Young Writers Society

Part 1: Taggers

Let me tell you about a concept commonly believed, not definitely true, but probably true. Some say this idea is absurd and irreverent. Others say that it is pure genius.

Say we have a mammal lacking sharp claws, powerful haunches or even killing teeth. To escape predation this rather weak animal would quickly find refuge in the trees. It would be foolish to ever come down, a chance at a single meal is not worth becoming a meal. Food would have to be gathered from the trees. Most animals use their mouths to manipulate objects, but you’re not going to stick your neck out and around that tree branch for a bite of fruit. This animal would need dexterous arms that could reach out for the fruit yet be able to retract back to the mouth; flexible fingers to grasp and pick the fruit; fingernails to peel it. They would also need a curious and exploratory nature to have the drive to search out food. But what happens when the forest comes to its edge? That nature, that burning desire to seek out opportunity becomes a defining trait. What proceeds to happen is that the apes leave the forest, build sky scrapers that extend past the clouds, even wear cloths with each other’s names on them.

But here’s the punch line, the kicker. I’m the one who runs the forest. I decide who lives and who dies because I am a tree tagger. I’m the one who designates when a tree has reached its full potential, and therefor prime for execution. The order is given with a can of orange spray paint. And, like a mob boss, my boys come in later and take care of the marked ones. This is not done entirely on a whim, there’s a science behind it. I even got a degree from a college that ran daytime commercials. It’s my job to pick the finest trees to be turned into the office deck your life ticks away at, the wood floors you dance across with glee, even produced the crucifix hanging in the den. Don’t forget that little piece of paper your last will and testament is written on.

The tree can’t be too old. Those ones are dry and brittle, they leave vicious splinters that could take out an eye. The floors crack at a dropped plate or when grandma takes a tumble. People get real pissy when they refrain from using the floors for years in order to keep them nice, and it only takes one bad Christmas to crumble them. The tree can’t be too young either. This is known as ‘Eliminating Natural Investments’ and its common sense not to tamper with a growing gold mine. These young trees know they are doomed and in due time they will wear the deadly orange tag. I’m sure they watch me prowling the forest, marking their predecessors. The X acts as the Star of David in ’42, a crimson A sewn to a blouse, the branded R upon a slaves cheek. Basically if you’re marked, then you’re fucked. I am the Gestapo, the Protestant church, I am the white man on horseback priming his wiry mustache.

This is the best job for a man like me to have. To me those guidelines are, well, genocidal. Most of the time X marks the sick and dying. I hold the power through what is known as the trickle-down effect. That splinter in your kid’s eye from his bunk bed? Yeah, that’s me. That picture frame that broke so easily and tore the last picture of dead Uncle Howard? That’s me too. What about that little parasite outbreak in Portland? Remember how office workers would find their skin turning black and soupy, and eventually dripping off in heaps. That shit was horrific, how could you forget? Oh yeah, that was all me. Technically I don’t fit the criteria for an eco-terrorist, but I like to think that I redefine the word. I am the cause of so many industry fallacies that it would make Upton Sinclair soil his trousers.

Some days I wonder why I do this. Why do I act as a culprit to modern society? I like to cut the net so the big fish can swim through, per say. I see it as nature’s backlash, there’s always bound to be some degree of it. I’m simply a cog in the machine, it’s my job to sift through the raw material so that its pure. In that sense, my job isn’t getting done. In another sense, Mother Nature is just doing hers. The only reason I work is to make money, just like every other American. They exploit us so that we exploit nature and though I may be deviating from someone’s plan, I feel as though the way I do things adheres to a much grander plan. When you put a price tag on a living being it is bound to rebel. I’m not a tyrant, why should I hinder the rebellion of the forest? Something sick inside of me enjoys the fight like as if it were cast on ESPN. I refuse to apply what has come to be called ‘the human condition’. To put it simply, that would be dirty boxing. They pay me salary instead of commission to try to prevent this, but they didn’t factor in that I’m just a bit of an asshole that way. There are people that make posters about how people in my profession are assholes. Which is definitely true, most people do indeed consider me a tactless asshole. It’s evident why I picked a job ten miles from the next human sole. When it’s just me in the forest with no one watching, I just can’t resist. The cutting crews know nothing of prime trees. After they are logged human eyes don’t see the trees until distribution. It’s all machines, factories and processing.

