A new yellow slide that didn’t match with the old, brittle swing set that used to be red. That new yellow slide was attached to a new playground that had just been built. The railings were blue and shiny, the floor a tan color. The tan color looked like the material was a mix of plastic and wood. That made me shudder in the wind. The steps that led to the slide were green, a green that didn’t look natural. Nothing they colored red. Only the red paint that was chipping off that swing set was red. In the warm sunshine I stood, my roots anchoring me to the ground. The clouds became a bright orange, then a neon pink, then lavender purple and then a dark, dark blue. The sun was setting, like it always did. I had seen too many sunrises, too many sunsets. I had seen the dirt being upturned and being replaced with artificial ground covering. I had seen little toddlers playing on that new playground. Their little faces lit up with joy. I could never understand the joy of sliding down that slide over and over again. I never saw a single person walk up to that swing set again. Until, one day a little, strawberry blond child with freckles came to the playground. The little girl was a cute one, not one of the drooling, slimy, snot eaters. She ran up to the swing set and tried to jump on the seat but she was too short. That day felt like I had a human heart and wanted to reach my branches to pick her up into my arms. I would have cradle her and set her on that seat. But I knew from experience that I didn’t grow that fast, my green leaves just swayed in the breeze. So, I had to watch her struggle and watch the smile be wiped off her dimpled face, and she had a why-can’t-I-get-on -this-stinkin-swing kind of expression on her face. The next few years she came back almost every single day. As she became older she could final jump onto the swing seat and swing herself into the sky. She would reach out her arms and pretend she could fly. I saw her walk back to a building not that far from the park, where I lived. From the place I was planted I could barely read the name, Ms. Cherry’s Orphanage. The day when she turned seven she rode on the swing set like always, but that day she stopped swinging shortly after she started and walked towards me. She stroked her hands against my rough coffee brown bark. She balanced on my roots that were sticking out of the ground, then she climbed on my back and sat on my shoulder, she whispered in soprano voice, “You are a pretty tree.” From then on she climbed me everyday, she read to me from her books, told me about her day and about herself. It was like the sun rising every morning in the baby blue sky. It was as if she knew I could hear her, as if she knew I could see her. She was the one that made me feel true, myself, normal, ... happy.
There was a day where this all changed, she was nine and a half, and still coming every day. Today she came running out of the orphanage ten minutes late. But I was oblivious to that, I focused on the contraption rolling on to the new playground. It was a dirty thing, it didn’t have windows like the rest of them, and most cars stayed on the road. On the side of it, it read Construction Inc. It seemed familiar, not in a good way, then I remembered. Of course, they came when they built the new playground, what are they doing here now? A pick-up came rumbling too and in the back were axes, shovels, and other construction tools. The axes worried me, are they going to slay my brothers and sisters, are they going to slay me? But she came running up to me, with a book in her hand and started to climb.
A male voice boomed across the park, “Hey little girl, what are you doing? This is a construction zone,”
”Why are you here?” she asked a little shaken.
The man snorted “You shouldn’t be here, but fine. We are clearing the area and building a newer, better, and bigger playground,”
She gasped in horror.
”Shouldn’t you kids be happy about that, no appreciation whatsoever,”
She hugged my branch, clutching herself to me. To not to let go or in horror, I don’t know. She cried hot tears. “No, no, no,” she sobbed, “You can’t chop down the trees, you can’t chop them... down...” A long silence, an acorn fell off my branch.
“Now little girl, you have to go home it’s getting late,” the man said in a gruff voice.
“You can’t... you can’t... will you promise me?” She asked brokenly.
“Of course, little girl, of course,” he said roughly. A young man stepped out from the circle of construction men, that formed around me.
He spoke in an unfriendly voice, “We can’t stop construction because of a little self-absorbed brat.”
She stared at him, she had never heard someone say something so unfriendly. The main construction worker gave him a look.
“We are going to cut down this tree, all of the trees whether you like it or not!” he said in his nasal voice.
The first man’s voice sounded strong and official as the man said “While you are under my command you will not be cutting down trees not now or tomorrow or in two weeks,” The one with the nasal voice kicked the ground and stomped in the direction of the pick-up. He laughed and said his name was Max, Max took control and responsibility for his men. She felt better after that and read to Max and me a few pages of her book and then skipped to the orphanage. That night, around eleven o’clock, they came again. It was the one with the nasal voice and his friends. They brought axes and shovels. She was in the orphanage not sleeping soundly but restlessly and I knew she was worrying about me. In the dark of the night, the construction men came closer. The one who hated trees hit me first. The ax buried itself in my bark, in my skin. A sort of pain shot through me and sap leaked out of the gash. Then the next slash came and again and again. The sound of the ax hitting my trunk again and again couldn’t wake her from a worried sleep.
The next thing I remembered was the gush of water on my tiny roots and the feel of soil. Tiny roots? But I could feel it, how small I was, but she was there to comfort me.
She told me, “You probably don’t remember but there were construction men that were there and they cut you down in the middle of the night. So I came in the morning, and I couldn’t find you, only the acorns that fell off your branches left evidence of your existence. Max was there,” She sneered his name. “When he saw you were gone, he spat on the place you were and said, ‘Good you got it done boys, that big tree was ugly anyway,’ That’s not true though, you’re a pretty tree,” She repeated the first words she said to me with a smile. “Then I threw dirt at him and said he was a bad man. That was fun. Then I grabbed a bunch of your acorns and a piece of your roots and planted it in a national park, called  Pando Park. A place where trees don’t get cut down. Now I come everyday to Pando Park to take care of you.” Her words could have put tears in my eyes, if I could cry, and if I had eyes. I took care of her, now she took care of me. The truth is that I did remember part of her story. I remember the last construction man come up to me and swinging a shovel, taunting me, “Such a weak little tree, can’t even withstand a shovel,” And the last thought I had in my bigger body was of her because she made me feel amazing, happy, loved. She saved me even though maybe just a part of me, a nine and a half year old saved a part of me because she was smart and loving and she knows that I will grow to be strong again because she tried so hard to save me... and loved me.