Tag: skyscrapers

So it goes: I’ve got this picture in my head, or maybe on my phone, or perhaps etched into the back of my eyelids by some cosmic etcher with a dark sense of humor.

The trees are just… there, like they’ve always been, like they’re waiting for someone to apologize. The skyscrapers, though—oh, those glorious, preposterous middle fingers to gravity. Let’s talk about those first, because humanity loves a crescendo, even if the finale is a dirge. 

The skyscrapers. Let’s call them what they are: tombstones for the ego of the species. Each one a Babel reboot, a steel-and-glass hymn to the gods of More. You can almost hear them creak under the weight of their own symbolism. “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair”, they whisper, though their HVAC systems hums tunes of existential dread. They are triumphs, sure—miracles of engineering, collaboration, and the kind of optimism that requires ignoring leaky seams or rust’s patience. Their house stock trades, divorces, and 3 PM Zoom meetings where someone inevitably says, “Let’s circle back.” Progress! Marvelous, merciless progress. 

But what price progress? The trees, for instance. My eyes keep sliding off those vainglorious towers and snagging on the trees. *Why?* They’re not even special trees. No sequoias, no oaks with love’s naive initials carved by heartbroken teens. Just… trees. Green things that photosynthesize like CO2’s going out to fashion. Yet there they are, roots knuckling into the dirt, leaves doing that little shudder-dance in the wind, as if to say, “You built all that? Cute.”

So here I am: a mammal with a primate brain, inexplicably soothed by chlorophyll and bark. The skyscrapers? They’re impressive, sure. But they’re also lonely. You ever notice that? All those windows, and not one of them opens wide enough to yell, “What are we doing here?” The trees, though—they’ve got a different loneliness. The kind that doesn’t need answering. The kind that just *is*, like tax returns or the sound of your own heartbeat at 3 AM. 

Maybe it’s the scale. The skyscrapers shrink me; the trees do too, but politely. One says, “You are a speck.” The other says, “So am I. Let’s have a beer.” There’s a humility in their persistence, these green martyrs. They don’t care if you admire them. They’re not checking LinkedIn. They’re just… enduring, the way mold endures in a bachelor’s fridge—quietly. Without fanfare. Without elevators.  

So here I am, a hairless ape with a pension plan, caught between cathedrals of ambition and these shaggy, unkempt priests of green. The skyscrapers win, of course. They always win. But the trees—oh, the trees—they *wait*. And in their waiting, there’s a kind of rebellion. A reminder that progress is a firework, but life is a tide that flows unending.  

And so it goes.

A thousand windows 
reflect nothing. The trees breathe— 
“Are we alive yet?” 

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