Fortune
Author's Note: This short little snippet of writing was a WBW prompt that I did a while back (Though I don't remember the date). I didn't like it back then but I polished it up a little bit. I'm wanting to share more writing good or bad here. Especially if it expands on the world I'm building through WBW.
The story goes like this. Some many many many centuries ago a wandering group in the forest were at their wits end so they decided to see what would happen if one of them climbed to the top of a tree to get a lay of the land. Now you and I both know that in a place such as the forest this is a silly idea, because all there is IS the forest. Going above it is like saying "I'd really like to get outside this whole universe business and have a look around." But these fine men and women were determined and tenacious. They sent two individuals tethered together up into the trees. And then they waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually after about three days of waiting they heard a whooshing sound followed by a very wet sort of thud on the ground. I don't think I really need to describe that mess. But what was interesting was that it was only one of the climbers, as far as they could tell, whom had plummeted to the ground. The rope on the other end was singed off.
Most discerning individuals when presented with such a sight might, understandably, say something along the lines of "Ah good play lads, we did our best lets pack up and call it a day". But something snapped in at least one of the folks there. Axes and saws were brandished and soon sawdust was produced. Something about the forest inherently instils in a person the fear of harming the trees. Maybe it's some psychic presence, maybe it's a left over instinct from when we climbed from the treetops to the savanna floor as apes, or maybe it's just good common sense. Regardless most folks in the forest would balk at the thought of cutting down these ancient trees... mostly out of an innate fear. It was not a quick process, cutting down a tree with the diameter of a small single family home with a pool out back. But they did it. After two weeks, six days, eleven hours, nineteen minutes, and thirty two seconds a behemoth of a tree fell.
The age old saying goes if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer is yes, obviously. But when there aren't nosy ears listening in, the sound trees make is much more akin to the sound a small dog makes when you accidentally step on it's tail. In THE forest, however, it's quite the opposite from the usual. A tree falling can be heard by every living creature in it's vast expanse. Every breathing thinking creature hears the creak, the moan of wood straining, and the snap of fiber. It echoes and reverberates infinitely across this vast and endless existence. Every creature, that is, except for the ones who can see it. The world goes deathly silent in the presence of a falling tree in the forest. It sounds like some dark magic has sucked the sound from the world. Not a rustling or creaking is heard from anything. Not even your own gasp or exhales can be heard. Nor your screams.
And so, in complete silence, the first tree to ever be felled in the forest... fell. And the first woodsmen of this world looked up to see the space in the trees where the treetop had fallen away. Hoping to see a patch of bare sky where the treetop had been. Strange thing, these trees. When they fall it's as if some great giant has already done the work of stripping the branches and leaves from it. A clean straight and broad beam of wood fell to the forest floor. And above them in this new clearing, like all clearings in the forest, remained a perfectly undisturbed canopy of leaves and branches. As if the tree had never stood towering above them in the first place.
This spot. This trunk you see before you is that place. Here at the center of New Log City. The gleaming gem of the forest. This bustling metropolis of lumber, and sawdust, and pulp. It was here that the first tree fell and ever since they have continued to fall... and the canopy has continued to rustle gently, undisturbed, in the breeze.