“The Andromadeans may have warp-drive technology, but only we control the platinum mines.” Said a voice from my television. My condominium was dark, the only brightness was the tepid, blue light of the television screen that flickered as the picture changed. I had immediately turned on Netflix when I got home from the courthouse, out of reflex more than anything else. The dialogue from the pulpy old science fiction show I had mindlessly selected filled my condo, but I wasn’t paying attention. During the first episode, I had turned my large comfortable chair away from the television to face the window. A glass of fine scotch rested on the arm of my chair and I was staring out. My condo faced away from the setting sun, but in the twilight it was still bright enough for me to see the single, lonely tree in the middle of the park near my building.
My window was just above the tree top, and just far enough away that I could see its whole height as I looked down at it from my chair. I had spent many hours looking at that tree. Sometimes in the morning with a coffee. Sometimes in the evenings with something a bit stronger. Of course I had seen trees before on vacation, young saplings grown for tourists. This one was different. This one was old, even for a tree, and seemed like it had not been deliberately planted. It was old even when I first moved into this condo fifteen years ago, it had grown older with me in that time, and I knew it would keep growing older long after I was gone and my condominium was sold to someone else.
“Warp-drives require tremendous amounts of platinum to run.” Came a loud voice from my surround sound. I was a federal judge, not a biologist, but even I knew it was an oak tree. Quercus Robur. I saw in a book about oak trees as I had scanned it. I tried to read it from start to finish a few times, it was full of information about oak trees as an organism. Their dwindling global distribution, their physiology, their evolution, their ecology and what humans used them for, but I wasn’t interested in any of that. It seemed to reduce the tree in some way. I could hear my phone vibrating on the glass table behind me. Work no doubt. Some lawyer who wanted a favour or something. I didn’t even think to answer it. Everybody had a lawyer these days to argue on their behalf, but nobody advocated for the trees. I was amazed it had grown so old and tall and strong without anybody to defend it. I kept staring at it.
“Sir, the Proxima-Centaurians have sent an ambassador to petition us.” Said my television. The park that the tree reigned over was in the opposite direction of the courthouse, but some days after work I made a special effort and took a detour to go and see it, touch it, as if to remind myself that it was still there, still living and growing and real. That was one such day. Before coming home and turning on the television, I had approached the tree and placed my hand on its trunk and stared up at its highest branches from below. I felt sheer delight in touching it, the strength of the old hardwood. Not as a ship-builder might have delighted in touching an oak tree, whose wood was said to bounce cannonballs off the sides of the men-o-war constructed from it. Not for any purpose or use. It was the delight of the living tree itself. It was that little, and that much. I had wondered if the tree could feel the greatness of my joy in touching it, if I was giving back to the tree as much as it was giving me. But the tree had no voice and no face. It was totally inscrutable. There was no way to tell how it was feeling. As I leaned against it with my hand I thought that it might not feel at all. The small park was surrounded by busy asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks on all sides, and glass skyscrapers loomed over the tree. I thought that at some level it might be better if it did not feel, because then it would simply endure, and continue to grow no matter what.
“It’s about the damage our mining expeditions have had on the local ecology on planet 27-Q. They say it is irreparable.” I sipped my scotch and melted further into my chair, still staring at the tree. I supposed that in a perfect world, a world without blights, ice storms, or humans, the tree would just grow and keep growing to absurd heights. Until its trunk was bigger and taller than even the skyscrapers that wouldn’t surround it, and its highest leaves would brush the face of the sky. Its roots would go deep too, always deeper, until they wrapped around the beating heart of the Earth in a gentle caress. It was getting late and the children who sometimes played around the tree, climbed all over it, and swung from its branches had lost interest or been called inside by their mothers. The tree stood alone in the middle of the park as the sun finally set, a last monolith of an old world.
“27-Q will burn in the fires of industry. Let them look at the night sky from down in the mud, and know their galaxy belongs to us. Let them whine all they wa-” I turned off the television and went to bed. I laid awake in bed for a few minutes and thought about giving the tree a name. A name that suited it and befitted a tree of its station. I closed my eyes and decided it seemed too vulgar a thing to give something so beautiful a name. As if a name would somehow contain the tree, and as it grew greater its branches would poke through, and eventually the name would just fall away, broken and meaningless. The tree was a gift, and even to name it would be to sacrifice it. I slept, and dreamed of a forest that covered a continent.
I drank too much scotch. I woke up late and hungover the next morning, and rushed to work without thinking. I dealt all day with the lawyer who’s call I had missed. I returned straight home that evening and flopped into my chair still facing the window. With my eyes closed I rubbed my temples with my fingers. When I opened them and looked out the window the tree was gone. It had been cut down. All that was left of it was a stump surrounded by a few twigs and leaves, and I felt the Earth sigh. I got up and poured myself a scotch. I turned on the television and turned my chair back to face it. The show picked up right where it had left off, and I sat. I had always loved that tree. I had always thought that one day I would hang myself from one of it’s branches.
