Dear 2114,

They say that being wise comes with age.

'Homo sapiens' is Latin for wise man. Apparently we have been wise since the beginning of us, whether that was the evolution from ape to man, two hundred thousand years ago, or the creation of man from earth.

If we are wise, why is our o-zone layer perforated? Why are our oceans swimming with plastic and oil? Why is it expected that in my lifetime, that a bottle of clean, fresh drinking water will cost more than petrol?

If we are wise, why are we letting our earth die?

If I was a tree, I'd be so wise. From when my soft leaves first sprouted from the soil, and opened to the sky, for the sunlight to fill me with warmth. I'd see the people, with their large, rubber soled shoes move past me, some carefully dodging my sensitive new growth, or others, unbeknownst of my existence; crumple my furry branches with a step. I'd grow so tall despite the small imperfections caused by ignorant people, until young children wound themselves around my impressively strong branches.

The seasons would come and go.

I would watch my year's worth of leaves turn deep red, as if my blood was filling them, followed by a burnt orange, and then brown. The wind would save a breath, and slowly let it out, loosening my leaves from my grip. I would watch them fall, and the wind would clutch at them with soft fingers, spinning them, before letting them gently flutter to the ground.

Even though I was losing my coverage, leaving me naked to the world I would still see the beauty of my loss. The leaves would litter the forest floor above my roots. They would decay, and deepen the richness of the soil in which I grew.

My nakedness wasn't a weakness. It was a sign of strength, a sign of life, a sign of death, a cycle. I would hear people say that I looked ugly without leaves. I wouldn't understand where they were coming from, how could they say such things? They'd never had leaves. Maybe they didn't understand the concept of death; maybe they were so set on death being the end, or the beginning, that they couldn't see the beauty of it. They couldn't see the beauty in many things.

Spring would come, and my blossoms would sprout, covering me in white and pink.

Finally they would talk about my beauty. I would know that I was beautiful. Everything is beautiful.

I would be so proud of my strength. When summer would come, and my leaves, green in glory would spread.

I would think of my parents, they would be old, so old, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. The people didn't know that age wasn't a weakness. They spent so long making themselves look young that they forgot that they were still growing old. No matter how young they looked, it was their soul that portrayed their age.

They thought that I would be bored, that with every coming year, I became a little less satisfied with life. They would be so wrong.

I would see families grow. The little girl with the blonde curls and the purple dress that played in my arms would bring her boyfriend to me when she was older. He would go to cut their names into my flesh, but she would place a soft hand on his, stopping him. I would be thankful.

Later, she would let her children find happiness in the curves and knots of my branches as she had.

She would age so gracefully. Age was graceful. She understood.

Like us all, she would die. She would stop coming to rest under the shade of my leaves. I would miss her, and for a second, hate the disappearance that followed death, I would hate that feeling that I was missing something. But then I would remember her life, filled with beauty and obstacles and grace and I would be filled with love. Hate was so strong that it encompassed oneself. It was an awful emotion.

I would have seen hundreds of families walk by me. Hundreds of men, of women, of animals. Dogs' soft paws leaving small dips in the soil. Their constant happiness, their loyalty, their understanding of life, and of death, and of beauty.

I would see a brown ball of fluff cock his leg to release a steady stream of yellow. I would see the yank of a leash, the jerking of his neck. I would flinch. A rustle of my leaves, barely noticed by the impatient owner.

The dog would take a bounding step, following faithfully after his oblivious owner. His pink, sweaty tongue would loll from his mouth. He would be happy, and it was strange.

One day, a man in a fluro yellow vest would dig a hole near my roots. He would place a ghastly plastic bin in the hole, and the bin would stand strong and fake with metal mouths pulled into a square grimace.

People would walk past with half eaten sandwiches, empty chip packets and bottles. They would carelessly feed the bin. But sometimes the bin wasn't hungry, and the packets would spill onto the ground. The person would glance at the litter, but would keep walking. The wind would pick up the packets, tricked into thinking they were my leaves, and spread them amongst the forest.

I tried to find the beauty in the falsely bright coloured plastic, but as the rain fell and the chemicals leeched into the soil I extracted nutrients from, I would find it hard to find beauty in ugly things, and start to realise that maybe not everything was beautiful, and that would make me sad.

Then, one day, more men would come in fluro vests, with a big truck and although they were smaller, it would seem that their chainsaws were even bigger than the truck.

The wind would rustle my leaves, whispering for me to run. I couldn't run though, I was made of the earth and the earth was made of me and like an anchor rupturing the sea bed, I would be rooted in the ground.

Just as I would see the span of my life fly through my leaves, a young girl with a grey beanie in a green shirt with a massive sign would leap in front of me.

The sign would teeter precariously in her small hands but her voice would make up for her small size, and then she'd be joined by others in matching green shirts with signs that didn't look as big as they would with the girl. A boy with dark hair and wild eyes would slip an arm around her back and she would look up and smile with... with love? With determination?

The chanting would start, and there would be uproar and all through it the wind would caress my quivering branches.

The fluro men would stand with arms crossed, or would move in big, rough gestures. They would have a job to do, and they wouldn't necessarily want to do the job, but jobs are money, and money is food and power and water and necessity and in a world that believes everything is a necessity and want becomes need and the need is consuming and as the consumers consume the earth loses.

