Once upon a time, there was a tree. The tree knew it was a tree, knew it was in a local park, and if a tree fell in a forest somewhere, the tree knew that, too (sorry, bit of tree humor there).
One day, a mother and daughter walked through the park where the tree stood. “I hate this book!” said the daughter. “But you used to love it, what’s this all about it?” asked the mother. “You never understand me,” said the daughter, who flung the book like a Frisbee across the grass and ran to a nearby swing set, her mother chasing swiftly after. The book crashed into the tree’s bark and fell at its roots with a thud. The tree looked over the book and didn’t recognize the title. The tree liked reading, which wasn’t desirable amongst trees since most trees are well aware of where paper comes from, making reading a taboo practice amongst their kind.
But, since no one was looking, the tree reached down with a long, oaken branch and turned the book upright to read the title. “The Giving Tree,” read the tree. With a shrug, the tree leafed through the book (some more tree humor for you; trees are big on puns, apparently), and found the book rather charming. The tree caught the attention of his closest friend, a thorn bush, and said, “Have you read this? I found it rather touching.”
“Don’t much care for touching things,” said the thorn bush. “Most people complain when I do.”
“Well, what do you think of the story?” asked the tree.
“Kind of gruesome if you ask me,” said the thorn bush. “A kid keeps coming around, sawing off different limbs until the tree is a lonely stump? What kind of person would do such a thing?”
“Humans,” said the tree, an undeniable fact. “But I thought the message was sweet.”
“Still gruesome. I wouldn’t want my arms and legs plucked off of me”
“Hey, you’re right,” said the tree. “Humans don’t know how good they got it. How would they like it if someone came around and plucked a finger clean off, or ripped out some hair just because they were bored as they passed by?”
The thorn bush chuckled. “I’d read that story.”
The tree suddenly had an idea, a revolutionary one. “What we should do is write our own version of the story. We’ll call it The Taking Tree, and it’s all about trees taking things away from humans.”
“Hate to interrupt,” said a quiet voice from upon the tree’s bulkiest branch, “but there’s already a book called The Taking Tree.”
The tree felt a little wiggle and knew it was a worm that was talking. “How would you know?”
“I’m a book worm,” said the worm. “I’ve read such a book.”
The tree and the thorn bush rolled their eyes (well, they would have if they had any) and said, “Of course you are.”
“Someone wrote my idea?” asked the tree. “Did the tree kill people like the little boy in The Giving Tree?”
“Nope,” said the worm. “It’s about some jerk kid that keeps doing cruddy things to the tree. It’s basically the same thing as The Giving Tree, except the kid is criminal.”
The tree grew angry, which gave off an odor smelling like freshly mowed grass—the pheromone of plant torture. “Someone takes the title of my perfectly good story idea and they can’t even do it right? Where’s the murder? Where’s the dismemberment? I think the story should be about a tree in a sinister forest that takes the limbs and body parts of humans that stroll by, except the tree doesn’t know what to do with them, and ends up putting them in a pile somewhere. Now, that’s a better story!”
The tree cackled for some time, which also smelled of freshly mowed grass, but a touch more bitter. Then, after the smell was whisked away in the passing wind, the tree felt rather stupid. “Sorry,” it said.
“Get it all out of your system?” asked the thorn bush.
“Yeah,” said the tree, realizing it was being irrational. “It’s just that the good stuff is wasted on humans, you know?”
“We know,” said the worm and the thorn bush.
“Should I write the story anyway?” asked the tree.
The worm shrugged. “Might get into trouble. Better give it a different title.”
“I don’t read, call it whatever you want,” said the thorn bush.
“Maybe I will,” said the tree. “Maybe I will…”
A month later, while in the planning stages of plotting the story, a trio of park workers came with chainsaws and buzzed down the tree. It was taken away to a nearby paper mill. It never had the chance to write the better version of The Taking Tree, nor a few other novels that it thought of. Once the tree was properly transformed into printer paper, it was shipped to the little girl’s house that had thrown The Giving Tree away in the park in the first place. On the carpet, in the living room, the girl took out crayons and drew the most uninspiring and archaic drawing of a little boy looking up at a tree, ripping off the famous Silverstein illustration completely.
The tree sighed, feeling yucky from scribbles of green and yellow crayon all over its pearlescent-coated paper face, and said, “Yup, all the good stuff is wasted on humans.”
