I walk through the forest against my own free will. I search for Morel mushrooms, which my mother loves but makes me fetch as part of my chores. For me, the worst part about being in the mountains is one simple thing: I hate trees. They drop their leaves and needles creating chaos on the ground. I’m always forced to waste my free days cleaning up after their messes. I despise them with a passion.

 

What I love is the sun’s warming rays, which trees block on purpose.

 

I adore open spaces that allow me to see forever with no end in sight. But those blasted green spires dot the land making me feel claustrophobic, blocking my views.

 

I survey the ground riddled with sticks, branches and needles for any sign of a Morel. I spot one growing next to a log in the shade. Bending, I snatch the morsel and laugh at the dead, fallen tree that spawned the mushroom’s life.

 

I love dead trees.

 

Continuing on, I taunt the trees, kick and throw rocks at them. I tear off their bark, their skin. They might be alive, but they don’t feel anything.

 

“I’m so glad I’m not one of you useless skinny toothpicks,” I taunt the trees around me. “I wish I could chop down and burn every single one of you.”

 

I hear a surging gust of wind from out of nowhere. The trees bend toward me, their trunks bowing to their roots. The wind’s force thrusts me forward. I stagger, stumble and trip over the root of a tree that has broken the ground’s surface. I scream and hit the forest floor with heavy force as my head bounces off a stump.

 

Darkness overtakes me.

 

I am awake, but see nothing. I feel compacted, squished together. I am unable to move. I can only think and envision my body because nothing but my brain works. I feel alive but only mentally, not physically. I cry with no sound or tears because I have no body. No human body.

 

Time passes and I feel something. I am moving—no! growing. Whatever is happening gives me hope. I’m pushing through some type of material; it feels like dirt. I break through the barrier and feel warmth.

 

It is my lovely sun and it feels fantastic.

 

I still can’t move on my own. I feel a breeze sway me back and forth. For a moment, I think I have arms and fingers, but there are too many of them. The warmth leaves me and a chill replaces it. I realize it is now night.

 

I never sleep because I never feel tired. I count a week of the same routine.

 

One day it rains and it is refreshing. I feel what should be my feet stretching in the ground, soaking up the moisture, drinking it like my mouth once would have. The sensation spreads throughout me. The sun’s warmth strikes me and something happens.

 

I am able to see, yet have no eyes. I see myself and am horrified. How did this happen to me? How am I what I hate?

 

I am a tree.

 

I’m unable to escape this curse, or punishment, or whatever it is. I’m scared, alone and sad. I fight to break free of my prison and shatter the wood wrapping my body inside like a cocoon.

 

As time passes, I give up and accept my fate. My life and family are lost to me. I grow with the seasons. I count the summers; years become decades. I can sense the other trees around me, full of life and happiness. I also sense their fear and feel for the ones passing away.

 

I feel pain, oh yes, I do.

 

Every insect crawling under my bark either tickles or hurts. When one of my branches snaps in the wind or under the pressure of snowfall, it feels like breaking a bone. Every woodpecker tapping me to create a home or to find food, or the squirrels and chipmunks taking my pinecones, or the birds that take my pine needles to make their nests, all cause me distress.

 

I feel it all and appreciate the life I have now. And all of the life I help to support.

 

I am getting older, taller, and the years of my life are lost to me. I have stopped counting them all together. I hear the sounds of chainsaws and trucks. Humans but I am unable to communicate with them. The agony and terror of my fellow trees, as their lives end, makes my sap weep. Their screams of agony torment my thoughts.

 

A fire comes close to me. It singes my top branches and needles. The pain is horrific. I hear the dying cries of my friends once again.

 

More years pass. A family is searching the forest for mushrooms. A boy comes up to me and picks off my bark. It feels like picking a scab from a wound.

 

I now know I was wrong all those years ago. I was blind to the feelings of life other than my own. I was ignorant, but am no longer. I wish I could apologize to every tree I ever hurt or teased. They never deserved it. Becoming one of them has taught me lessons I never would have learned as a human. I am filled with regret for my past self.

 

Many more years pass. I am old and infested with beetles and other insects. Most of my limbs and bark are gone. I must be centuries old, but my time is at an end. I adore trees now and love them with all my heart.

 

A forceful wind gusts from the distance. It bends me like a bow and I snap. As I topple to forest floor, I am not in much pain. The top of me hits a stump and darkness returns to me as it once had when I was a human teenager.

 

I am awake. My head throbs. I rub it and sit up.

 

I am alive!

 

I am still me, Mia, a human. Yet I remember every moment of living life as a tree. Standing, I look around me. I can sense the vibrations of the trees, my old friends.

 

I begin to cry. I miss them so much! I miss being my tree self.

 

I spend the rest of the day hugging my dear friends. I talk to them in kindness. I make promises I will keep: to plant new ones to grow, to advocate saving their lives, their feelings, and their pain. I will never stop and, when I die, I pray God makes me a tree once more.