Carl's Journey

Carl's Journey(Anna) Carl’s Journey
He certainly remembered that day, how could he not? The sun had been glinting through the tops of the tallest trees, trying to peek through them. The air had smelled of buttercups and roses, and a slight breeze filled the atmosphere. The sky was a brilliant blue that perfectly contrasted the vibrant green of the dew-filled grass. There had been a death that day. It was not just any death: it had been his own Ma’s death, and unfortunately he could vividly remember every minuscule detail of the event.

Some loggers had marched up to Ma with their chests puffed up and their chins arrogantly jutted outward. The bulbous men had taken two decent-sized axes from their torn-up satchels, which read “Bills Mill.” The loggers had started slashing through Ma’s delicate, tender trunk with the wicked axes, causing her to scream. It was a blood-curdling scream, one that you would only hear in a horror movie. Carl could remember those vulgar logging men and their so called “Funny” jokes: “Hey! Hey Joe, if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” He could remember those loggers laughing, nearly hiccupping with delight as they dragged Ma out into the distance, their figures casting long, intimidating shadows on the grass, with Ma screaming, “HELP!” as she helplessly dragged along. Carl watched them walk farther and farther until the sun finally relented to setting, and he could no longer see them. Carl pinched his trunk harder and harder yet, hoping this had all been a dream.
It had been far past Carl’s resting time, yet Carl could not seem to close his gaping eyes; tears gently drove their way down his moist, bark-y cheek. He had thought of how just that morning Ma had been with him. She had wrapped her soft braches around his short, but ample figure and pressed her satin lips on his rigid forehead. Carl remembered what Ma had said to him, as the loggers dragged her into the shadows with the moonlight glinting off her silver tears, “I’LL MISS YOU CARL, BUT WE WILL SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN!” and those were Ma’s last words to him.
“Surely,” Carl had thought, “Surely Ma meant that she would see me in Heaven when I die.”

68 Years Later
Carl was now recalling this tragic memory of Ma from when he was only 14 rings old, when his roots had just started to “take root”. He remembered when there used to be trees surrounding him at every angle. However, now he stood alone, surrounded by only flat grassland and gray, polluted sky. Carl had watched every tree fade away until he was the last one standing. He had just started to sway in the cool Minnesota breeze, which was his all-time favorite thing to do, when he felt a sharp, stabbing sensation. “Huh? It’s probably just my arthritis again,” Carl thought, because at 82 rings old, Carl had various aches and pains. But then the stabbing came repeatedly, along with a sharp, “THWACK, SMACK, THWACK” sound. “There go my old bones creaking again,” thought Carl sadly as he sleepily eased his head around to see where the pain was coming from. Sure enough, Carl found the culprit; it was none-other than a putrid human. The human man had a scintillating, yet grass-covered axe that he held in his dirt-stained hands. Carl cautiously looked towards his trunk, to the area where the man was stabbing him. He gasped, shocked at the sight before his eyes. It was only a matter of seconds before the man would chop him clear off of his stump.

Carl whimpered, feeling quite uncomfortable in his own bark. His stomach gave a sickening jolt as he heard a deafening “SMACK!”, and he felt himself dropping to the grassy floor. He landed face first with a “thud.” Carl spat out a mouthful of moist grass and sticky brown dirt that had been forced into his mouth.
Carl felt his beautiful, weeping willow branches being chopped off until he had just his trunk left, and he felt unbelievably bare now, seeing his branches lying helplessly beside him. What was left of his body was tingling as if he had thousands of long, sharp needles piercing into him. Soon, he felt himself being dragged across the wet-morning grass; his face now coated in Earth, and he heard at least eight men’s booming voices.
“How old do ya think this tree is?” one man voiced in a raspy tone.
“I’d say about, er…72 years old, judging by the number of ring-kles she’s got!” another man replied, chortling at his own joke. Carl, however, was quite offended by that statement. Momentarily, his anger subsided as he realized that he was no longer stuck to the grassy floor all alone. He was free! He was still alive! Carl was astonished that he was still amazingly conscious. Excited, Carl wriggled his roots, which creaked profusely. Never before had he been able to do that, and what an amazing feeling it was!
The men loaded Carl onto a large vehicle, where he lay in a huge metal bin. The vehicle started to move, and after a long hour of barreling through red light and stop signs, it stopped at a decent-sized tin structure called “Bill’s Mill.” It seemed that almost the whole mill was coated in a thick layer of rust.
Carl was unloaded and heaved into the tin building, which was awfully dark and dingy, where he was then reloaded into a tight and very uncomfortable metal clamp that seemed to belong to a monstrous machine. He glanced over to the man who was standing beside the machine. He had an abnormally-hunched back, and was wearing baby-blue overalls that appeared to be a few sizes too big, with a fire-red tee-shirt and some battered, tan work boots. On his sweat and dirt-smeared face he wore a most-unpleasant grimace (which poked out under his unbelievably long nose), and he looked as though he was not happy to be here at the moment. The man then stuck out his long, knobby, oil-stained finger and pushed a large, green button that read “START”.
The machine roared and made a series of creaks, squeaks, and groans as though it hadn’t been used lately. Just like the machine, Carl heard his own stomach screaming as it twisted itself into a tight, nervous knot. Instantaneously, Carl felt himself being sucked deep into the machine into four humongous blades.
Panic-stricken, Carl tried to wiggle himself out of the belts and buckles restraining him. The blades were coming nearer and nearer, and they were getting louder and louder. Carl was starting to worry that he might have a heart attack at any moment if his heart stayed at its current rate.
Soon Carl gave up his struggle to try and wrench himself out and relented to being chopped into pieces. The blades coursed painfully through his body, and Carl whimpered with immense pain.

