Meet Auja and Fur
Excerpt from Southcrop Forest
A Novel by Lorne Rothman
Budburst
“Wake up! Time to wake up! The days are long. The sun is warm,” cried voices from all around.
Auja roused herself from slumber, let out a yawn and stretched her limbs. Her stretching stretched on until the new moon grew full. She sprouted a pale green halo.
☼
Food at last. Come on little Fur, it’s time to feast. Fur is what he called himself. He was pleased with the name. It was not the first, but it seemed to fit on account of the fur that coated him. He had tried others—like ‘Oak’. There were oaks all around and he felt a part of them somehow. But he had no leaves or bark. Nor was he stuck in the ground. So ‘Oak’ was out.
Fur was no tree. He was a tree dweller—born way up high on a south facing branch with plenty of sun. And today was a fine day for sun basking. The sky was clear blue and that bright ball of fire warmed the air. But he could not laze about any longer. He was starving and had to find green food.
His first foray would not be easy. It was the starting part that troubled him most. He lay huddled on a twig, clutching it tight, too scared to move. The great expanse of forest and sky made his fur stand up on end and quiver. But his hunger won out. First food, then fear. He gathered himself up and crawled clumsily toward the scent of fresh leaves.
Hardwood Forest
Auja’s acute senses returned in full as she basked in the morning spring sun. Her branches and twigs tingled all over as the warmth drew life back to her outermost edges. From the forest depths, she heard the haunting song of a hermit thrush. Her fresh leaves bristled as the sound drifted by. Two chickadees burst on the scene, tickling her as they played acrobat in her lower branches.
Wildflowers were sprinkled all around her. She inhaled their sweet scents, and thanked the gardener trees who had worked so hard for this moment. The bright forest floor was now fully flushed with red and white trillium droplets and pink pools of spring beauty.
Auja was a red oak, neither all female nor male, but both. Her ragged crown of lustrous green hung lank over slate-grey boughs. If very lucky she would grow up to be a grand northern hardwood. Tall and strong, she would carve a place in the sky and show the sun her full splendour. But that day was still a long ways off. She had just begun her fruiting years and her bark was hardly roughed in.
Auja lived on the edge of a glade and was surrounded by her kind. From her vantage, a large granite outcrop, she could see a lowland bog. The sharp silhouettes of spruce and fir gave a hint of what lay far to the north in the realm of Dark Forest. Beyond the bog lay the Oak River, marking the borders of her Southcrop Forest.
A small creek swollen with spring rain burbled down a gentle, rocky slope to the south. It was a perfect spot for animal watching. The snowshoe hares lived in the willow thicket by its banks. The fisher and bobcat came there to drink and hunt. The black-winged damselflies would soon emerge to flutter in flocks above the waters.
The trees were silent this morning as they soaked in the warmth. The dry chit chatter had faded. The tedious debates of dark winter were through. Auja gazed around her small glade. It was good to see friends and family and feel Southcrop come alive once again. Spring was a time of such promise.
Then she remembered. All of a sudden, her branches drooped and her leaves lost their sheen as she bore the full weight of the tragedy anew. Southcrop Forest had lost another farm.
Farms
In the beginning sun gave life to the earth. Then the earth grew trees to watch over life and make the world a better place for it to thrive. And to aid with this charge, the earth gave trees their treasured farms, so all could stand together as one.
Quite the tall tale, likely sprouted by teetering elders long ago. But they had the gist of it. Like hewmen without machines, trees were lost without their farms—the source of their power and vitality. Farms were the core of the forest web that enabled tree culture to flourish for nearly four hundred million years. Without farms there would be no speech paths, no communication, no hellos to ones’ friends from afar.
Auja had been told of golden days before her time. Farm and forest ranged so widely, you could hear a voice across the continent and swear it came from someone you could touch with your own shadow. Then the hewmen came ashore and changed everything.
These days the world of trees was so much smaller. Auja could not speak to others beyond the ever shrinking borders of Southcrop Forest. And as the trees disappeared, so too did their farms. Last fall, another was destroyed. The hewmen came and trampled it, then smothered it with false-rock. Only two remained in Southcrop and not for much longer. Both were within reach of the machines now gathering for fresh kill.
What would happen after all the farms were gone? She could hardly bear to think. The forest web would fail, the trees would grow weak and sick, and tree voices would fade away to whispers. Auja’s leaves quivered at the thought. Trees were not meant to stand alone. The solitude would drive her mad and she would find an early death without the farms’ life-force to sustain her.
Auja did not fear only for herself but for friends and family and all trees in this land. The Southcrop way had flourished here ever since the last of Big Ice. All great and small things that gave life meaning—the art and science, fable and lore—would soon be forgotten. It would take hundreds of thousands of years to recover. A new age of loneliness was upon them.
What could be worse than to lose everything you ever had? Maybe to lose something just found that could have bettered life for all. These were no ordinary farms. Ten years ago, they bore magical fruit that allowed trees to do much more than hear each other’s voices. With this new found treasure, trees could share their sensations. Sights, sounds, smells and even feelings of every tree in the web were now within reach of all. Southcrop Vision—their greatest discovery—would die along with the farms. No one beyond this forest would ever know.
Auja felt utterly helpless. She was a trivial tree—so young and green. Nothing she could ever do would change anything. Best to drift back to slumber and find some pleasant dreams. She would never get away with such laziness. There was too much work to be done.
