Waiting Of The Trees

• Rebecca Francis, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2016

WAITING OF THE TREES

Softly the wind blows, shaking the rainforest's environment ever so slightly. The sky, it cries, for what's to come. Drip, drip. The rain slides off the leaves and embraces what's below. From dirt and moss to predators and prey. The trees don't mind, as life flows, the trees, they wait.

Animals from all over take refuge under those giant, patient trees. With trunks green as its nieghbours and leaves so glossy it reflects one's soul. But no matter how grand a tree is, its rooted and lies helpless to the chain. When the chain consumes those animals, when nothing else does, the trees will at least remember.

As the corpses crumple under the wet mossed floor and lie beneath the dirt that holds their memories, the trees they held witness and they will be there, collecting what once was.

Sadly the small rain forest yearns for help. A call only heard for those who can listen. If trees could talk would it make a difference? Will their suffering go like a new dawn? Will that dull rainforest breathe with new life? But the stories they need to share are lost with their voices and soon, just like everything else, the grim reaper will comfort them.

And as time goes on with cries unanswered the trees start to wilt. Because even things so used to death can die.

Alas! Man came with their metal scythes and monsters who bare sharp teeth. 'Vroom' howls the monsters as they rip through the hard flesh of the trees. But in their expressionless state the trees stand helpless. The rain forest only becoming duller and more empty.

Those trees with stories unshared are burned by fire, sizzling even after death. Their fragments so easily wasted and used as parts of pollution. Deformed so harshly their dignity lie waste in the dirt that carries what's left of those grand trees!

But man will only state "Such is life."

Their woes are now carried by the wind and their spirit flies freely into mother natures home, safely hidden from reality. Peacefully with their kin. Such is death. Whilst back on Earth, the trees, they can only wait.



Rebecca Francis
Year 9
Narre Warren South P-12 College
Melbourne, Victoria

(03)97047107