Highway Murder

Do you think only you have the right to tell you story? No man, no! Even we trees have the right to tell the tale of our life, especially when the main protagonist is man, the master of nature presently. So listen you all, humans as well as nature. The two are different now by the way. Listen!

Well, I am a great eucalypts tree standing by a road. They are killing me. The iron is hissing and kissing the rings of age in my stout trunk. I stand benumbed and in daze. But I have to speak out before I fall. Possibly you listeners will spot the crime and just—at least—have some of the pain I feel while I am being slaughtered.

Well, I feel really bad about it. I never thought the end will arrive so soon, without any notice. There is no storm threatening to uproot me. It’s a very fine day, and all the more suitable to the humans to carry out their act of greed. My killing but is unjustified because I have been fulfilling all my duties assigned by mother nature to me.

The way I have gone overboard in carrying out my task, I think I should have been lucky enough to see the majesty of upcoming wintery full moon. The moon-rays are very naughty I tell you. You may be lost in brighter self-created neon lights, but nothing can beat the beauty of full moon rays on a winter night. I pine for one more such night! Alas it seems impossible! I have to take solace by remembering the past only. 

See, you may not realise it but your tools of cutting, your axes, saws, scythes and blades are very painful. I have to impose anaesthesia on myself for I cannot even cry like you guys. Still I can feel the saw’s butchering the bloodless flesh in my guts. But poor me, I don’t even have the blood to put forth the evidence of a murder. Even though my flesh is as good as yours, but mine doesn’t bleed so even the sanguine interior as they saw through it, appears simple painless stone to them. But I feel the pain, I swear. Just want to tell. Please don’t take my cutting as simple as breaking a stone.

It’s a hazily sun-lit winter noon. It appeared such a balmy day. Looking at the people moving onto their destination. But then they suddenly arrived like hounds. I was even surprised why so many of them arrived and started prodding me, slapping me out of my languorous spell. I don’t even know whether to throw my almost harmless, inaudible curse at these fellows or the state itself that has authorised my murder to broaden this already fat road.

Let me be clear on this. It’s a murder. You may prefer to call it just cutting wood. But there is a life inside. Never forget this. Don’t I grow like you guys do? Don’t I do my duty of purifying air and providing shade and provide dead and even live wood, like you people claim your utility?

For many decades I have been standing as a serving helper to both man and nature. During older times, this metalled road, this carrier of huge traffic and so called your ‘progress’, was simply a dirt road. It was my friend taking your forefathers to their common destinations. Nobody was in damn hurry like you people these days. I stood here as a milestone reached by a tired pair of legs, by a rickety bull-cart, who halted under me, savouring the shade I provided. I felt so proud of myself.

This very path has turned a foe now. It’s a highway after all. The merciless, fast-paced carrier of growth. It has turned a parasite now. It needs more space. Damn it, they don’t need shade and pure air now. These can be easily managed in the metal boxes that hurtle day and night on it. So I’m redundant and old. I have turned a blocker of progress with my few square-feet of foot-hold.

Man, again I try to shout and remind you that if a healthy mass like me is no life, then yours is also not so important. By cutting us you are cutting yourselves, for you are nothing but merely an extension of our world. A mere reflection of the nature around you. We gone, even you will be gone. Haa fools, now I can afford to call you as such during these final moments, for you cannot even see the precipice you are heading into.

Man, now it is hurting quite a lot. But I have resolved to keep telling my murder story till the axes, scythes and saws send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes in some poor household’s fire-place.

We trees never wince with pain as your axes spray chips of our flesh. Just because our flesh is different coloured doesn’t mean we don’t feel the pain. We do, man!

We had equal rights till mankind was just a part of nature, not the master of it. Now this saw going deeper and deeper into my bloodless guts reminds me of our inevitable fate. Every tree on earth now has a deadly date with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.

Haa the cowards! Forever playing so safe! They know that I’m huge. Poor things are afraid of my fall. Little do they realise that a tree’s pride is in standing tall and upright. And we do it till the last ounce of our strength. I am not going to give in that easily. They have to earn my dead body. It cannot be a cakewalk. Let them have blisters on their hands. It will serve as a proof to my murder.

Little do they realise my commitment to my duty, my oath to mother nature. Even in the face of death, I cannot stop playing my part in nature. As they are robbing me of my few square feet of space on earth, my saplings are still giving them life, still doling out oxygen under this winter sun. I am helpless and bound to my sworn duty. I cannot be vindictive and stop fuelling life into the lungs even if they happen to be my murderers. Even my murder cannot change me, helpless as I am due to my nature.

Now the saw has gone pretty deep. I am getting the signs of that eternal sleep. There is also an unbearable pain in the so called painless mass. Death is death after all. Hope you understand.

Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes are tied to direct my fall. From a safe distance tractors are pulling to bring down this wooden bull. They are worried, but are assured of victory. There are too many of them, with steely human determination to win, to stifle any chance of failure. No, I don’t see any chance of a miracle. It’s as hopeless as it can be.

Now I feel it. The death blow. The pinnacle of their jeering selves. A  cleavage breaks through the portion still holding me to my mother earth. From softest saplings to rock hard tissues my whole self is panicked. But still I have to tell the tale of my murder before I finally fall. My saplings are crying like innocent children. The hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying like the battle hard, handsome soldiers on their knees after losing the war. Death is after all death. Who wants to cease to exist?

Who cares? Nobody. This big snapping sound is my death cry. And here I fall with a thud. Yes man, you win. I am dead before I thought I will.