Being able to pick and choose gives me a sense of godliness. Having such influence on the planet and society is dizzying at times. In most cases, I lean towards the refuge of the forest. I find it difficult to desecrate something that provides me with my most fundamental need, oxygen. At times I just can’t bring myself to sign the death sentence of a grand towering sequoia. Whenever I see a bird’s nest in a prime tree, I always make sure to tag its neighbor. At least someone doesn’t think I’m an asshole. I take care of my own. My interpretation of prime is when a tree has lived out its years, is suffering disease, and sometimes the simple luck of the draw. You see where the godliness comes into play. Throughout history we have talked about the chosen one, well, I’m the one that does the choosing.

People make the argument that the earth is under our rule for we are the most dominant species. Untrue, the most predominant life form is the tree. No matter if this is based on population or technological advancement, the trees have us beat. We consider ourselves a fairly advanced culture yet we still face many pressing issues. But the trees have figured out how to perfectly adapt to recycle themselves at 100% efficiency. Our technology only narrows our spectrum of renewal. They have developed technology for an endless lineage whereas our lineage grows more and more finite as technology advances. And we think we’re so smart.

Let me reiterate, if I may. I am the Grim Reaper for the most prosperous life form that we know of. How could anyone in this position not feel a little self richous?

I’ve been in this line of work for about nine years now, and have settled into it quite nicely. Never in that amount of time have I been given a target. Sure there are target areas based on population density, but never a single target tree. The order came as if in a dream, a challenge by an apparition to slay a mythical, lost creature. My field walkie chirped and I heard the bosses voice for the first time,

“Robinson, we have a Tango NW of your position. It’s a good distance so cease all tagging operations until the target is identified and marked. The coordinates will be on your GPS momentarily.”

Well look at this. My GPS had almost no signs of wear, and I was surprised his voice sounded like that. I had imagined it differently. There must have been something special about this tree. Something big enough to get the bossman’s mind off of his money and onto where it comes from. Something big enough for him to acknowledge his peons personally.

I break out my compass and catch NW, uphill. Shit, this grade is steep. I’ve been switch backing the area for a few weeks now and haven’t made it very far up the hill. I call it a hill because the terrain kind of lopes together like massive scoops of ice cream, but the one I am on is so tall it creates its own horizon, and I cannot see the peak. And shit, this grade is steep. I check the GPS to be sure, and sure enough it tells me that the tree is strait up. I scramble higher on and on, my only entertainment being able to sing to myself and wondering how much further the target is. Judging by the progress of the little red blinker on my GPS I figure that I can reach it today, campout, and head down in the morning. As the sun fades into orange the tree forest fades into a rocky landscape. Every step brings less trees and more treacherous of a mountain. Alas I can see something of a summit. It was very odd in that it didn’t come to a point, more like the tip had been chopped off so fine it seemed like an old friend with a new haircut. And I certainly see no god damn trees worthy of this hike. Trusting my GPS, I continue on. I’ve already come this far and if the gadget is crap then I can file a grievance. My ascend made the sun seem to drop twice as fast, but lasted twice as long. When I finally reached the summit the sun was shining up from below and onto my face, making it glow. I came upon a crater and when I looked down into it I was astounded.

At the center was the pinnacle of the logging industry, a tree so massive that if it wasn’t the largest in the world it surely towered over any here in Mexico. The root system sprawled out in a tangled maze and deep into the mountain. The trunk came together in a twisted knot thicker than a Victorian house. It rose in a pylon of deep mahogany brown and mushroomed into a green plume fidgeting from the unfathomable amount of leaves. The cloud was so vast you could build a village of tree houses in it. This tree could cover the Caribbean in beautiful hardwood. It could build an arc the size of Noah’s. Which if you remember, was really fucking big. It could print a bible for every person in North America. It could furnish a grand palace fit for a king. We are going to need different machines. We are going to need new machines invented to harvest this bounty. A branch derived from a branch derived from yet another branch was as thick as any of the trees of the forest below. There are millions of leaves, hundreds of thousands of pounds of wood. The boss man has finally found his gold mine. He’s found the brilliant, gleaming gem of his career. The one that will tip him into the realm of aristocrats, with money only his grandchildren could run dry. If only he could see the glory before me, he would be inspired by his new oncoming legacy. Looking at this organism is a feat of heart. It makes one feel minute, like a freckle on the backside of the Earth. One feels as though they have uncovered a woman at her most sensual moment, as if it were something nobody was ever supposed to see. But even though I’ve witnessed her beauty, she still stands taut.

