If Trees Could Talk!

Kyle Faces the Tribunal

In the middle of the forest, Kyle lied helplessly. He noticed what had happened but did not have the ability to run away like the others. He remained there sobbing in indescribable pain. After some time, he gathered some strength and sat up. Thinking his friends had not gone too far, he looked all around but all he saw was the trees.

“Jarod, can you hear me? Peter, are you near there?” he shouted as he looked all around. “Fellow billionaires, can you please come and get me? You selfish cowards, I will teach a lesson if I meet you again.”

As he was still disappointed, he heard another funny voice mimicking him, followed by chuckles from where he did not notice. It said exactly the same words he had said. Not realizing where the voice was from, he attempted to get up and ran away but he did not have the strength enough to do so.

The voice continued saying, “You murderer, shut up and sit down. You have nowhere to go. You can ran but you cannot hide. Can you even run? We are watching you and you are our captive.”

He looked around but could not see exactly who was talking.

“Show yourself. No need for you to hide,” Kyle said. “Be a man, come and confront me.”

“Of course, I am not a man, How can I be a man? These humans never regard the others creatures’ lives, said the tallest of the trees which was the grandfather of these trees that was called Billy.

“Kill him also, as he has killed millions of our kind,” shouted the other trees.

This is when Kyle realized that the trees had ability to speak and listen to whatever he said. Tears started rolling down his chubby cheeks as he wondered which kind of forest he had invaded this time. This left him speechless.

Looking intently at the tallest tree of the forest, he could see the eyes, the mouth and a countless number of hands. He then came to a conclusion in his mind that this forest was haunted.

“You humans behave as though you do not have brains. You only love fellow humans. You live together in one house. The grandparents, fathers, mothers, children and all other siblings taking good care of each one. Yes, we have no problem with that,” the Billy said.

“The problem is that you do not let us, as the trees to also have such a privilege. You find our well established families, you call “forests”, leaving in harmony having lasted a test a time then you destroy all of us. As if that is not enough, sometimes you just set us on fire so that you use the land for other purposes. What a selfish group of creatures you are!” the tree added.

Kyle just continued gazing in disbelief. He first pinched his cheek a little just to be sure he was not dreaming. As any other human, he did not expect that trees had such heart touching concerns. His worry was that he was carrying the blame on behalf of all humanity. He kept listening but did not know how big the punishment would be for him in the end.

Next to that tree was another tree, the second tallest, the grandmother of the trees that was called Rose, which said, “What amazes me is that we never attack them but they are always against us. It is as if we are their natural enemies. Imagine if it was us to attack your family and we kill everyone in it. Would you be happy? We are saying this on behalf of all our colleagues that cannot talk.

If only you knew how much we sacrifice so that you human beings can survive, none of you would kill any of us. Let us tell him what we do for them, perhaps he will understand.”