In Absence of Green

The city I'm in is so empty. I looks like a city: there are tall buildings of unknown enterprise, expensive restaurants but no food stores, a large number of homeless wanders, and long streets. Unlike many other larger cities, after rush hour the city is abandoned. At night the streets and weekends the streets are so empty that I have sledded down the giant hill on a snowy night on a major intersection at nine pm and wasn't bothered. The city is so quiet I can hear the hipsters at midnight smoke weed at the entrance to our apartment, and skateboarding everywhere from my bedroom in my apartment near the top floor.

The building next my apartment had a bunch of trees surrounding it. There was one in particular I would always pass on the path I took, its branches grew so that they nearly roofed a part of the sidewalk. It had beautiful red berries and leaves glowed kelly green when the sun shone through over head. I'm sure I looked at it everyday. Sometimes I would brush my hand against the leaves and branches as I pass, or maybe give it a gentle tug. I don't why I do it, I just like doing that when I pass under trees.

I never really thought much of the tree, until I walked to school and saw that construction workers had set up fences around the building and destroyed everything green that was within the contained area. Now there's no grass, trees, or bushes. Only chopped up bits of trunk in piles.

When I woke up this morning I remember hearing buzzing and sawing, but I thought nothing of it... And I only realized now, late afternoon, that all the trees were gone.

In the absense of green, I realized how much I liked the trees themselves, and I would sincerely miss them. Strange to think that we can have a relationship with plants, but I liked seeing that tree everyday and passing under it. Maybe it's because this city is so lonesome that this in particular upsets me as another empty spot in what should be a thriving place.

The loss weighed on my mind. So I went to building after class and went to where the tree once stood. Remnants clinging to the soil and cast aside woodchips were the only bits left. I tore up a root and took some woodchips and brought them back with me. I will clean them and whittle them into a necklace or some other item. It was a beautiful tree, I hope I can make something that will inspire the same sense of peace it once brought me.