I begin my climb down into the crater and the ground grows lusher as I center in on the trunk. The roots grow thicker too into powerful veins that rob the hillside of every last nutrient. Soon I have to hurdle and scuttle over the root system that creates its own landscape of intertwining arms. I must have traversed half a mile of roots before they started to come together in a massive heap, curving upwards and forming the base of the trunk. I begin to wonder and fear that I’m expected to make the X proportional to the other trees. The orange X almost loses its stain as a mark of death in this case. In this forest, in this economy, the entire mass of the tree is its own target.

I walk along the trunk until it becomes more of a climb. My hand reaches down for the can of orange paint and a feeling falls upon me. For a split, hair of a second I hesitate, an almost invisible pause before retrieving the can. The feeling quickly vanished but wasn’t small enough to ignore, not for me. The reality of the moment became apparent and I wondered how I got to this point, like in the start of a dream where you can’t remember how you got there. The thought was frightening and I dismissed it.

I looked back upon the roots to scope out a spot clear enough to set a tent and left the tree brandishing a portentous deadly X. I spent that night nestled in the arms of the tree. It was so alive it almost breathed. I could feel blood pumping through each root, in some places it even bled a thick dark sap. The ground was hard but the winding roots comforted me with an unknown homely feeling. I feel destined to lay here, as if any other avenue my life could have taken was unknown, unrealized and impossible. It all felt very fitting. The blackness of the sky overtook me, drowning out the endless stars, and I clocked out for the night.

I opened my eyes to a thick, old eggshell colored fog. Silence was as thick as the fog, that dead of silence that almost has its own sound, the faded echo of a bell. The wind is whipping but makes no warning of a sound, and I flail in the arms of a violent ghost. A horizon of blue approaches, swallowing the fog in the feeding frenzy. The blue looms over me like a vengeful hunter’s net, like a magnificent blanket trying to swaddle me. When I can see the topography of its hills and crests I clamp my eyes shut and hold my nose. Bursting into a thicker world, cutting my way through, I discover this is the ocean. It was like stomping the breaks on my great descend. I sink deep to where the white doesn’t shine through. My vision tunnels and I succumb to the blackness.

The lids of my eyes feel bleached and crisp when I try to peel them open. Salt and sand rasp my throat and my lips tremble in a splitting quiver. The ocean has been unforgiving and has beached me on an abandoned stretch of coast. The vast tide pool laps at my toes, pulling the water from my body as I crave more. There is no greater torture of a thirsty man than an ocean of water he cannot drink. I find an unknown strength, a ghostly beckoning to stumble past the tree line where there is a man. His nude brown skin seems natural in the dense woodland. In his right grip is an ornate long sword. Intricate designs and flurries of swirls run across the handle and the dull edge of the sword. In his left grip is the scuff of a lamb, it’s expression is sober, content with being well fed. Neither of them notice me and the man begins to pray. He lifts his sword high, displaying it for the heavens. His chin dips and he starts a silent chant. Like the eruption of a volcano his face bursts into fury. He brings the sword down upon the lamb and into its skull, dividing the eyes. It hacked a deep wound but the man pulls back for another swing and strait down the middle the lamb is bisected, Old Testament style. The man acted quickly not to spill too much blood, filling a moon-grey stone bowl. Once more he prayed, discarding the sword and bringing his hands together. When he unclasps them I see that a seed has appeared. He held it close to his heart, cherishing it. Kneeling between the two halves of the lamb he milled the earth into a rift to place the seed in. Before returning the dirt he washed in in the basin of lamb’s blood turning it to thick mud, which he packed around the seed and prayed once more. I could almost hear his voice fading into audibility but before it came clear I was once again swallowed by the white fog.

