A Little Hill

In a place that is not here, there is a hill. It is a bit small and grassy, the kind that kids go through on their way to school and complain about as they go up the slope. The hill has a few trees, but it is mostly the green with the manicured grass that indicates that it belongs to somebody.

Or at least, that is what the somebody who pretends to own the hill would like to think, as they gaze over their property and frown a little at the misshapen lump. It is what most people like to think, in fact, whenever they survey something that they believe to be theirs. 

The hill, on the other hand, believes differently. According to the soil that shifts within it and the plants that grow through it, the hill only truly acknowledges the Earth that supports it and the Sky that nourishes it. Even then, it does not truly belong to the Earth or Sky, like its cousins below the surface of the crust or the distant clouds in the sky. 

It is in between. It reaches up for the Sky but is still unequivocally connected to Earth. It gives life to the hundreds of beings within it and on top of it. It was given life from an ancient, dead creature that once ruled all it could see. 

Sometimes, when the birds quiet and the winds stop whistling out of respect for the little lump of dirt covered in grass, you can hear a quiet voice that talks about everything and nothing. If you continue to listen, you will learn about the little worms that squabble over territory within it, about the tamed, domesticated grasses that do not quite belong on top of this little mound but are still accepted, about the bones of a long-dead being buried deep within. It has the voice of a little hill that knows that it belongs to none but itself. 

In a time that is not now, when there was a forest. It was very large and dense, the kind that small dinosaurs roamed during their reign of Earth. The forest has little clearings, but it is mostly the green of the trees that make the land different from the flat plains. Sometimes, when the lines between then and now blur faintly, one can almost see it, those great trees that sheltered the Earth from the sky, reaching up for the sky higher, higher, higher, all of them, Icaruses with their  leafy wings to the sun and their roots in the ground. 

When the meteor struck the Earth far, far, away and the sun hid its face in a veil of ash and smoke, the forest died along with its inhabitants. As the trees started to decay and fall, and the animals began to disappear, a little beast wove his way through a home it once thought immortal, and found its final resting place in the middle of the forest. 

The creature was a small thing. It had claws of steel on each hand and teeth that could rend skin from one’s bones, but even then It still breathed its last and watched the great oaks and elms around it quiver in the strange non-emotions that trees convey. No matter how powerful, how strong, how alive it once was, it didn’t save the creature when the others died and hunger scraped its talons along the inside of its stomach, where the creature's claws and teeth couldn’t reach.

It wasn’t used to this sort of vulnerability. Despite its size, it was once king of the forest, master of all it could see, ruling alongside its brothers and sisters. The pack that they once were had bowed to none, not even to the great beast from the place-without-trees had roared and slashed at them. Now it was reduced to another little mortal dying under the Sky that no longer nurtured the world. 

Sometimes, the hill wonders. If the being that gave it life knew what miracle it had birthed when it breathed its last. If the creature had known, in its final seconds, that his own body would last far longer than it, decomposing and fusing into a sturdy mass of dirt that withstood the test of centuries passed beneath the eye of God. Had it understood that it would not be forgotten? That a memorial created out of its very bones would mark its passing in the very same place thousands of years later, when the sun when the sun looked back at the Earth and the Sky no longer choked the life out of the planet?

The hill does not like to think of such things. Thinking of its former self reminds it again of the red poison clouds that covered the skies and smothered its home, and also reminds it of the black greasy smoke that pours out of the abodes of humans. It reminds the hill that it and the beings within it do not have long left on this world, only a few decades that slip away faster than ever. 

Sometimes, the birds bring news of hope. They sing songs of mankind replanting trees, saving lives, and being kind. But the hill also remembers the men that lived here first, the ones that were soft spoken to the Earth and asked for forgiveness before taking a life. The ones who were driven out by unknowns, by people who saw trees as ‘lumber’ and never asked for forgiveness from anyone. 

Where are those people now? Dead, the hill supposes. Centuries have passed since they bid their goodbyes to their homes. 

Despite it all, the little hill continues to mark the little creature’s death. A little hill, that is a bit small and grassy, where kids complain as they walk over it. A little hill which a little man claims to own. 

A little hill, which has lived for thousands of years and will certainly outlast the mortal that calls himself king of his property. A little hill which belongs to none but itself.