The Sacrifice
by Emerald A. Behrens
Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

It was just before winter when it happened, when I was ripped away and stripped bare...

I had lived all my life up in the mountains from when I was small to when I was grown. I was there with my family... all my life it had been peaceful and quiet up in the mountains where the generations of my family had lived for thousands of years.

And then one day the strangers came...

they came and took me away...

they ripped me...

they cut me...

they took me away from my family, away from even the small children I had who were not fully grown.

I felt horrible pain...

pain from being ripped away...

pain from what they did to me.

I felt such horrible pain but they did not notice as they took me by force, ripped me away and took me away from the land I had known, always known.

I feared for my family.

I was transported with the others, thrown on top of each other...

we were all in pain but they never noticed.

They took us far away...

they took me far, far away to a strange place I had never been before. I did not belong there.

We lay over each other for a while in the cold, away from our family, away from our children...

starving and thirsty, as they gave us no food or water.

Then one by one we were taken apart, still in pain, still thirsty, still hungry...

they took me and placed me against a wall.

I stood there for a long while.

I did not know how long as I could not tell the time, the sunlight was hidden and it was still cold.

I was suffering...

slowly dying inside and no one noticed.

Finally a group of strangers came and took me, they placed me in the center of many tall cement buildings and nailed me to the ground. The agony was excruciating but these strangers felt no sympathy for me.

Many of them stood around me and a few took pictures as I was in agony.

Then the strangers brought strange objects, shiny and glittering. They brought them over and started to put them on me. I did not know why they did this only that I was still in pain, horrible, terrifying, pain.

Then they brought lights, lights glittering and small, bright as the sunlight but it gave me no warmth. They put these lights over me.

A loud machine roared next to me as the metal metallic creature reached up to the very top of me to put on a strange shiny heavy object that weighed me down.

The horrible creatures turned on the cold glittering lights as more and more strange creatures stood around me and took pictures.

They finally gave me some water as they splashed it about the bottom of me where I was nailed down to the ground.

But it was too late...

I knew I was slowing dying inside and out.

As the heartless creatures gathered around they made strange noises of which turned into a song as they sang it around me.

"Oh Christmas Tree... oh Christmas Tree...".

I now understood I was chosen as their sacrifice for their religious holiday. I wondered in pain, in silent pain and agony, why I was put through this but there must be a reason as I was put on display to slowly die a horrible death. There must be a reason for all this suffering as I hoped the suffering would end soon.

I wished I was back with my family in the mountains, where the soil was hearty and strong, where the sunlight would shine through the clear unpolluted air and where I could spread my leaves out to the sky and feel the warmth in through my branches to the inner walls of my very core.

I hoped the members of my forest family would be spared the agony of what I was going through and I hoped, silently, fervently, that these creatures would understand the pain I was in.

As my leaves slowly turn brown and my branches wither before my whole body dries up...

I hope these creatures appreciated the sacrifice of my life for them, for their holiday and their strange ways. I hope these creatures appreciated the life that they took. My life, which was older than any of them standing around me.

Did they realize this as they sang their song around me? Did they realize what it meant to be a Christmas tree?