Leaping up from my bed of roots, I felt beads of sweat racing down my back, shivering in the night air. I’m standing in the moonlit shadow of the majestic tree. Its beauty seizes me once more and I am speechless, thoughtless even. My dream has left me confused, my thoughts groped out into the darkness for something solid to stable themselves. As my suspense grew the memory of the dream faded from my mind. The great deep sky, the powerful monument before me all became too real. The aura of the landscape grew uneasy inside of me. I feel uneasy in the presence of a lost relic in the Mexican jungle. I knew trying to sleep would be like trying to mend a broken marriage, it simply wasn’t gonna happen or wasn’t worth it. I decide to collapse my tent and pack up camp. The wall of the crater is hard to scale in the diming moon light. By the time I reach the top the sun is starting to cast a shadow of light into the dark world. By this I know I will be home for dinner, home as in the loggers lodge. It’s far out of my quota zone but I’ve done my share of overachieving. The next morning after some peaceful sleep, I started my quota on the SE region of the forest.

Part 2: Baggers

Here is another idea due for some mulling over. You reap what you sow, such as the bible says. Such says our common knowledge of fairness, karma, and justice. It is a natural cycle of things in that an input always has an equal and opposite reaction to the latter output. In nature the reaction is logical cause and effect. Cliffs by the beach turn to sand by the beating of the ocean. It even stays logical with animals other than humans. Rabbits don’t live to long so they have to produce more offspring which in turn decides the population of local foxes. It is because nature follows a crucial formula, one that we humans have abandoned. We have developed a culture where prosperity and kindness lie and separate ends of a spectrum. One where the unruly and devious souls are the ones that prosper as a result of their own wrongdoing. Success in modern business means turning human blood sweat and tears into a lucrative flow of money. Or at least a number on a bank statement.

No one takes heed to this lesson more than Michael Ray Bishop. It didn’t take many years in this world for greed to infect him. He just knew that there were wonderful things out there, and everything can be obtained if you drove yourself to the right limit. The world is his for the taking. As a boy, lush Italian suits fascinated him. People that work hard ware jumpsuits with name tags, and the sly bastard adorns Versace. You will never catch Michael working a shit job for someone else’s money. As an obvious result he entered into the business of business. Buying, selling, mergers, acquisitions, reports, stocks, that was all him. It didn’t matter what the subject of business was, he could handle the logistics of any product or service.

Michael’s profit margins grew with just the shake of his hand, it was beautiful. In reality the money grew from a soil known as his workforce. Most are grateful to be working, to be eating. Few want more from their life than to eat sleep fuck and die. The line is defined by power, and power is usually granted by a piece of paper. In this case it was a diploma from a college everyone knew. Ones that have streets named after them. Now Michael lays in a great sum of capitol from dabbling in various Fortune 500 companies.

When Michael was a little boy he had a thing for cookies. On the days where his mother or grandmother would bake them, he was in heaven. The only problem was that the oven could only fit so many cookies and he had so many brothers and sisters. When all was divvied out each child was left with two cookies and fifteen in the cookie jar. Those cookies didn’t have anyone’s name on them, they were up for grabs as far as Michael was concerned. He horded them in his room while the other children squabbled. Some knew of his plan but they were easily coaxed into silence with half a cookie. They got more than their share and had a scapegoat. Michael was only a scapegoat if he got caught, but he wasn’t because he paid for tight lips. And he was always left with the lion’s share of cookies. He was careful to observe every little detail of the plan as to not make a mistake, he was and is still a smart kid.

Even though he had a masterful mind, Michael didn’t do well in school. He claimed he had the ADHD. The doctor threw some pills at him and they worked wonders for his studies in somewhat of an askew way. He gave the pills to the moderately smart kids, they’d get all jacked up and have no problem doing Michael’s homework for him. The pills were covered by insurance and cost him almost nothing, but they, entirely in themselves, earned his high school diploma. Michael was a genius at setting up little work forces that ran themselves and all he had to do was sit back and watch it all play out. He is a masterful ringleader and that lone quality brought him far in the business world.

