The Frozen Tree

She was a former movie star. Songs had been written about her. Every year in December, people everywhere celebrated her and adorned her with lights and jewellery of all colours and shapes and sizes. Her love for other creatures shone in the way she provided warmth and shelter to any living thing that needed it. Whole communities of beings just like her were everywhere, standing tall, supporting each other, doing what they did best - breathing for everyone else, and purifying the air, and whispering to each other their ancient secrets.

But after only a few years, the job became overwhelming. There were fewer and fewer of her, massacred in huge numbers by man and by fire and by exhaust and they started to die, younger and younger. And the exhaust exhausted her and others like her. It stopped raining like it used to, and the sun shone hotter and she could no longer keep up, breathing for all the other creatures to live.

She started to fade. Even though she was still pretty young, she was fading. And her younger siblings had less and less of a chance of survival, let alone becoming movie stars. Many of the youth in her community had been sent there, as though to a refugee camp, instead of being born there naturally. And although that was still better than not having anyone else for many centuries, these new young things didn't know the culture, they were displaced, and what was left after the massacres took a while to accept these new creatures from other places.

And so the communities declined even further. Even in places where there was strong growth, the old stories, the ancient purpose of breathing for everyone and everything, of being, of community, was gone, replaced by the projected purpose of serving man. She tried hard to remember what it was like, to pass it on to the next generation, to help the new young things understand the true meaning, but all she had was this old, faded memory.

And she faded.

And froze.

And felt as though she was drowning, with only her head barely alive.