This week’s prompt was to write a story without a human protagonist, maybe even without any humans at all. I chose to be a redwood sprout…
I opened my eyes and stared into the leafy canopy so far above my head it might have been—What was the word? I searched my consciousness and delved into our collective memories. Ah. Yes. There it was—the sky. I pulled air into my tissues, refreshing the cambium layer running just beneath my bark. The air was crisp and clean and tasted of family. My grove.
I stood quietly, drawing strength and understanding from the life of the root system below me. I was Needle-Green, a redwood dryad. I had made the leap from growing sprout to sentient being.
Glancing around, I saw other dryads stirring. Hundreds of us littered the ground at the feet of our elders. Most were seedlings, tall stripling youths whose seeds had drifted to earth seasons earlier. They had germinated in the needle-strewn soil of our grove, sending rootlets down, questing for the life of our communal roots, while unsteady stems shot their cotyledons into the air.
A few, like myself, were sprouts. We had sprung up from boles of parent trees. Even fewer had leapt skyward from the decaying trunks of downed giants.
Whether seedling or sprout, we would carry the spark of redwood life into the future. And those of us who had successfully made the leap to sentience were now known as dryads. We had reached the second phase in the life-cycle of a redwood. We were conscious…and capable of movement.
Not all of us had succeeded. I closed my eyes and mourned the seedlings and sprouts who had failed to awaken. They would now shrivel and die, their remains enriching the soil of the grove. They would return to the circle of life as nutrients. Before I could follow that root too deeply, an elder spoke into our collective awareness.
Welcome to our grove, little dryads, whispered the ancient titan at the center of our grove. We are pleased you have safely awakened. Pull in your rootlets and explore your world, but be careful to return to us before your small stores of energy run low. Only our root system will nourish you sufficiently to maintain your growth.
Yesssss, sighed the surrounding giants. Dryads who are too adventurous too soon have starved in the rootless expanse. Do not stray too far, little ones. Not yet.
I shivered as though buffeted by a strong wind. Memories of dryads who had failed to return drifted through my thoughts and stuck there, like pollen collecting on cones. I nodded. Warning internalized.
Carefully, delicately, I experimented. Flexing my roots, I withdrew a filament. Nothing happened. I hardly noticed the decrease in water and nutrient flow. Emboldened, I pulled in all my filaments, separating myself from the life of the grove.
For a moment, I wobbled, my tender trunk unsteady, unbalanced, but then I divided the base of my trunk into twin stems capable of independent movement. I widened my stance, trying to compensate for my loss of anchorage. The exercise left me vaguely dizzy. Quickly I sank my roots back into the security of the grove’s interconnected system. Peace flooded my cambium like sap.