I would think about the kindness of the people in green surrounding me, protecting me, I would realise that kindness is no longer a selfless act. Because as I would grow and watch, I would realise that selflessness doesn't seem to exist because a girl would cry and another girl would supply comfort because giving makes you feel good. And as the girl with the grey beanie would throw a defiant fist in the air she would feel good because she was saving a tree and the world for the future generations of destroyers and she would be selfish. But selfishness is stability, and in a world that is constantly moving and spinning and changing the illusion of stability is the only thing that keeps one from insanity.

I would find that for a tall tree that could feel the world spinning, insanity is as close to sanity as it gets.

Eventually, the ruckus would die down, and I would be left alone in peace. The fluro clad men would stalk off and the green group would cheer triumphantly before leaving in a massive pack, and I would breathe a sigh of relief.

I would be thankful for the girl in the grey beanie, and I would hope that she would finally say yes to the dark haired boy who had been trying to ask her out for weeks.

Again, I'd just be a tree.

Seasons flew by like a crayon sprinting across a scribbler moon.

I would shed my leaves like the skin of a snake. I would find it harder to find the beauty in the loss of my leaves.

I would find it harder to ignore the words of the people below me, about how in spring I looked like the tree the council wasted money on saving.

One day, the sun would kiss my bare branches, and I would shake the sleep from my creaking arms. I would go to suck the water and the nutrients I needed from the rich soil that seemingly swallowed my roots only to find that the plentiful source was not quite so plentiful.

The wind would rush past me, and I would see, I would see the beloved forest floor smothered with grey concrete. A small square that only just extended outwards from my trunk would be left of the forest. The grey filled my sight. Grey was such a non committal colour, grey was the shrug of a rainbow.

The ghastly plastic bin would still stand grimacing.

That spring, my blossoms would be smaller than ever before.

That summer, a car would run headfirst into my body sending splinters flying. I would watch the drunken body of a young girl stumble from the back of the car and clutch at the front door handle which would have buckled from the force of the crash, forming a cage around a person inside. I would recognise her as the grey beanie girl. The glass would claw at her bare feet and through the smashed windscreen I would see the bloodied and wrecked body of the dark haired boy, who was crumpled over the inflated airbag, and I would hear her screams which pierced through my bark deeper than any car could.

For days after, blood would still be smeared against me, seeping into my wood.

The beauty was so much harder to see.

That autumn, my leaves would fall for the last time.

That winter, the flowers and crosses stapled to my bark would be covered in a light dusting of snow, delivered in by my faithful friend the wind. Wind tried to make me see the beauty in the world, like I used to.

How could there be beauty in a world that was destined to be destroyed by those who commented on its beauty?

Slowly the wind would stop blowing crisp fresh air, and as more houses sprouted from the concrete like noxious weeds, the wind turned sour.

I would start to hate the company of my old, old friend the wind.

The following summer, I would see the truck arrive. I would see only one fluro clad man.

He would go to knock on the door of the house closest to me.

The door would creak open, and the girl with the grey beanie would emerge. Although this time she wasn't wearing a grey beanie and her brown hair fell from her shoulders in waves. I couldn't help but marvel at the beautiful woman she'd become.

The conversation between the fluro man and the grey beanie girl would unfold like this:

'Ma'am, is this your house?' The fluro man would ask.

'Yes, well my parents' house.' Grey beanie girl would reply. 'I'll go get them, hold on.' And then she would disappear into the house.

A few moments would pass and grey beanie girl would return with a woman and a man. They would crowd the small doorway.

'We received a complaint about the tree on your lawn.' Fluro man stated.

'Yes.' The older woman said.

'The bloody thing doesn't have any leaves anymore, it's as dead as the dinosaurs. We're worried it'll fall on our house. It needs to go.' The father of grey beanie girl said staunchly. He looked oddly at his daughter who throughout had remained strangely quiet.

'Greta? Whadd'ya think?'

'I don't care, it's just a tall dead tree. Maybe it died the day Aaron did.' A little tear would manage to escape her eye, only to be roughly swept away by her shaking fingers.

'Are you sure Greta?' The mother asked.

'I don't care, it's just a bloody tree. Chop it down.' Grey beanie girl's voice rose, and she stalked away.

And that's how the conversation would have ended.

The fluro man would go back into his truck, and call more fluro men, who would arrive in their trucks.

They would come out brandishing chainsaws like swords.

They would cut off my top branches, and then my lower ones, before severing me in half all together.

Grey beanie girl would watch from her window, with a blank, uncaring face.

I would find it so odd how someone could change so much in three years.

As they pushed my hands into wood chippers, churning me into tiny rectangular pieces of bark, I would finally allow myself to see all of the ugliness of the world.

And as they loaded me onto the back of the trucks and the exhaust smoke would mingle with the aroma of my freshly split wood, I would finally let myself to slip from the world. To turn off, like the thousands of smartphones that the people clutched onto as if their lives were squished into small hand held bits of glass and metal and plastic and electrical wire.

If things were to keep going the way they are, I wouldn't want to be a tree.

I wouldn't want to be so wise, so that I could see, and understand the awful things unraveling right in front of me.

If humans are so wise, why are we doing these things?

As a human in 2015, I sit, and I see, and I try so hard to find the beauty in a commercialised and denaturalised world.

But in a world with so much grey, it's so hard to find the colours that scream beauty.

Dear 2114,

Don't make the same mistakes as your forefathers. Cherish the Earth, cherish the beauty, cherish childhood, and life, and death, and nature, and love. Smother yourself in beauty, real beauty.

And whatever you do, don't believe the title 'Homo Sapiens,' because we are anything but wise.

Yours with the utmost sincerity, Hannah Grace.