Sister Tree

I could tell you the family’s history in full but that would take more than a thousand years. No, instead I’ll start my story with my earliest personal memory and pray that we have enough time. I was just a youngling, green and happy, living at my sister's finger tips, under my fathers watchful eye. Father Sun and Sister Tree worked together in perfect harmony, to provide me with a splendid life. I never wanted it to end but alas, all good things do and my youthful story is no exception. We had a brother and we called him Wind. He regularly came to gather together my siblings and carry them on to the next stage of their life. On the day he came for me, I wasn’t scared. Sister Tree told me to have full trust in Brother Wind and one day I would be just like her. So I gave my farewells and innocent promises to return. Brother Wind took me softly in his arms and carried me to the ground, where he introduced me to sweet Mother Earth. He placed me gently within her loving embrace and assured me that everything was going to be alright. Brother Wind then covered me in a warm blanket and bid me adieu.

I could feel the temperature growing colder but Mother Earth kept me warm all the while. As the weather changed, I too felt myself beginning to change. My skin was stretching and cracking and my head seemed to be exploding until suddenly, it did. I woke up one morning and I had a little green tuft of hair. As odd as this was to me, stranger still was the fact that my new hair had grown outside the folds of Mother Earth’s covers. There was this familiar warmth, that I quickly recognized as Father Sun’s affectionate touch and I was content.

Every morning I woke up and I observed myself. My hair was a little bit longer and my body was a little bit bigger. As the years passed and I continued to grow in every direction, I began to develop extraordinary senses. Instead of being an external part of me, I felt myself becoming my hair and my hair became me. I no longer felt buried in Mother Earth’s embrace but rather, anchored by it. One day I looked up and saw Sister Tree, proud as always but somehow smaller. I called out and Brother Wind carried my words to her. In the response he returned with, she explained that I was simply growing and would one day be just as she was. This was the only reassurance I needed and I resolved to sit patiently and wait for that day. Each winter passed in a restful slumber and each summer day passed in a happy bliss. Father Sun looked over me, Mother Earth held me secure and life was perfect.

One spring day, I awoke from my winter slumber and noticed something odd about my hair: it felt heavy. Not much different but heavier than should have been the case. I looked over myself and noticed I was covered in hundreds of green bumps. As the days grew warmer, I noticed these bumps opened into beautiful flowers that attracted family members of every kind. Cousin Squirrel often scampered across my branches and Cousin Bird even built his house upon me. I was pleased by this, happy that I could help anyone in my magnificent family. Brother Wind came to visit me often and he explained to me that, just like Sister Tree, my flowers would form into seeds, as I once was. He promised that, if I pleased, he would return in the fall and he would bring my children to Mother Earth, where they might begin their own lives. I gave him my grateful approval and he went his way. True to his word, Brother Wind came along that fall. Softly he blew and gathered you and your siblings to be placed within Mother Earth’s embrace.

This became a regular occurrence each year until one spring I awoke with the familiar weight hanging from my branches but something was very different. Very horribly different. In front of me now stood a large, solid cube, made entirely from the corpses of my family. Sister Tree, who had stood next to me through all these years, was now gruesomely cleaved into strips and stacked lifelessly atop Mother Earth, crucified by rods of steel. I could not be consoled and even Brother Wind wept for months. When his tears finally ceased, several more members of my family were slaughtered and placed on top of Sister Tree. Eventually a small group of grotesque humans (I had heard dark tales but I had never seen one until then) began moving an assortment of odd objects into the crypt they had created out of my family. I could not recognize anything they carried in but most had one common quality: they were made, at least in part, by the flesh of my family. I was broken and furious but there was nothing I could do. I willed my feet to rise from the ground and crush them, I begged Brother Wind to carry me over and squelch out their existence. He tried, achieving only meager success, causing one of my arms to sever itself from my body and smash into the horrid box but with little effect. As the days grew longer, they lacked their usual summer warmth. Even the ever unmoved Father Sun was devastated by the abhorrence that unfolded before us all.

One morning, the largest of the humans came up to me and began wrapping a cord around me. It was uttering sounds that I couldn’t hope to understand but everything it voiced sent a wave of both fear and anger surging through me. It left and to my horror, returned shortly with another human, slightly smaller but almost identical. They carried between them a monstrous set of iron teeth, which they brought up to my feet and placed into my flesh, right above my ankles. The monsters began to slide the sharp edges back and forth, slicing quickly, painfully through my body. I screamed in anguish as I felt the blood gushing from my wound. Brother Wind tried desperately to hold me up but it made no difference. I felt myself losing strength, losing grip of my bond with Mother Earth. Cousin Squirrel and Cousin Bird heard my cries and they came running to me, only to watch hopeless and helplessly. As the humans continued to cut through me I grew weaker and weaker, until the last bit of my strength snapped and I came crashing down. When I tell you these things, my young child, I mean not to frighten you but impart the wisdom of Sister Tree: one day you’ll be just like us.