//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: The Only Tree in the Forest 
// by Hap 
//------------------------------//

It looked like a thunderstorm on the horizon, which bothered me. I’m still shy of such things; though I am now too fat to be blown over, I am the tallest thing for miles.

After a time, I determined that it was not a storm, but smoke from a great fire. Fire is a terrifying thing to a forest, but I am the only tree around, now, and there is nothing around me to burn, or to hold the flames against my wood long enough for me to catch fire.

The town burns and the last traces of a once-mighty forest turn to smoke. Even the smoke is eventually lost in the night sky. There is nothing left of the world I remember but me.

I remember what the older trees told me, so long ago. “That is the way of the world.” What is old dies and makes room for what is new; it rots and nourishes what comes next. The Ash died to make room for me, and its decaying wood fed my soil. The forest died to make room for the castle town, and its wood fed the ponies’ buildings. 

Even now, I watch the town die. I wonder what will grow in its place.