A realization came before him that the more people relied on him, the more control he had. He wanted an unshakable empire, he vies for job security. This desire is almost innate, it guides this thoughts like a religion. It dances in his mind when he’s trying to sleep, when he’s waiting at a traffic light. Even while waiting in line at the super market. Once upon a day he was sitting at his desk with a pencil in his hand, devising a flow chart on lined paper atop his beautiful teak desk. And he was struck by a thought, “Oh shit…”

He phones a partner of his named Kyle Stanton, “Kyle, I need you to look into wood refineries, get me one that’s sinking in on itself and in the lower United States. He phones David McCallister, “David, I need you to recruit 300 workers, ones that know machinery, willing to travel, work long hours and basic ecology.” Next he floated over to the globe in his office. He stares at it intently, chattering his teeth. His face is as blank as a loading bar on a computer screen. It can’t be in the US. You don’t shit where you sleep, that’s one of the oldest business tricks. If the expedition were in Canada there would be endless snow traps and populations impossible to access. Michael’s eyes drifted down to South America. God damn, there is a lot of wood in the Amazon and perfect natural highways to ship it out. The dream made his hair raise and his skin tingle, but was brought to a crashing halt when he realized he would have to fight for lanes with the Cartels. Coke peddlers work a different strategy in business, no witnesses, no prisoners, and Michael couldn’t afford to have guerrillas attacking his work force. Tick, tick, tick, tick, he was getting frustrated with himself. It can’t be Europe, or Africa. Indonesia has a vast surplus but those permits will break your neck. What about mexico?

“What?” Michael slipped out, responding to his own voice in his head. Labor and tools are exceedingly cheap in Mexico, his money would go further than he ever imagined. Our lack of knowledge about Mayan culture proves that there is extensive unexplored forest with plenty of barely noticeable byproduct that will add significant weight. He would ship out through the Caribbean or up the Gulf of California. There was a god damn gold mine waiting there for him in Mexico. So Michael called an old friend, Louis Cutwatters.

“Louis, Get me permission to log in sections 5B, 6B and 4C of the Yucatan highlands.” He drew the coordinates from promising satellite images on his computer. After getting off the phone Michael stared at the images for a long time, staring with satisfaction. There is a feeling in the room, like when you finish placing your whole box of dominoes and relish in your work before the flick. Michael called David once more, “David, send the taggers.”

All the pawns are in place and Michael feels confident about his new gamble. The logging industry was his for the taking, ready to become an empire because people simply can’t live without wood products. His only responsibility is to provide the capitol and bark into a receiver. This is an art he has become quite good at over the years. It was the same as building a machine, putting all the cogs in their right order. Michael is a masterful inventor, his machines work to a T. This skill won him his share of the world economy cookie jar.

Satellite maps reported the progress, he watched as deep forest shadows turned to freckled green skin, an empowering sight. The business grew for a decade and a half and into Michael’s years of greys peppering his scalp and beard. The Mexican forest was now forgotten from his mind, washed away by a sea of income. Michael stopped being a business man and started living as a rich man. The days of screaming into a phone were now over, and now regardless of what his does, his accounts continue to swell. The entire thought had left him until one day when he received a call from an old partner, Louis Cutwatter.

“Mr. Bishop there’s some information that we need to key you in on. We’ve located a tree in a hazardous position but would yield a fortune. We need to verify if it’s worth harvesting or too much of an excavation.” Michael pursed his lips in an ugly distorted way, shifting his eyes with greedy intent.

“What quadrant?” was all he could spit out.

“Quadrant 7L, sir,” Louis replied sharply. And the only response from Mr. Bishop was a mischievous,

“I’ll call ya back.” He popped up the ancient satellite software, fiddling with the camera and trying to remember the gist of it. Michael scans quadrant 7L, unimpressed. It was a good zone with lots of trees but nothing distinctive. Clouds drifted low, hiding groups of bashful trees. As one cloud parted a peak shone through. Maybe it’s an ancient Mayan pyramid, this thought set a spark in Michael’s brain for such things can also be exploited. You can’t put a price on history, but Michael Bishop could. The clouds succeeded further and the treasure revealed itself. It was a tree so big it actually looked like a tree from the far off satellite. The ‘hazardous position’ it lie in was the heart of a crater atop a sizable rocky hill. The leaves looked like dollar bills, and they were countless. He clamped down the laptop and reached for the receiver to phone Louis. “I want that tree, Louis! Locate your closest tagger and connect me to his radio.” Louis didn’t even offer a reply, there was just some ruffling and a click. Then came a muffled voice.

“Tagger: Robinson. Location 7L. Rerouting to walkie.” Another click rang in a different tone and Michael began to speak.