After being dragged through many more painful processing treatments, Carl found himself relaxing in an odd place called “Susan’s Supplies.” He had been made into something those human’s call “Pencils.” Carl felt amazingly small, compared to his normal tree size he used to be. Even though Carl was made into many pencils, he had his essence in only one pencil. Carl was just reclining in his spacious box when he realized just how bizarre the last few days had been for him. In fact, it was quite hard to fathom the series of events that had occurred. This had been the absolute best journey of his life, but by far the most peculiar “I sure do miss you Ma, where ever you are,” Carl whispered through his plastic box.
Even though Carl enjoyed watching the flocks of people burst in through the doors and pick items off the shelves, it would never come close to the joy of swaying in the wind.

Later that day, as Carl was watching a package of paper being plucked off a nearby stand, he felt his own box of pencils being lifted right off the mahogany shelf. A small human girl with piercing blue eyes, and long blonde pigtails tied tightly together with plum-colored ribbons, called out to her own Ma, “Look Ma, I found some flowery pencils! Look! Look! Aren’t they gorgeous?” Surprised, Carl looked down at himself, and he was quite shocked to see that he did indeed have a flower print on him. Carl felt the slightest bit jealous of the case of wooden-colored pencils standing proudly beside him. “He sure is lucky he didn’t get such a feminine print!” Carl thought.

Carl was shoved into a white and crinkly bag and stuck into yet another vehicle. Soon, he found himself on a small oak table along with a few folders and notebooks.
“Ma! Ma! 2nd grade is tomorrow! Can you believe it?!” said the same little girl who had picked him off the shelf only minutes ago.
“No, I can’t!” the girl’s ma replied. “You’ve gotten so old!”
With that, the girl swept Carl up and placed him cozily into her back-pack.

After a long night of tossing and turning, Carl awoke to find himself placed in the girl’s hand. It was almost as if she was giving Carl an awfully tight hug with her five gigantic fingers. Carl surveyed the room that the girl was in; it was a large building with many other children her age. “Ah,” though Carl. “Ma told me about these! I believe she called them schools.”
The girl was using Carl to make strange marks on a piece of paper. What she was doing that for was beyond him, but she seemed like she knew. A boy with thick brown hair and freckles tapped the girl. Carl watched as she nonchalantly eased her head to face him. She set Carl on her desk and started to engage in a conversation with the boy.
Carl, now feeling extremely confused, started to feel himself rolling, and rolling, now falling off of the girl’s desk. “HELP ME!” he yelled as he hit the hard, tile floor, but no one seemed to hear his cries. Carl rolled and rolled until a wooden mouse trap came into view. “No, no, no, no.” thought Carl. “This is not how I planned on dying!”
Carl rolled nearer and nearer (getting awfully dizzy) to the gaping mouth of the menacing mouse trap. He closed his eyes, ready to embrace his death. He felt himself roll into the trap, but instead of the cold metal slap Carl had expected, the metal arm of the wooden trap closed gently around him.
“Am I dead?” Carl whispered under his breath, and a soothing voice startled him.
“No, sweets! It’s me!” it said.
This voice was like no other. Carl could never forget this voice, for it was the voice of his Ma. Ma had been made into a wooden mouse-trap.
Carl choked out the only three words he could think of. “I love you!” And there they were, Carl and his Ma, stuck together forever in the deepest, darkest corner of the old schoolroom where only the dust bunnies dared to explore. Now Carl knew that Ma truly meant that she would see him again.