At first when I initially grew, the only living things that I knew of were the animals. The birds who rested on my branches. The fox who slept at my base. Even the worms who gave me nutrition to live on for the next 200 years.

Humans were a new development once I grew tall enough to be biggest tree in the forest. They’d run around, hunting animals and scavenge for food in the area. What’s odd is that they’d hunt each other with tools. I was used to seeing a battle of pute strength from animals. Who was the bigger animal. Who could overpower who.

For humans it was a whole lot of screaming and something being stabbed into another. They’d pour out red water until neighboring animals will eat them until they were no more.

It was nature at its most natural state.

What’s unnatural is humans bringing in brown vines and tying them onto my branches. They’d then hang onto the vines by the neck. It was always awful the first two hours seeing them struggle so much.

Never have I ever seen an animal who would hunt themselves. There was always something else.

What peculiar creatures.

Throughout the years, I’d stay put and witness many humans become odder and odder. Their furs would always change yet the vine they bring stays the same. After a couple of weeks a group of humans would discover the ones hanging onto my branches grotesquely decomposing as they are too high for the other animals to eat them.

The hanging tree they’d call me.

The vine would be cut just so the human would be free off me. They wouldn’t untie the rest of the brown vine as it would be a hassle to climb up so high. So eventually I was decorated with brown vines standing out against my green leaves.

As the seasons go on, these humans visit me with the story of the hanging tree, saying dead spirits hang around me. Death is such a common thing. Nothing to be afraid of as it will arrive regardless of what will happen like the rising of the sun.

In my 200th year, a group of humans came around with tools making the loudest of noises. Louder than the humans who were stabbed in front of me. Then the tools neared my trunk, the thickest and strongest of the forest if I do say so myself.

It made a terrible cut after minutes.

After years of watching others get hunted and even hunting themselves, it was my turn to face what hanged onto me terribly. For the first time, I understood what they were so frightened of. My roots are too deep into the land and the sun is still too wonderfully bright. I do not want to leave.