June 9th is Empathy Day, though in truth every day is empathy day.
Stories are powerful things. They let us wear another’s shoes to see life from a different perspective.
Empathy Lab is a brilliant organisation which builds children’s empathy, literacy and social activism through a systemic use of high quality literature. Their strategy builds on scientific evidence showing that an immersion in high quality literature is an effective way to build empathetic understanding of others.
Join in for Empathy Day Live. There are lot of activities and
Some fabulous blogs by some of your favourite authors
And some thought-provoking story shorts from Jo Cotterill, Lucinda Jacob, Bali Rai, Marcia Williams, Sam Copeland, A.F Harrold, Atinuke and me.
I was delighted to be asked to write a story of up to 500 words. It’s a tough ask, what do you write?
As I write stories often with animal characters, I thought, what if I write from an animal’s perspective? We need empathy with animals too.
Then I thought, what about other living things?
I wonder what it is like to be a tree in a forest?
Ancient forests are highly complex ecosystems. Trees in a mature forest have grown connections to each other via a mycelium network, a fungal sheath around the roots. The trees can communicate about predators, drought, and many other threats. They can direct nutrients and water to other trees in need. It seems they have empathy too. We too often compare consciousness with our own human understanding of it. What if there are other forms? What if we allow ourselves to understand that other life forms have complex lives so different from our own that there are hard to compare, yet valuable in themselves.
There may be people who would laugh as such a notion, and choose not to give thought to this concept, but even so, protecting the wild habitats is vital for our own human survival. It’s worth giving it a go…if not for the trees, then for the humans and other animals.
But I chose to try to imagine empathy with a non-animal life form.
I wondered what it would be like to be a tree in an ancient forest which has seen millennia pass by. Imagine living in a different time frame to a human; living hundreds of years. Imagine experiencing that passage of time!
I find it inconceivable that many ancient forests are being destroyed for the High Speed Rail link HS2, at a time when we know how vital and irreplaceable these forests are.
HS2 construction has progressed in lockdown, and trees have been cut during nesting season. People who have tried to protect these trees have been forcibly removed.
Ancient forests have been felled.
You cannot replace an ancient connected forest with a few unrelated saplings.
It is utter foolishness.
So my piece is called
The Foolish King and the Wisdom of Trees.
The Foolish King and the Wisdom of Trees
There was once a foolish king.
A fool with power is a dangerous thing.
This king ordered his men to build a road paved with gold between his castles in the south and the north of his kingdom.
“But sire,” said a wise man, “We mustn’t. This will destroy the ancient forests.”
“Fiddlesticks!” said the king. “This road will let me travel faster.”
“Not much faster,” said the wise man. “You could only boil an egg in the extra time.”
“Eggsactly!” said the king laughing at his terrible joke. “But time is money.”
The wise man did not laugh, and the king had him beheaded.
So, the king’s men began to fell the forest.
The forest folk flung their arms around the trees, but the king’s guards drove them away.
Chop, chop, chop until they reached the oldest tree. Their axes could not cut its bark.
“Bring dynamite,” roared the king.
The tree bent down to the king. “If you spend a night in my branches, I will lie down at your feet.”
“What is this witchery?” said the king.
“Are you afraid?” said the tree.
The king did not want to look a coward in front of his men, so he agreed and climbed into the tree.
As the king dozed, he felt his arms grow wide and birds came to land on his outstretched hands. His feet dug deep into the rich earth and wriggling earthworms tickled his toes. The king could now see the long ago past laid out before him. The great kings and queens of old came to kneel at the tree, to give thanks for giving their people food, water and air.
As night fell, the king felt afraid and alone.
He saw himself for what he was.
“I am a fool,” he wept. “What shall become of me?
As the sky began to lighten, the tree said, “I will give you three dawns.”
The first time the sun rose, the king looked out over the green roof of the forest. He heard a child’s laughter. “My son!” he cried. He paddled and played with his child in the cool river beneath dappled shade, and as he did, he felt the richest man alive.
The second sun rose, and this time the king found himself in a golden carriage racing along a road paved with gold across a barren landscape. He saw a child lying face-down in the dust.
“My son?” cried the king.
The carriage driver cracked his whip. “No time to stop sire, for time is money and you are the richest man alive.”
The king gripped the branches of the tree and screamed, “Where is my son?”
The third sun rose over the horizon.
The king closed his eyes and wept. “I cannot bear it. Tell me what happens in the third dawn?”
The tree gently lifted the king to the ground.
“Well now,” it said. “That’s up to you.”
