The Only Tree I'll Ever See

Rotten. It smells rotten in this city. It has been this way since before I can remember. 

I was born here, in a place where everything is dirty and there is nothing interesting to look at. Mother always told me that was how it is. It’s all she’s ever known too. It’s all anybody in this city knows. Anybody on this planet. 

    My father.

    My brother.

    My cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.

    They haven’t experienced clean air, or wide open spaces. None of us have. We have all been stuck here, with already used air and factories that burn so much stuff I’ve seen a boy pass out from simply breathing too deeply.

    Everyday I open the phone to check the pollution rate to see if it’s safe to go outside. Sometimes it’s so bad that my mother makes me wear a gas mask. They are distributed throughout each household, one for each family member. 

    A month ago I was walking to school, my bag draped over my shoulders. When I got there I saw three classmates on the ground, hunched over and gasping for air. They had forgotten that the mayor had pronounced a city wide mask mandate due to a rise in pollution the night before. As if there wasn’t enough already. 

    Anger had bubbled to the surface then, gnawing away at my insides. The rest of the day I was restless, looking out the window in class only to see buildings that reached the sky.

The anger did not disappear, and now, nearly two weeks later, it was still plaguing me. I paced back and forth, questions flying around my brain. How had we gotten here? Why hadn’t anyone stopped it? But the one question that stuck to my mind was, “What was here before?”

No one had ever told me anything about the past. As far as I knew, it had always been this way. So bad to the point where earth was nearly uninhabitable. I fidgeted my fingers, wracking my brain for answers. After nearly thirty minutes of this, I decided I needed a walk to clear my racing thoughts.

Darting forward, I grabbed my mask and bag, pulling it over my face as I swiftly left the small condo. I cringed as dust filled my lungs, the mask barely filtering the air. But I put one foot in front of the other, until I was far, far away from home. It didn’t look any different, though. Every corner I turned was buildings and dirt and endless city. 

Eventually, when the afternoon turned dark and the wind turned cold, I stopped. I didn’t even know where I was, but I knew I was alone. 

I stood, staring at the sidewalk, feeling something strange. The realization that I didn’t like it here surfaced. I didn’t like it here at all. I craved something fresh that I’d never experienced before. 

After a while I pulled my gaze from the ground, taking in my surroundings. Nothing unusual. I had stopped by a rather large brick wall, and decided to lean on it. That was a mistake, because a second later something soaked into my back. I scrambled away, turning to look at what caused this. The moment I did, my eyes widened in surprise. 

There, painted on the brick wall, was something magnificent. It had a long brown base, stretching taller than me. Once it reached a certain height it expanded in all different directions, the brown base turning into multiple smaller ones. Some were thin and some thick, some small and some large. It looked like it was reaching for something, straining to get it. Clinging to them were green things resembling thin paper, with intricate details like…veins?

I sucked in a sharp breath. I knew what this was. It was a tree. I’d heard about them from my dad who’d heard about them from his grandpa. My great-grandpa. He was the last to see a tree in our family line, so he was an expert. Unfortunately, he passed away at 87, and that was 30 years ago. At least he surpassed life expectancy, which decreased every year. 

It wasn’t as if trees weren’t talked about or unknown, I mean I’d seen pictures of them. But it was just something that no one really talked about anymore. They had all been cut down ages ago and replaced with markets and shops and houses. They had simply disappeared, and nobody had done anything about it. No one had educated me about them with the exception of a few pictures and paintings. They might as well be an ancient myth.

Anger resurfaced with vengeance. A long time ago I had read a story involving trees, and the way they were described. The air was fresh and crisp, the sky was clear, and the trees would sway. They had been our stabilizer, creating our clean oxygen and giving homes to animals. 

That’s the other thing. Animals went extinct ages ago, too. All that was left was the occasional rat or mouse. How they had survived? I had no idea.

I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining the next breath I took was sweet and healthy, that I wasn’t here, rather in a field surrounded by these trees. I remembered the first time I’d heard about them. I’d wanted to run and play in them, climb them, and dance around them. I was filled with excitement to one day see one. Except everybody told me to forget about it because trees weren’t around anymore. And so I did forget. Until now. 

The anger fizzled as the memory revealed an emotion I couldn’t place. Tears pricked my eyes and I shook my head. What had happened? What had we done? 

My eyes flew open and I looked at the painting once more. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’d probably ever seen. I wondered if this was how tall a real tree was. My gut twisted at that thought, and reality’s crushing weight had my stomach sinking. I would never get to see one. Was it possible they were still out there somewhere? I shut down that idea, wanting to rid myself of disappointment. Shame and hatred and sadness all clouded my brain, and the next thing I knew I was running. 

I ran and ran and ran. My lungs burned and my breathing was ragged, but I didn’t stop. I ran, searching for a way out. Hoping I could run until I stumbled upon a place anywhere but here. A place where there was life, and freedom, and just…air. I needed air to breathe and not feel sick! Was that too much to ask? I would do anything for just one moment of nature.

What a beautiful word, what a beautiful place to be. 

The tears poured from my eyes as I kept running, the mask becoming foggy. I ripped it off my face, fed up with the pure annoyance of it all. Immediately I regretted it, but I didn’t put it back on. I fell to the ground, choking, sobbing, wishing. I shouldn’t have to live like this. No one should. 

When I’d had enough, I reached for the mask, sliding it back onto my face. I inhaled deeply, the familiar rotten scent piercing my nose. I shut my eyes, picturing the trees again, and mourned a life I never knew and never would.