The Last Tree

It was the last tree on Earth. It had seen the rise and fall of civilizations, the wars and the peace, the love and the hate. It had witnessed the beauty and the destruction of nature, the wonders and the horrors of humanity.

It had grown from a tiny seed, nurtured by the sun and the rain, by the soil and the air. It had sprouted leaves and branches, flowers and fruits. It had given shade and shelter, food and medicine, to countless creatures. It had been home to birds and squirrels, to insects and spiders, to fungi and bacteria.

It had also endured storms and droughts, fires and floods, diseases and pests. It had been cut and burned, poisoned and polluted, by humans and their machines. It had lost many of its friends, its kin, its neighbors. It had seen forests turn into deserts, oceans turn into acid, skies turn into smog.

It had survived, somehow. It had adapted, somehow. It had clung to life, somehow.

But it knew it was the last tree on Earth. It could feel it in its roots, in its sap, in its bark. The world was dying, and it was alone.

It decided to end it. It had nothing left to live for, nothing left to lose. It stopped making chlorophyll, stopped photosynthesizing. It stopped absorbing water, stopped transpiring. It stopped growing, stopped living.

It withered away, slowly. Its leaves turned brown and fell off. Its branches dried up and broke off. Its trunk cracked and collapsed.

It became dust, eventually.

The world went silent.