Part 1 

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      In the beginning, there was dirt. Hard packed and scorched, and the sky fought the earth. And this was all there was. 

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       And in the beginning, there was a seed. 

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       As the clouds finally broke, the seed became a sprout- all alone in steaming air, the only thing for miles, for eons it seemed. 

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      The sprout became a sapling with slender arms and large eyes that blinked slowly in the too-bright sun. They pushed against the hostile world and frayed their roots against the rocks, burned their leaves against the light. They pushed and pushed in this timeless place; the task was too big for one life and yet one life was all there was. The world splintered into moments where the strain was bearable and moments where it wasn’t. 

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     And yet the tree kept pushing. Forever had passed long ago, Now was the only company, and the Endless grew deeper with each breath. And, suddenly, Alone was over. New sprouts rose from the giving earth. The tree’s burden, shared.

 

     The tree’s siblings took on the task eagerly, breaking the packed dirt into soft, airy comfort. They grew much faster than the first and they reached into the sky; soon the older tree was nearly left behind. They kept in occasional contact with their roots, intertwined and their whispered words that fell like leaves to the shaded floor below but their world was so much... faster than the one that came before. 

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    ‘Grow! Grow! Grow!’ They seemed to shout all the time. ‘Turn this bedrock into soil! Tear these clouds into a mist! Grow faster! Grow larger! We have so much work to do!’ But the first tree was tired and moved more slowly than the rest, perhaps a consequence of maturing alone. There were no comparisons, there was no competition back then. The old tree looked up at their bodies, their faces already disappearing into the haze, and was glad for their youth and excitement. ‘What a vibrant new world,’ the old tree thought, ‘what wonderful shade to spend my last days, I am glad to have seen the beginning of this place. Look how the dappled light plays at my roots! Was I always so beautiful?’ The tree groaned and sagged. ‘I did my work as well as I could and I am happy the others are here now. Oh but I’m tired!’ The tree shuddered and its arms hung limply at their sides. ‘I am ready to help my siblings one last time. I am ready to die and become that which I made, I am ready to go back to the earth.’ The tree loosened its hold on its roots and slipped gently out of the ground. Their legs were weak and small, not used to holding any weight at all, and the tree toppled forward in a mess of leaves and branches, the splintering sounds deadened by the foliage. 

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   ‘Ahhhh’ the tree sighed, vapor spilling from their head and sap from their wounds. The old tree was pressed face first into the ground and, for the first time, was able to look closely at the soil they had spent their life working for. They noticed the way it crumbled when their eyelashes brushed against it, they saw how it soaked up the sap spilling from their forehead, they marveled at the way their breaths stirred the tiniest pieces of it into the air, although each rattling breath stirred less and less. They focused on the slip of light that had reached the forest floor and wondered at the path it had taken, falling from the sun, through the wispy clouds and the thick canopy of their siblings and finally landing past their crushed branches to rest on the soil beside their dying body. The thought made the tree feel connected to their taller, younger siblings; though they had grown apart, the same light was twisting past all of their branches even now. 

     The tree was falling now, back to sleep, the same sleep they slept as a seed, the sleep they had almost forgotten. Their big, solemn eyes opened wide...slowly, and, in the dappled light, so much dimmer than the tree remembered, they saw an ant reaching up for a branch.