A friend lost

Once upon a time, there was a tree right besides an apartment building, a bit apart from the woodland behind it. An alpine tree it was. When it rained, the droplets rolled down its bark or held on to the tips of its spiky needles. While it snowed, a squirrel sat on its branch with its tail wrapped up to its head, perhaps it felt safe compared to being under the open sky. A half dead tree it was but it still looked green when the woodland looked barren. It was an ever-green tree to say so, but let me tell you that it also had days when it turned pale. What made it different was its pace at which it recovered itself back. 

So many birds sat on it at leisure. Cardinals, jays, nuthatches, robins, doves, sparrows. It was as if everyone loved that tree. What a sight it was to find a beautiful bird perched right outside one’s window, so close as though the only thing that separated one from it was the window pane. 

The woodland next to the apartments was huge, but no tree was as close to it as that, or it seemed so from the window. One considered it an integrated part of the residence. It was this amazing thing about the tree, that it let the residents of the apartments be so close to the animals and the birds and yet far enough to be able to harm them. It was fun to visit the safari parks, but it was just charming to see nature in its original state; nothing being artificial or superficial about it.

One morning, some uniform workers hung ropes and some tools onto that tree and one more near by and began chopping it down. Branch by branch, they brought it down. Those who saw it from their window every morning, they helplessly stood and watched it being brought down, along with probably the birds. These individuals really wanted to stop what was happening, but what could they really do? The apartment management had asked it for. They wanted to repaint the building and the tree caused space problems perhaps, so in order to renovate the exteriors, they decided to bring down a tree maybe far older than the apartments themselves. And so they just stood and gritted their teeth. As they went to bed, it felt unreal that it had actually happened.

It was ironic, to find the barks of the tree that soared high in the sky, then on the ground next day. During winter, one looked at the barren woodland and missed the little hint of green that the tree used to maintain every year. When it snowed, one worried about the squirrel. One recalled about how the snow left a white outline on the brown branches of the tree. 

Each time a tree is chopped off, people have a reason behind it. There is need of more houses, malls, schools, factory, etc, etc. Pardon me if I say so that to me they don't sound like reasons, but in fact excuses. Or perhaps ignorance. They bring down a tree that can live for a 1000 year for people who live in this world for a few hundred years; people who cannot do as much as the tree can do for them and for the planet!