The Last Tree

In a world of Ashes and flames, where ever-lighted coals, and man made energy is vital to survival, one girl has seen life before this. The year is 3432. In a city called Nenna, the fire city, a girl awakens. She has forgotten all, her name, her age, her home, her past. She wanders the city and finds a boy who shows her a tree. A tree inside a dome. A tree that is linked to her past. The last tree in the world.

The Last Tree.


I was being ripped apart! Every part of my body ached and groaned with agony! Time itself was against me and every minute I suffered, the pain grew. It spread through me, like a tidal wave of torture. I screamed with my heart. My breathing slowed and came in great gasps. One more spasm of pain overtook me and I split in two. My life ended and began again.

When I awoke, I could remember nothing. I was on a street. A dirty, smelly street that led nowhere that I knew. I looked around me. Sky-high buildings filled the street in long rows of gray. The sky was cloudy and silver with smoke. As a gust of wind blew from the west, I smelled a thousand terrible smells! I smelt flames and ashes and smoke and metal. Motor oil, sweat and filth. Then people. I smelt hundreds and thousands of people! All dirty and sweaty and gross. I started to gag. Was there no fresh air here? I felt an overcoming urge to run. So I did. I ran on and on down the overwhelmingly putrid smelling streets and buildings. People were flooding the streets now and the air turned thick and stuffy. I gasped, willing the nasty air to turn into cool fresh winds that lifted the hair off of my neck and made it dance with pleasure and excitement.
But the air remained stagnant and gave no sign of changing. So I ran on. Suddenly I stopped. The most peculiar sight was before me. A tree. In a clear-as-crystal dome. I could only stare at it. What was a tree doing in a clear dome? I envied the tree. The air inside the dome was clear. I was sure it was fresh. I desperately wanted to go inside! I felt a great and terrible longing go through my body. I found myself walking to the dome and pressing my hand up against the glass. I pressed hard against it, wishing my hand could go through it and I imagined my hand on the trunk of the tree. What would the bark feel like? Would it be rough or smooth? Would it be warm or cool? Would peace flow through me or terror? I wanted so badly to try it, find out what secrets the tree held. Unknowingly, I began to weep. I wept for the tree, and I wept for myself. I wept for the people caught in this fire city and I wept for things I did not know. I did not hear anyone come up behind me.
I felt a soft, cold hand on my arm. I jumped back. A little boy, no more then seven looked at me with big, curious eyes .
"What are you doing?" he asked me softly but he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he looked at the tree and said "It’s owned by Mr. Jaram, the most powerful man in the land of Macore. He will send you to the Ash Factory if he finds you here."
I looked at him, suddenly filled with a desire to know all about Mr. Jaram. "Why? What is it?"
He smiled and his eyes became bright. "It’s a tree. I’m not surprised you don’t know what it is, not many people have seen a tree before."
I smiled at his youthful need to know more then others. "I know its a tree. Its actually a Tulip Poplar, it must be May or June, correct? Assuming so, because the Tulip Poplar only bears flowers in those two months and it is flowering now. I meant what makes Mr. Jaram keep it in glass and punish those who come near it."
The boy was pouting now, but at the last question, he brightened up with enthusiasm at getting another chance to out-know me. "It is the last tree in the world! Didn’t you know that? Everyone knows that!"
I felt my knees buckle. The last tree? The only one left? How could that be? I swallowed my fears and told him sternly, "I must get in there."
I needed to climb the beautiful tree, feel its strong, supportive branches under me as its flowers softly touched my face, I needed to be comforted by its leaves and I needed to comfort it. "Please help me."
The boy nodded and said, "I am Connit. What is your name?"
"Sabre." I said and he nodded.
"How do I get into the dome?" I queried. Connit led me to a long tunnel of clear plastic. He picked a lock on the door that led to the tunnel and I went in.
I followed the tunnel until I found my way to the tree. I placed my hand on the trunk and could feel its sap, its blood, running to the heart of the tree. Secrets flowed with the sap. I could feel their power and magic flow through my arm.
The air sang and whispered in my ear, feelings I could not explain, nor understand. The whispers of the clear, crisp air continued and the tree murmured a command to me. "Climb." I did not hesitate in climbing the mighty branches.
"Tree," I said after a while. "Why are you the last? What about the other trees?"
"The others were uprooted. Destroyed. The humans slowly cut them all down. So now, I am the only one left." The tree was close to despair. But trees do not cry so I cried for the tree. Then I fell asleep in the cradling branches of the tree, weeping silently to myself.