Bare empty ruined I stood in the glaring hot orange ball’s heat not knowing how long the torture would continue. The sun showed no mercy and mercy was not what the humans showed me either. Why are they called humans when humanity was not what they had. Did humanity come first or the humans. Humanity was supposed to be an act but is it only a word.
I am with fractured limbs and hollowed insides dying a slow death in the middle of nowhere. The outcome was long decided when they plundered my mother earth until she had nothing to give them anymore.
How it pains to see my mother like this broken and destroyed beyond the point of recognition. Does she not want her true form back. I keep wanting to ask her but somehow each time I hope she’d do something about it without me asking. She is the earth even if she is in pieces now.
This was once a lovely place with greenery all around me. I was green and white and orange like the many other trees my friends my brothers my sisters.
Family… yes, that’s the word for it. We were a family of colors and laughter and spring. Now season is summer forever. I don’t blame the sun I really really don’t. It gave me life as I sprouted from my mother’s womb years ago. I grew strong I got the bronzed brown bark and bright green leaves because of the sun. My stark white flowers bloomed in its care growing into bitter fruits and swelling into riper ones for the my dear friends to savor.
Oh… those fluttering wings with tiny heads and sharper beaks. How they loved me when I was lush living in my branches bringing twigs to build cute nests to have tinier babies nestle in my limbs. Humans interfered then too. Throwing stones and sticks climbling and scratching me hurting me for the fruits. It would be death if a stone hit a bird and hit them they did at times. I cried when a baby lark fell after being shot by the humans. They called it a sport one of the birds said.
The thankless humans enjoyed my fruits they snatched ruthlessly. Steal… yes, they did not only form me but from my family too. They all fell one after the other dried and dead while I stood until this day.
One by one the birds, the animals, the inscets too went and never came back. What would they come back to when the clouds refused to rain and my dried limbs refused to sprout again. How I miss them with no one to talk to. Not an insect not a butterfly not an animal to grin at me to nibble at my leaves or to pee on my bark. Their chirpy chatter kept me awake all day and night. Now it is the emptiness the deafening sound of the void that doesn’t let me sleep.
The word is here again. Abyss too means the same. Strange how the humans have multiple words for the same emotion. Yet emotions are not what they have inside them.
Oh death… why don’t we end it this minute. I am ready to surrender to your powers. End is here anyway. Fire leaves nothing behind except ashes. Gray and black like the night filled with pollution smoke hiding the pearly moon.
The gray moon is coughing and wheezing hiding in the vast sky. Who looks at me anyway ugly awkward naked and scarred crying and howling in agony staring at the ruins around me. My mother is crying with me.
Tearless cries… for our tears dried and we were left with nothing absolutely nothing. Mother gave me all she could and I took it with a heavy heart. Barren we are now not able to even hold each other close as we previously did. My roots are weak weaker than before exposed to the hickory smog floating around in the rotten marmalade sky.
Water was our life our breath our food our savior. Isn’t it horrifying that the savior too vanished without a trace. I sucked and sucked the droplets of water my mother stores in her secret folds until there was not a single drop left of either of us..
Why I kept asking knowing there was no answer. Maybe it was because I had to talk about it to someone anyone who would listen. Did they listen. No they never did.
Heartbreaking it was when a swallow whispered it was over before breathing its last at my roots. Mother took pity and enveloped the poor bird in her tried arms. The frail bones poke my roots reminding me that I was helpless to save it.
When I couldn’t save myself how could I save it and how could a save my mother. If there is anything that squeezes my heart the most it is my lack of strength to save my mother.
I know she is strong… so strong that she could decide to split open and swallow everything. I wish she’d do that. I desire nothing than to go back into her womb lie down. I am tired from standing alone for long. She is pushing me away and away from herself. My roots are loose I will fall there is no doubt about it but I will fall over her. She will not let me back into her until I get crushed further further and there will be only tiny particles of dust instead of my form.
Mother is livid not at me never at me but at the humans and I have a feeling she is finally going to make them pay. For the infinite sins they have committed for the greed the selfishness the desire to have it all with their lives.
But my life wouldn’t last till that day. I would bow to mother and then to the death for death was the master of all except my mother. Will they join hands one day for they need to do it to stop the ruin.
Ha… there is hardly anything left to be ruined yet the humans are on a rampage and yes… only mother and death can put an end to it. I will surrender and ask mother to take revenge.
No… she doesn’t like revenge. She would not do it. I will beg her plead her set it right for the harmless souls that still managed to exist. The scorch is unbearable today. I feel faint. I will not see the dark sky of the night. Orange red fire surrounds me as I sway dizzy and exhausted in this desolate wasteland.
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The above story is an entry into the writing event(Feb 1st – 24th) hosted by ArtoonsInn: #TrainofThoughts #Legends3
Event rules and guidelines: https://writers.artoonsinn.com/pull-the-rug-unik-3-writing-event/
Check out Srivalli’s space here: https://writers.artoonsinn.com/author/srivalli-rekha/
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Photo : Painting by Ratna Pochiraju
