Requiem
The owls don’t come anymore. They used to, often. I would hear them from my home, the comforting, eerie sounds of their calls, their mating songs, their poignant pronouncements in the middle of the night. They brought me to another world that transcended the political nightmare that has been thrust upon us.
The trucks arrived the other day, barreling through the narrow street I live on. It was cold and drizzly. Grizzled men descended onto the street with all kinds of tools in hand, and machines that slid into the air like malignant monsters. They looked up at the massive, healthy redwood, a three-hundred-year-old dazzling giant, and they set to work.
Limb by limb, they murdered this tree. I watched the whole thing from my window. I felt the tree’s anguish. I heard its screams. Neighboring trees stood aghast. I felt their tears. It took two solid days to remove this tree. When the men were done, they sat back and laughed and passed beers to each other. A few days later they came back and removed the biggest tree stump I had ever seen. The wood was so red, it looked like blood.
I have been sick since that day, nausea and a headache that do not go away. My own tears are trapped inside my head. I keep looking at the place where the tree once stood, and each time I do, I feel even more sick. The tree will never come back. Neither will the owls. The silence each night now is deafening.
Who gives humans the right to kill trees? All it takes is a permit, a flimsy piece of paper and lots of money, and anyone can do it. We live in such a disconnected, maimed society, where trees have become nuisances, where people believe they can escape into the seclusion of their homes and forget that once a tree had lived, but now was cut up into a zillion pieces, taken away by those huge noisy trucks and the men in them who felt happy that their job was done.
I talked to the neighbor who commanded the murder. I told him I was sad when the tree came down. He laughed at me and turned away.
When I walk along the street now, no one in the neighborhood seems to look down at the ground to witness the blood. It’s strange. It’s as if the tree was never there. When a tree is gone, we accommodate to a treeless world, but then we wonder why the world is burning up? This summer and fall, when the intense heat is upon us, I can predict the street will be hotter than ever without that tree.
And what about the owls? Where did they go? I miss them. Maybe they found another tree, far far away from the graveyard on this street.
Last night, around 2 am, I thought I heard one. There was a muted, plaintive cry coming from miles away, a simple drawn-out note, bereft of its usual intricacies.
It sounded like a requiem, an ode to the maimed soul of the tree, to all the winged refugees who were displaced.
I felt even more alone, listening to that monochromic note, as I remembered it’s home, how it soared in the air, as if it could touch the heavens.
It was then that I wanted to shed my humanness. I wanted to rip off my skin and take flight and leave this species that in my mind no longer has a right to exist.
The trucks arrived the other day, barreling through the narrow street I live on. It was cold and drizzly. Grizzled men descended onto the street with all kinds of tools in hand, and machines that slid into the air like malignant monsters. They looked up at the massive, healthy redwood, a three-hundred-year-old dazzling giant, and they set to work.
Limb by limb, they murdered this tree. I watched the whole thing from my window. I felt the tree’s anguish. I heard its screams. Neighboring trees stood aghast. I felt their tears. It took two solid days to remove this tree. When the men were done, they sat back and laughed and passed beers to each other. A few days later they came back and removed the biggest tree stump I had ever seen. The wood was so red, it looked like blood.
I have been sick since that day, nausea and a headache that do not go away. My own tears are trapped inside my head. I keep looking at the place where the tree once stood, and each time I do, I feel even more sick. The tree will never come back. Neither will the owls. The silence each night now is deafening.
Who gives humans the right to kill trees? All it takes is a permit, a flimsy piece of paper and lots of money, and anyone can do it. We live in such a disconnected, maimed society, where trees have become nuisances, where people believe they can escape into the seclusion of their homes and forget that once a tree had lived, but now was cut up into a zillion pieces, taken away by those huge noisy trucks and the men in them who felt happy that their job was done.
I talked to the neighbor who commanded the murder. I told him I was sad when the tree came down. He laughed at me and turned away.
When I walk along the street now, no one in the neighborhood seems to look down at the ground to witness the blood. It’s strange. It’s as if the tree was never there. When a tree is gone, we accommodate to a treeless world, but then we wonder why the world is burning up? This summer and fall, when the intense heat is upon us, I can predict the street will be hotter than ever without that tree.
And what about the owls? Where did they go? I miss them. Maybe they found another tree, far far away from the graveyard on this street.
Last night, around 2 am, I thought I heard one. There was a muted, plaintive cry coming from miles away, a simple drawn-out note, bereft of its usual intricacies.
It sounded like a requiem, an ode to the maimed soul of the tree, to all the winged refugees who were displaced.
I felt even more alone, listening to that monochromic note, as I remembered it’s home, how it soared in the air, as if it could touch the heavens.
It was then that I wanted to shed my humanness. I wanted to rip off my skin and take flight and leave this species that in my mind no longer has a right to exist.
Heidi has always loved writing. She loves delving into the art of expression through words, exploring the depth of understanding of human existence. She has written countless short stories, novels, children's books, essays and other works of creative non-fiction. In each of these pieces she is inspired by feelings, by the earth, by relationships, by her Holocaust heritage, and by her queer identity.