Pando

The new beings in this place have named us Pando, to our understanding. That understanding is significant as we have seen the two legged beasts with the strange sounds that mean things, build civilization. It is not as civil as ours, but it is civilization. Those creatures as inventive as they are are selfish in their idea of consciousness. They do not think we are alive, but we are the largest living being on earth. We breathe together, we are intertwined in a way that even their brains, those inventive machines, could never understand. We come from the mother seed, the thing that connects our family throughout our existence.

We will note here that to a forest like us, new is relative. We have existed together since the ice moved the last time.

The word, we have been given we learned means "I spread" in Latin a type of word the two legged creatures use, there they have made a mistake, we are one, and we are many. We come from the same seed, a single seed dropped off by the ice, and now we are the largest living being on this planet.

Even with their penchant for destruction the two legged beasts do not dare to touch us, they call us clones which we think implies the same. We are not the same though we come from the same place. The two legged ones, the tall two legged ones, have a soft spot for old things, and we are so very old. So we let them believe we are the same, because that fascinates them and therefore protects us.

On occasion we will welcome one of them into our world, allow those with interest to study how parts of us die off while new ones grow. That is why they cannot date us, we are efficient in that way.

It is today that we will tell you the story of two who were obsessed with us, and one that was obsessed with obtaining us. We are peaceful beings, but we do not take kindly to strangers walking through the land that is held together by our roots. We are integral to the world we've inhabited for millennia.

It is a short story as stories go, especially as stories from a forest goes, a group of two legged creatures came to study us, take samples to see if we were really one or if we were many. Three of them stayed long term. One that was lined with long grey leaves, another that was smooth with leaves of red, and a third who was neither lined nor smooth but somewhere in between, with short brown leaves.

The grey one and the red one were kind to us, they took their samples gently and thanked us as they went. It seemed they had a connection, an obsession with us that went deeper than most of their kind. So we gave them our secrets, they did not have to know that we are one and many. They did not have to know that the age of the oldest piece of us was only a fraction of the age of our existence. We allowed them that knowledge, and we allowed them to walk free after they were done with us.

We do not have a concept of two legged fairness, just what is good for us and what is not, so when the third, the brown two legged creature started to cut us down, the young ones, the ones that still had a very long time to stand tall. We needed to remove that one. It was nothing except defense of our young ones. It is easy to study our age and our system without taking the young ones. The other two did it and were content with their success.

So we moved, they will never know that we can move, it just appears as shaking in the wind but we are moving, that is a secret just for you, we think you can keep that secret. The one with brown leaves did not find their way out for a long time, and when they did, they had new feelings towards us. We were no longer a place of fascination, but fear. Over time we did allow more into our forest, they treated us well they did fine, they protect us, they are allowed to leave unhindered. If they treat us poorly, well, they will never forget us.

It is possible the one we made lost expressed that we were a place to respect, it's also possible that whispers of us have reached them through the earth. For we communicate with it so much more effectively than those with two legs.

Come visit us, we are a friendly forest, be kind to us and we will be kind to you. Watch for our shaking leaves, maybe you will see us move.