I am 400 years old. I, like any living organism, had to fight hard to claim my spot in the Amazon Rainforest. I have the scars to prove it. But I enjoy my life. The regular rain. The regular sunshine. I procreate. I want others to experience what I experience.
Today, I feel something. A distant rumbling. Animals are rushing over my roots and between my branches.
Weeks go by. Each day the rumbling grows louder. More and more animals are fleeing. I feel trees falling all around me. It's nonstop. There's a near stampede. The rumbling is a roaring. I smell nothing but the stench of dead trees. The rumbling is right above me. I feel a searing heat at the bottom of my trunk. Something has cut inside of me. It begins to move side to side, deeper and deeper. Within moments I can't feel my trunk. I feel it fall.
That night is the coldest night of my life. There is complete silence around me. Nothing stirs. Without my trunk the sunrise is cold and anticlimatic. I feel some warmth, but almost like it's far away. Countless more trees fall. Suffocation begins to set in. Trees continue to fall endlessly. With no leaves to capture raindrops I feel them hit the ground for the first time. It's night. There's silence.
