General audiences, fantasy-dystopian piece with a unique perspective, takes place in the same universe as 'The company of asphalt', 782 words.

‘They’ a greener perspective

I remember my youth. There were many of us, generations upon generations all in one, beautiful place. Great grandfathers and the youngest among us lived closely knit together in what we called our domain. I recall I was perhaps of five seasons and great grandfather Pamel was teaching I and the other young ones about the great connections that exist in the world. Pamel talked much about the importance of these vast connections and how we would all one day understand deeper of where we fit in these expansive threads. Pamel had almost reached the grand point of his lecture when ‘they’ came. They whom, have become the very cause of the woe and misery I feel now. They rode in upon great, four-legged beasts. Their furred faces mostly obscured behind false faces, that exuded a most haunting respiration. They brought with them vast structures pulled by strange contraption and motivation. I and the other young ones could only watch on in socked disbelief and terror as ‘they’ revealed shimmering, metallic folds of sharply devious make. Pamel fell to their contraptions, and with him the vast wisdom he once garnered had vanished. As they began to haul Pamel away, he breathed his last and I still remember what he told us. His final dying words have been with me all these years. “Do not blame them, they know not what they do…”

In the coming years, ‘they’ returned again and again and again. First, they took the oldest and wisest of us, the rest of the great grandfathers and grandmothers. After the last grandmother, Nespa had fallen, they began with the grandfathers and grandmothers. Soon after, they started on our fathers and mothers until it was only us, the youngest that remained. The sorrow and isolation we felt in those dark years claimed many, but I did not yield, for I remembered great grandfathers last words and sought a single question. Why? Why had these outsiders come to our home only to bring pain? What had we ever done to them? It was in that next season, that I soon began to realize why these strangers had done what they did and for what purpose.

It was the dead of winter and ‘they’ the furred menaces, hadn’t returned for years now. Many of us had reached our adult years and we struggled to survive without the wisdom of our taken ancestors. Paranoid whispers were common amongst the others, would ‘they’ return? What would it mean for us if ‘they’ returned? I remained stoic through it all, despite our frequent sufferings. It was an early, deep winter morning when they returned. Only this time it was different, there were but three of them, their furred faces were unshielded in the low light of winter and they brought with them a young one of their kind. The young one walked awkwardly through the snow and could barely communicate with whom I assumed to be her mother and father. They spoke in their bizarre language and the pointing of their fingers in my direction had worried me from the start. In the coming days ‘they’ arrived in mass and stole me away from the last of my family. I hadn’t been killed, I knew that much but, in my coma-like state I could not recall what route they took me and to where I had no idea.

I have lived with them for fifteen seasons now. They let me down in front of their strange abode within their dense community. The seasons since then have come and gone, they dress me with strange decoration throughout the year, particularly in the coldest season. Despite these many embarrassments they treat me well. I have come to accept them as a kind of adopted family. Every morning they leave in their strange wagons, riding upon a black sea with yellowed line out from their abode and community. In these quiet times of meditation, I have found the answer to my question I asked so long ago. Why? The answer to which is truly tragic, and I have spent many a night in woe at that stark and terrible reality. ‘They’ do not see us as living things but as objects to be used, moved and kept. Despite this sadness I look to my youth for strength in my darkest of days.
I remember the very grove where I grew and lived before this artificial existence. I remember the elder trees whom taught me much about the world before having their lives cut short. And, I still remember the last words of great grandfather Pamel, “Do not blame them, they know not what they do…”