“Robinson, we have a tango NW of your location. It is a good distance so cease all tagging operations until the target is identified and marked. The coordinates will be on your GPS momentarily.” He slammed down the phone and pumped his fist in the air. That god damn tree was his Holy Grail and he knew it. The vast branches, the miles of wood all created a web in his mind, encapsulating a thirst for money. He decided to celebrate with a drink, and there was much celebrating to do.

In the coming weeks Michael awaited his accounts to gorge themselves. Instead he was plagued by a series of tragic misfortune. One of his tankers got a little frisky with a shallow reef. The ship sank and a group of logs from the massive tree floated off to fucking Europe. A branch fell on a kid and his family brought the lawsuit from hell. Michael even had to invest in new technologies to handle the load. His Holy Grail was a false profit. Business dropped to the point where breaking even each month was lucky, the company was hemorrhaging. This minimal prosperity was a shock to Michael’s system. Every decision he had ever made was the right one, until this one. How could he be so foolish to take that gamble? How could he be so blind? He should have known. He should have known.

The insult to his ego started being perpetuated by the increasing frequency of his drinking. Business is his life, and his life was wasting away. He found himself draining the hours out of him at high end bars for the wealthy. Places where women wore pearls strung around their necks and the men must wear a tie, and everyone was choked silent, too snobby to speak with one another. The only ones that communicated were the washed up old business men, like Michael. They spoke of how keen they had been, how perfectly the pieces fell. And they talked of how they lost it all. One of the old men saw a look on Michael’s face from across the bar. The face you make when you’re thinking, “I’ve lost everything.” The old business man whispered in to his associates, and they gathered around Michael with intrigue.

One spoke, revealing the obvious, “Hey bud, what’s with the long face you’re wearing?” Michael thought it was audacious for this group to just show up and demand an explanation of his sorrows. He liked to work alone, he liked to drink alone, things just seemed to move faster that way. Less shit clogging the drain. Though he was resistant, Michael sputtered out,

“Made some bad investments.” And at the sound of that the faces of the gentlemen around him broke with sympathy. They too were victims of bad business. The one who dressed to fit last century admitted that he too was at the center of a failing system.

“My wells just aren’t producing oil anymore. I don’t understand why, my prospects were promising but this year alone I’ve had 6 wells dry up that weren’t due for another fifty years!” This made Michael feel a little better. There will always be trees and you don’t have to dig around in the ground guessing where they’ll be. Another one of the moguls spoke,

“I feel your pain. My cattle are dropping in the masses. There must be something in my water or an unknown plague because I just can’t keep them alive. The ones that do survive are deformed, or produce little viable meat. It’s like my farms are cursed.” At least trees still have some value once they’re dead, Michael thought. In fact his entire tampering was with the corpses of trees. Things didn’t look so bad anymore. He was eased by the unending stories of people sympathizing with his loss. There were stories of iron ore, fishing operations, plastics and rubbers dwindling, even coffee wouldn’t grow. The Earth just wouldn’t produce anymore, the lands had dried up.

What Michael didn’t realize was that the famine was caused by his insolence and the cutting of the great tree. The tree was a monument to the great covenant man made with the Earth. She had bred him in her bosom and he was so bold as to leave. Exposed and bare, man had to repent in order to survive, begging the Earth to bare a harvest. The only way for our ancestors to live was to manipulate and depend on other forms. Our kind and gracious Earth took mercy and produced the materials to build an empire on the condition that she would never again know this blasphemy. Man would not abuse his mind and mobility if the Earth would simply continue to produce, and harmony would ring. The spirit of this sacred deal was encapsulated in the tree that Michael Ray Bishop had turned into fine furniture, buildings and books. Technology had made him overzealous and his monopoly grew as a symptom of greed.

The recoil of the land shook human society. The gasoline in the great machine was now toxic vapor, floating off, unobtainable. The limit of human expansion was suddenly finite. They had to make do with the materials already harvested, but they wouldn’t go far with a barren Earth. Rivers dried, sand filled gusts ravaged the lands, and clouds of smog blotted out the sun. Michael Bishop was written in the last chapter of our history books as the one who uncovered the Achilles heel. The Earth will always be more resilient that those who dwell upon it.