The Day the Leafless Ones Came
I thought I was unstoppable. I thought that I could protect everyone because of how many friends I had. I had the squirrel nestled in my lower branches with her little babies. The birds nested higher, and I loved the springtime because of the thrum of life in the forest. There were rabbits to burrow under my roots and of course my friends all around me. Like a legion, we stood together but we did not advance. There was never any need to. That is, until the day the leafless ones returned. They had been here before. They are small in stature and talk in a strange garbling language. Some of them had a rough bark on their heads, like oak bark. That did not help in making them seem less foreign though. I thought that they were harmless at first. They just ran among us and the younger ones tried their best to climb up our bodies but they were tiny and weak and had much difficulty in doing so. They would lay down colorful shapes on the ground and eat and talk and laugh among themselves. They were strange and amusing to watch. Then one day the leafless ones left and had not returned for quite some time. I had nearly forgotten about them. That is, until the whispering ones returned.
They too were small in stature but were much smaller than the leafless ones. They moved silently along the ground and stuck together. They always had extraordinary stories to tell me. One time they told me of the time they build a bridge out of themselves to cross a great chasm. I figured it was big for them because hardly anything is bigger than me. They told me of the lands they conquered, they told me of all of the new places they visited but one thing that they said caught my attention the most. They told me of the leafless ones.
“The leafless ones,” they said “they built a hive of smooth, cold stone and had miniature suns contained within them. They ride around in the bellies of these huge monsters. The monsters, it seems have no will of their own.”
“What does this have to do with us?” I asked
“They ripped up the earth; they drove away all living things not of their kind. No insect or animal remains. They wiped out and entire family of beings like you and we fear they will come here as well.” This sent a shiver down my trunk. How can the leafless ones be so cruel as to just eradicate the life in an entire area?
“How much time do you think we have?” I asked nervously.
“That we do not know.” They replied grimly. With that being said they moved on towards the next set of trees to tell them of the things to come. That night I had unnerving, fretful dreams. I dreamed of the leafless ones moving in on my home, my family and slaughtering them. They held nothing back, spared no sapling and most certainly did not display any sort of remorse at the fact that they are committing genocide. I woke not feeling any better. Then my nightmare became a reality.
We heard a sound like distant thunder. The birds nesting among us cried and flew off. The whispering ones chattered nervously and made their escape. Then we saw them. Some were riding in their monsters, others were on foot. Their arms had sharp silver edges on the end of them. They stampeded towards our front line. I kept praying that they would stop but they collided with my brethren and hacked and knocked them down. I cried out for them to stop but if the leafless ones could hear my voice they gave no indication of it. They loaded up my friends in larger monsters and carried them off somewhere. They left that night but I knew they would return.
The next day they did just that. With all the violence and fervor they had the day before they set to work on killing. I could do nothing to stop them. We took some of them out. Our falling bodies and limbs injured many and smashed some of their monsters, but that did little to scare them away. Soon they reached me. The glowing eyes of the monster stared me down. I stood tall and braced myself for death. However, death never came. I heard a shout. One of the leafless ones yelled at another. The monsters eyes dimmed and the leafless one climbed out. Much arguing ensued but they finally stopped. The monster roared to life and backed away. One leafless one walked over and patted my bark woefully. He had a sad look on his face. He then turned and left.
I am the lucky one I kept telling myself. I survived the leafless ones. I did not feel lucky. I had no one to shade with my branches, no one to dance with when the wind blew through me, no one to talk to. Am I really the lucky one? Or just another being condemned to suffer at the leafless ones hands?
