The Trees
There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas...
It wasn't everyday that Raccoon dared venture out into the big city yet this time he had no choice with his world collapsing in around him. There was no other place to go than the city which he knew was filled with humans, the ones who were hostile to all things found in nature. And yet, the forest no longer could be considered home with the tremendous social upheaval that had just occurred there, this time not dealing with the natural order of predator/prey relationships, or the availability of mates, or vicious human intrusions but of all the things that could go wrong, it was the trees. They were often thought of by humans as being non-living things, Corinthian columns made of wood with green capitals, just part of the forest scenery. Yet to the animals, the trees had feelings, emotions, and were apt to share those feelings.
"Hello, Raccoon. Are you a fellow exile?" said Coyote, having overturned a filthy dumpster filled with stuff that the humans would hate but coyotes would readily eat. He offered a seat to the raccoon to share in this bountiful prize that the humans had so carelessly tossed away.
"Well, yes and thanks for the meal" Raccoon would say eating the remnanats of a hot dog that a human had forgotten about and simply thrown away.
"The trees and their little petty fights threw me out of my former home as well, Raccoon. For years, everything had been decided. Prey would hunt predators, there would always be a roughly even amount of males to females in every species, and plenty of water for all to drink but things got out of hand because..."
"Because of the trees," the raccoon interrupted him, forgetting his manners for just a while. (Although eating with a full maw was seen as not particularly kosher even in the animal world which is not as encumbered with etiquette as we humans are.) Yes, it was all because of the trees and their stupid unwillingness to follow the order of nature as had been dictated to and practiced by the animals. The trees that had lived before then (and trees live for hundreds of years if not cut down cruelly by the humans) had also also followed these rules, specifically the one that stated that the oaks would always tower above their maple counterparts. It was just the way things had to be for life to continue, and the older trees who had seen centuries of human intrusions and animal behavior always ALWAYS followed them. But thins had changed since they died.
A new generation of trees, almost entirely maples led by firebrand individuals had rebelled against the natural order and they were cursed for it. But that curse would bring down the entire forest and the wonderful symphony of order that it kept playing infinitely world without end. These unruly maples were visibly upset with how the oaks grew to much taller heights than the maples traditionally did. This was just the way things were and the trees accepted it... all that stopped when the younger maples grew to maturity and saw the oaks towering above them. The oaks would see from their lofty perch the entire forest and into the human settlements. And they also had the access to sunlight that the maples for countless generations had lived without. The maples were supposed to live in the shade of their oak brethren but this did not sit well with the young revolutionary maples who wanted to be taller.
"It's that whole stupid pursuit of height. The maples simply want to be the biggest trees in the forest, oaks be damned. Things are getting worse, the trees can't move but their words have grown more blood-red with each passing day," Coyote said.
"These truly are terrible times we are living in that we have to turn to the humans for a place to live," Raccoon would answer gnawing the leftover meat off of a fishbone. He was just thankful to leave after what had occurred in the forest.
The shouts of oppression that the maples were slandering their oak friends with was getting too hard to bear. And the high and lofty oaks would shake their heads, their arms swaying in the breeze, as if to say no to these unreasonable demands. (And really, they had several generations of precedent to go on.) The bickering and infighting filled the ears of all the birds and beasts of the forest were forced to hear this back-and-forth argument repeated perpetually until it became a form of torture. There was simply the animals could do as the war of words between the two warring groups of trees dragged on. The maples grew leery of their oak neighbors and whispered on the wind their secret language, entirely different from the oak dialect.
They spoke of joining a "union" and pushing for "equal light". In their warped psyches, the maples honestly and foolishly mistook the order of the forest for arrogance on the part of the oaks, thinking them as greedy. They lusted after a world where all the trees would be of equal height but this was not the way things were supposed to be. It was their new and wild fantasy, one which would have disastrous results. The oaks were not entirely innocent for they had the rule of law in their hands but chose to shout higher and louder than the maples to get their point across when they had historical precedent to show that they deserved to be higher. Anger clouds judgment and it clouds memory so none of the two groups knew how to work out their differences and none of them ever to look back at the forest history. But the maples wanted equality and nothing would prevent them from their goal.
For now it was too much to think about haughty trees who thought themselves greater than they ought to be as both animals Raccoon and Coyote, were too full of abandoned food to do anything but sleep.
Several days later...
Raccoon and Coyote were astonished to see what was right in front of their eyes. The maples had reached their goal but what a cost they had to pay. The humans had come and completely clean-cut the entire forest. As they asked around all the other creatures, they learned of a noble law that had been signed by both groups, the oaks and the maples. The oaks no longer were the oppressors of their maple brethren, they were now of equal height- both groups had been transformed from stately oaks and shady maples into nothing more than stumps. Yes, the trees had found an arbiter, the human being who had the tools to even the height- now the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw.