Fifth Task: Last Tree

The last standing tree on the earth

Short narration - on the p.o.v of the tree (about one A4 page/500 words)

• Describe the experience


• First person narration

I woke up feeling the sun was shining down on the glass sphere, rays of lights danced in my orb, warming me out of my deep slumber. I sighed, silently wishing I could feel the rays without it being screen by the glass. I wonder what my ancestors would say, if they say me, the last tree on earth, inside a pretty glass cage, fed with fertilizers to keep me alive.

The glass orb was designed specially to keep me save from temperature changes and other threats to my security. The orb also regulates special air containing a high rate of oxygen, to make it easier for me to photosynthesize. Several veins of liquid containing artificial minerals were stuck within my roots. Humans were doing all they can to save me. They are trying to keep as far away from the environment as they can! They have long forgotten that I am the environment.

It was trees who generated oxygen for the humans. It was trees that helped to control the temperature of the world. It was the trees that provided humans shelter. I find it funny now, to see humans giving me oxygen, regulating the temperature for me, a tree.
The humans are worrying now. I am the last tree. They have been trying to save a lot of trees before me and they have failed. The pollution had slowly killed my kind, and by the humans notice, it was too late to try and save us.

Oh, the pollution has been hard for the humans too. A lot of the humans died when the temperature grew too hot and there was barely any oxygen in the air. But humans are survivors. They have been surviving for a long time. Even now, in the harsh polluted environment, they survive. They have equipped their houses with its own private ecosystem. When they go out, they wear protective clothes that are 'intelligent' keeping the temperature in the safe level and producing oxygen for them. And in the climate where no animals or trees can survive, they started producing chemically processed food as their staple food.

It pains me that I have never seen my ancestors. I was planted as a seed in a lab, without no knowledge of what I was or what I was supposed to become. I had no knowledge on how I should be a tree. Was I supposed to run around the cage like the mice I usually saw in the lab? Or was I supposed to stand still and not move at all like the table I was experimented on? My first view of a tree had been on the day they exhibited me to the world. I saw my ancestors on a television screen. I would spend hours watching the screen, mesmerised. Oh, how majestically they stood. How powerful they looked. This was how, I learned a bit about my ancestors and about myself.

I had been a sickly tree then, having no proper knowledge of photosynthesis. But when I saw a documentary about trees, I also learned about how I was supposed to eat and grow. I have grown magnificently since then, and the humans have rejoiced.

Now they spend the time trying to make me to produce seeds. Yes, I am the last tree on earth and I cannot produce seeds. I try and try but it is not possible. I think the nature of trees has changed. The end is near. I know it. Before, I spent the time wondering how I can save the world. I,now, spend the time wondering who will go first, the humans or me.