The Forgotten Tree

Time was long, and the days were short. Still, the tree stayed standing. It was a pear tree widely known for producing the best pears in the town. Every year, people had come to take the sweet fruit that hung from the branches, and the tree gave willingly. The tree had always had a pleasant life in its little meadow. The tree had always loved when people came to eat its fruit. The humans always had a smile on their faces when they left with the crisp fruit plucked from the branches of the tree.

There was a boy that the tree saw quite often. The boy would run around the meadow playing with his dog and climbing the tree to set off on little make-believe adventures. The smile of the boy and the laughs heard throughout the meadow delighted the old tree. To see the innocence of humans and their happiness gave the tree joy.

It all stopped after a while. The tree started to notice a change in the air. More people were there but not for his fruit. They brought large machines and foul-smelling air. The men stripped the tree of all of its fruit. The tree noticed that they barely ever finished the fruit. They would take some bites and then discard the fruit, ignoring the time and patience it took the tree to grow it for them. The tree then started to hate the humans for their ungrateful nature, and so the fruit became sour and rotten.

Soon enough, a small city area sprouted up around the tree. The streets were bustling, and the buildings were full. The tree watched it all happen with anger in his soul. The humans had taken his perfect world from him. The world where everything was green and where the air smelled of sweet flowers and rich earth. Now the small world of the pear tree smelled of filth and smog. The tree's fruit couldn't have been as sweet or crisp as it was before even if the tree wanted. So the tree only produced sour and rotten fruit that was inedible to any human.

The tree began to notice something. There was an old man who sat on the bench next to the tree every day. The tree could not remember when the man had started doing that. Finally, the old man came up to the tree one time with teary eyes. He sat next to the tree and started to speak.

‘I am sorry old friend for what they have done to you. You gave them all that you had to make them happy. You gave us the best pears we have ever eaten. You stood there in your beautiful solitude in that meadow. We have taken that from you. We took your beautiful little world filled with wonder and joy. You were my playground, my castle, and my second home. You shone your beauty all around us and we destroyed it for our own pleasure. I am sorry for the actions of my fellow beings. They simply don't understand the beauty of the world you provided. You deserved our protection and you received our destruction. I hope that one day you can forgive us for what we have done to you.’ As the old man finished he looked at the tree and the tree recognized the boy.

The tree never did produce its delicious pears for the humans to eat, for the humans had made it impossible for the tree to do so. The tree simply stood there as a memorial to the old past beauty of the world, never to be seen again.