The Trees Of Tomorrow

"One day when I grow up I want to be like you" the little tree said and stretched its branches to tickle the big tree next to it. The big tree didn't say much. It just stood there swaying gently in the wind, slowly growing its big, red fruits. The big tree just grunted when the little tree spoke. The little tree silenced after the big tree didn't answer. A sudden powerful Northern wind shook the two trees violently and one of the baby fruits on the big tree flew off one of its branches and hit the little tree. "Ouch! Look out!" the little tree said. But the big tree just grunted again. Days passed and seasons passed. Each one warmer than the previous or icier than the one that had been before. The little tree stretched and stretched but it could only feel its roots getting more and more wobbly with time. "Why am I not growing?" he asked the big tree one day. The big tree just grunted again. He was looking weaker as the years went by. His beautiful colours were fading and the little tree no longer desired to be like the big tree if that was his fate. "You look sick." the little tree said to the big tree one crisp spring morning. "Have you looked in the mirror lately, sprout? I doubt you will make it through the next winter." the big tree replied, all of his branches pointing away from the little tree over the years swept away by the wind. Surprised by getting an actual reply the little tree felt a tremble going through it. As it trembled it felt one of its small roots release from the dry soil it was planted in. "What do you mean?" the little tree asked hoping the big tree would have a conversation with him even if it meant having a negative conversation. "We'll both die soon." the big tree said and sighed.

"I don't know what you mean." the little tree replied not wanting to believe what the big tree had just said. "You will never grow up. I will never grow old. Have you not noticed I no longer make fruits? Have you not noticed how the soil is withering away beneath us? How the wind tears our branches off in the night storms? How the sun dries up our leaves and let them fall beneath us way before their time? Don't tell me, you haven't noticed. I see your roots popping up. It's time to wake up." the big old tree said with a deep sadness in his voice.

"Why should I wake up if I am bound to die?" the little tree asked in a grim tone of voice. Moved by the little tree's statement the big tree bent the strongest of his weakened branches towards the little tree. The little tree no longer stood tall but felt with agonozing pain the truth in the words of the big tree. How thirsty he was. How hungry he was. How fragile he'd become. "I'm sorry I put you in this world." the big tree said full of remorse. "You planted me?," the little tree said in surprise which turned into anger. "How could you?" the little tree asked. "I couldn't help myself," the big tree said: "I was still strong and beautiful then. I thought we were going to make it. There was a time I believed in what was good and pure and strong. I believed we could prevail." he said, his branches squeeking as the wind rustled through the lands that surrounded them. "You are selfish. And now I am bound to die without having ever truly lived." the little tree said looking at his exposed roots with a deep sorrow in his heart. "I'm sorry." the big tree said and a heartbreaking silence fell between the two trees. During the night yet another storm swept through the lands surrounding them. The winds tore and clawed at the little tree's defenseless roots. The big tree screamed to take him instead but his screams were drowned in the howling wind. He watched mortified, helplessly incapable of action, as the little tree was ripped from its little spot on the Earth and tossed into the storm. Dead before he got the chance to even live.