The Trees Have Eyes
No one can really say when the trees, the whole of nature itself began to develop an intelligence it could act on, could utilize in a last desperate attempt against the parasitical malevolence of the human species, but if you are one who believes in a vengeful god then I suppose it was inevitable.
At first it was the disasters, the volcanoes, the earthquakes, the floods, the droughts, the pestilence and many other inequities straight from the Old Testament. Of course the corporate scoffers, the talking heads on the radio and television, pundits and apologist of all stripes dismissed the concerns of those who spoke up about the situation as nothing more than wackos, and commie environmentalist tree huggers out to destroy our living standard.
The irony of such a position was that the corporations were the ones intent on destroying our living standard by their quest for total unchecked power over us all. But the day came when the many disasters, and the growing patterns of the plant life was such that one could not deny the seeming deliberateness of the scenario. The environmentalist had been vindicated, but there was little comfort in knowing you had predicted your own certain doom.
And then the strangest thing began to happen, the trees began to pluck human beings from every manner of structure. they would embrace them with their limbs, strangling them in one instant and then holding them like some grotesque crucifixion denying any attempt to retrieve the corpses. They would maintain hold on the bodies allowing the birds to come and ravage the remains as they rotted among the branches. What the birds didn't get would plop to the ground for the vermin that roamed the streets unmolested save but for the cats who came in their turn to feast upon them. Everyday became a mad dash to go about one's business, but the situation became so hopeless that finally the day came when no one would leave their abode. Everything came to a halt.
Fire was the greatest weapon at our disposal, but most times it seemed it would be detected and suddenly would be extinguished by some magical delivery of water, or wind or some other such substance to put out the flames. And the use of it became problematic in itself for one might win the battle and lose the war exposing them to enemy Earth.
Anything in nature became the bane of man. Large wild animals roamed the streets in vasts numbers unmolested by all feeding on those humans they might capture. They did so in the countryside as well taking their share of human prey. There was not enough ammunition to kill them all. And eventually it seemed that they suspended their natural animus towards each other, and at last all the aspects of the food chain disappeared, every creature eventually, every tree, every fauna, every insect, all began to partake of human flesh.
I don't know if there are others left beside myself now, or if now I am the last man left alive. I'm trapped in this building , have been for months now, perhaps years, there is no real way to calculate the passage of time save but for the wristwatch I wear. Thank God its an old spring movement one for I can wind it. Had it been a quartz battery one I would have long ago been unable to at least put an hour to the time of the day.
Over the course of my battle I have been able to stay alive by fleeing from apartment to apartment long abandoned by my contemporaries for other venues only to suffer defeat as they tried to flee for what they felt was greater safety.
I've managed to watch them at times when I could near a window undetected. I watch them race down the overgrown streets right into the arms of death. Their screams would echo briefly the sound of a terrible prophecy.
The trees now have begun to encroach on the buildings now unbelievably sprouting from the concrete and asphalt pushing out their branches and root like claws and arms intent to bring death to any human they can divine. I began to make estimates of how long I could hold out. My conclusion is ruin, and the clutch of miserable death.
They know I'm in here, they are changing now, they are evolving more and more with a rapidity that must be the calculation of a higher power. But surely I will starve even if I do somehow manage to elude them. My space grows less and less as the limbs and the running vines push down the halls entering every nook and cranny seeking me out.
I eat the spoiling food, relieving myself where I might, drinking what is safe for only in some artificial man made form can I consume water. In its natural state it seems capable of emitting some signal alerting of my presence. God this is madness! The poem now takes on a sinister stanza. "I think I shall never see anything as deadly as a tree!" My mind is made up. Tentatively I approach the window. I rip off the barrier covering it, the trees have me, the trees MY GOD HAVE EYES!
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