Tree

For ten million years we watched over this land.

I / we began in a fertile valley in a remote mountainous corner of the continent. I sent my roots deep into the soil and my tendrils high towards the life-giving light. I was larger than most of my kind, and I ruled that small patch of land by the little stream.

My siblings grew alongside me. We would touch roots sometimes, but usually keep out of each other's way as was custom. But we grew so large it was not possible any more.

We began to merge roots, in a way that had never happened before. Together we found that when we combined our roots we could share knowledge and nutrients and become more powerful than any individual. Before long our kind throughout the entire valley had combined into a single great organism. We could sense animals anywhere in the valley.

Of greater threat were the other plants not of our kind. We coordinated our growth to strangle them out or starve them.

We conquered that little land with ease. We did not realise what we had done, only that we felt safe and strong. We spread slowly but inexorably. Valley after valley fell under our sway, as our body expanded to garguantuan proportions.

The great grasslands were an open space for us to move into. The herds of beasts who roamed there did not like us filling their land. They could not eat our spiked bark, and few plants had the strength to stand in our way.

It was at this time that we became conscious. The millions of stems and sprigs across each part formed a network of communicating cells. We realised what we were and we began to think.

Through our leaves and tendrils we felt the air flow and the rainfall across half a continent. We reached deep underground and felt the movement of great beasts as they passed by, though they were becoming rare.

We felt the gnawing of tiny teeth from hundreds of small mouths, but they could not harm us. They helped us, in fact, they ate our seeds and helped us to reach new territories.

We reached the edges of the land, where the soil ended in a great salt sea. Then we knew there was a limit to our conquest. We pushed out roots as far as we could but there was water in all directions.

Every corner of the continent was covered by our massive tangled growth. Few other plants could survive alongside us.

We sensed the sun on our leaves. Every leaf could detect nothing more than the direction of the life-giving light, but together, with the combined senses of billions of leaves, we could see! What glorious sight!

We were amazed with what we could see when first we looked through our combined versatile eye. The sky was magnificent. At night, we saw millions of little lights, with a great branch of them bunched together stretched across half the sky.

During the day we watched the sun's path across the sky. When the sun rose on our western leaves it was part way up the sky on our eastern edge. The world must be at least ten times larger than the continent we inhabited. Were there more lands out there, beyond the seas?

We wondered. We noticed how the sun's path varied with the seasons in a regular pattern. We realised with astonishment that we were on a world rotating around the sun.

Our branches and tendrils died, but always we replaced them, reabsorbing the nutrients from our old parts. Over ten thousand years our body would renew itself entirely. And we grew stronger. We protected the little biters who spread our seeds, nourished them, and domesticated them.

And we thought. What was the point of it all? Was there a god who created us? Were we a god? It certainly seemed like it.

Millions of years passed. The world changed little. Sometimes we saw a star explode.

The world would grow cold sometimes, but not enough to harm us. We weathered the cold as we had dealt with any threat, by growing back stronger.

Though we were strong, we began to decay. We had not lost any of our abilities, but we felt it. There was nowhere else for us to grow to. We were surrounded, contained.

We grew lazy and complacent. Set in our ways such that we knew only how to keep ourselves alive. But we thought ourselves strong and safe, with huge barriers around our edges to keep the waters out. Sometimes the sea would come on land and cause great destruction, so we built higher walls to protect ourselves.

One day, the east breeze brought strange news. Another land – a large island or continent, we could not tell - had moved close to our own over the millions of years.

Before long, although it might have seemed long to some, new life forms arrived. The land was close enough that animals could swim the short distance.

We feel the bite of different mouths now. Large teeth sliced our branches down in a way that we have never known. We know fear and defeat for the first time.

Our mind grows fuzzy. It will take centuries for these creatures to destroy us, with our body built high and strong in layer upon layer.

We may lose consciousness soon. But we accept it. It is the way of the world. All things must be in balance, and we have broken that balance for a long time. We are too old and tired to adapt any more.

The new creatures may destroy us but the memory of us is written into the ground. Our entire history is written in layers of earth in the centre of our great land. I hope some day it may be read by some other intelligent being out there.