormented with the slaughter of bodies both blue and gray. It was the way of things, and it did surely pass, as well. I wondered if this was destined to be their cycle.

Gray skies. Red fires. Black soot and ash. The civilization below developed and the world around them enhanced. There had not been a time before that I saw things descend to such contempt and sadness. While invention sprouted, poverty increased, and so too did the division of their classes. Soon fires were replaced with glowing orbs which brightened the night as if it were day, and then the machines came—roaring metallic bastions of speed and transport. This signaled a path towards even more drastic advances. With those, visitors came more often, dealers traveled in and out, and their progress was forever hastened.

There was no shortage of suffering in the wake of their headway, and yet there came improvements as well. Hospitals. Cures. Education. Entertainment. Connections. The orbs grew brighter. The cars got faster. They sent their machines into the air and mastered flight faster than that of any bird. And yet, the skies grew darker. Grayer. Smoggier. They thrived, but with a cost that changed the world forever. In this eventuality, the cycles nevertheless continued to come.

Growth—children wandered to my side, seeking excitement and wonder.

Maturity—young couples came to my precipice and consummated their eternal love.

Reproduction—families arrived and enjoyed packages of transported sustenance.

Death—troubled souls roamed onto my melancholy hill and leapt, plummeting to their end.

Rebirth—more came and brought innovation to my altitude.

The humans paved the ground and constructed railings of protection. They placed poles of light to brighten the top of this hill at night and placed machines for the purpose of peering far off into the distance. In my presence, they respected me and built a circle around my outstretched body, to protect and revere one as old as I. They had given me a name: Pinaceae—Conifer. My seclusion lessened as they integrated me into their civilization. In their presence, my respect and love for them grew, although they had no way to know.

The cold quarter cycle came, and although they did not come often in the past at this time, tonight many of them did. The crowd brought colored ropes and lined my aged frame. They brought bulbs of dyed glass and hung them from my old arms. They brought strings of orbs of colored light and danged them along my needles. They brought boxes of surprise and happiness and placed them inside the circle of stones venerating me. Finally, they used a machine to lift a golden yellow star, placing it atop the peak of my canopy. When everything was in the place they had designated, they enabled the lightning they harnessed, and every decoration glowed with a brightness that rivaled the stars across the night sky. They sang and celebrated joyously. In their humbling presence, I had never before, in my hundreds of years of age, felt so connected and content in my belonging. I stand here, in the twilight of my years, as the evergreen watcher of these humans—my family.

Dear Gaia—Terra—please bless these beings and teach them to love—themselves, each other, and the Earth that has given them a life to live. My story might be mine alone, but there are others that deserve many cycles of their own to call theirs. Guide them towards fulfillment and instruct them to be guardians in their own right. Ensure that they protect the place we must share the burden of cultivating. For all our sakes. For lives worth living. For the future that depends on it.

Until my dying breath. My love, I give—to you.

I like the idea of personifying a tree to write in their perspective. It was fun to see and even imagine if trees today in their unknown sentience would think in such a way. It also conveyed a nice bittersweet feeling of how life and death effects everything both directly and indirectly. Even so, there always seems to be some semblance of hope we can hang on too. In fact, I got a great sense of how the human race might be doomed due to some of their actions, but might also have a chance due to some of their other actions.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I'm sure there's plenty of things I can complain about if I really picked it apart, but the last thing I want is to be reminded I'm a teacher over break. Haha.

I see you haven't rusted, old friend.