Matthew Cameron 
“The Andromadeans may have warp-drive technology, but only we control the platinum mines.” Said a voice from my television. My condominium was dark, the only brightness was the tepid, blue light of the television screen that flickered as the picture changed. I had immediately turned on Netflix when I got home from the courthouse, out of reflex more than anything else. The dialogue from the pulpy old science fiction show I had mindlessly selected filled my condo, but I wasn’t paying attention. During the first episode, I had turned my large comfortable chair away from the television to face the window. A glass of fine scotch rested on the arm of my chair and I was staring out. My condo faced away from the setting sun, but in the twilight it was still bright enough for me to see the single, lonely tree in the middle of the park near my building.
My window was just above the tree top, and just far enough away that I could see its whole height as I looked down at it from my chair. I had spent many hours looking at that tree. Sometimes in the morning with a coffee. Sometimes in the evenings with something a bit stronger. Of course I had seen trees before on vacation, young saplings grown for tourists. This one was different. This one was old, even for a tree, and seemed like it had not been deliberately planted. It was old even when I first moved into this condo fifteen years ago, it had grown older with me in that time, and I knew it would keep growing older long after I was gone and my condominium was sold to someone else.
“Warp-drives require tremendous amounts of platinum to run.” Came a loud voice from my surround sound. I was a federal judge, not a biologist, but even I knew it was an oak tree. Quercus Robur. I saw in a book about oak trees as I had scanned it. I tried to read it from start to finish a few times, it was full of information about oak trees as an organism. Their dwindling global distribution, their physiology, their evolution, their ecology and what humans used them for, but I wasn’t interested in any of that. It seemed to reduce the tree in some way. I could hear my phone vibrating on the glass table behind me. Work no doubt. Some lawyer who wanted a favour or something. I didn’t even think to answer it. Everybody had a lawyer these days to argue on their behalf, but nobody advocated for the trees. I was amazed it had grown so old and tall and strong without anybody to defend it. I kept staring at it.
“Sir, the Proxima-Centaurians have sent an ambassador to petition us.” Said my television. The park that the tree reigned over was in the opposite direction of the courthouse, but some days after work I made a special effort and took a detour to go and see it, touch it, as if to remind myself that it was still there, still living and growing and real. That was one such day. Before coming home and turning on the television, I had approached the tree and placed my hand on its trunk and stared up at its highest branches from below. I felt sheer delight in touching it, the strength of the old hardwood. Not as a ship-builder might have delighted in touching an oak tree, whose wood was said to bounce cannonballs off the sides of the men-o-war constructed from it. Not for any purpose or use. It was the delight of the living tree itself. It was that little, and that much. I had wondered if the tree could feel the greatness of my joy in touching it, if I was giving back to the tree as much as it was giving me. But the tree had no voice and no face. It was totally inscrutable. There was no way to tell how it was feeling. As I leaned against it with my hand I thought that it might not feel at all. The small park was surrounded by busy asphalt roads and concrete sidewalks on all sides, and glass skyscrapers loomed over the tree. I thought that at some level it might be better if it did not feel, because then it would simply endure, and continue to grow no matter what.
“It’s about the damage our mining expeditions have had on the local ecology on planet 27-Q. They say it is irreparable.” I sipped my scotch and melted further into my chair, still staring at the tree. I supposed that in a perfect world, a world without blights, ice storms, or humans, the tree would just grow and keep growing to absurd heights. Until its trunk was bigger and taller than even the skyscrapers that wouldn’t surround it, and its highest leaves would brush the face of the sky. Its roots would go deep too, always deeper, until they wrapped around the beating heart of the Earth in a gentle caress. It was getting late and the children who sometimes played around the tree, climbed all over it, and swung from its branches had lost interest or been called inside by their mothers. The tree stood alone in the middle of the park as the sun finally set, a last monolith of an old world.
“27-Q will burn in the fires of industry. Let them look at the night sky from down in the mud, and know their galaxy belongs to us. Let them whine all they wa-” I turned off the television and went to bed. I laid awake in bed for a few minutes and thought about giving the tree a name. A name that suited it and befitted a tree of its station. I closed my eyes and decided it seemed too vulgar a thing to give something so beautiful a name. As if a name would somehow contain the tree, and as it grew greater its branches would poke through, and eventually the name would just fall away, broken and meaningless. The tree was a gift, and even to name it would be to sacrifice it. I slept, and dreamed of a forest that covered a continent.
I drank too much scotch. I woke up late and hungover the next morning, and rushed to work without thinking. I dealt all day with the lawyer who’s call I had missed. I returned straight home that evening and flopped into my chair still facing the window. With my eyes closed I rubbed my temples with my fingers. When I opened them and looked out the window the tree was gone. It had been cut down. All that was left of it was a stump surrounded by a few twigs and leaves, and I felt the Earth sigh. I got up and poured myself a scotch. I turned on the television and turned my chair back to face it. The show picked up right where it had left off, and I sat. I had always loved that tree. I had always thought that one day I would hang myself from one of it’s branches.
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