I Lay Here

• Ciaran Bruce, Grade F
• Short Story
• 2012

I lay here, watching the suns golden rays drip/shine slowly through the canopy of green foliage, completely and utterly at peace. I’m sprawled across a bed of golden leaves listening to the sounds of this Forest. The collective chirp of birds, the gentle flow of a near by stream, wind whistling around the trunks of trees and the definite hum of insects.

People call me ‘air-headed’ and ‘childish’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘naïve’. Maybe I am. They feel it is their right to slaughter these trees for a ‘new and improved’ shopping centre or complex. But this forest has been here for hundreds of years and yet they still have a blatant disregard for it.

Instead I lay here. Appreciating this forest for all it beauty.