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Graeme Feb 6
My young, eager eyes lapped up the forest as fervently as they could.
Novelty was what they hungered for, as my axe did for ****** wood.
It was fresh. New.
The Pacific Northwest wasn't ready for us.
Wife and I moved out here a couple months ago with the promise we'd make a good, honest living out here.
Y’know, these trees are so beautiful… real shame we’ve gotta cut ‘em all down for a whole lot less than what we was promised.
Progress… for what?
I don't think I wanna do this anymore…
but I must.
Onto the next tree. Hope this one's easier to cut down.
Written on 2025-02-05.

This piece is set in the perspective of a young logger, who moved to the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s during the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States. It was inspired by an Aidin Robbins video on YouTube about a rainforest in Idaho. I conceived this at the end as I realized as Aidin existentially asked, “what am I doing here [in this forest]?”, I realized that the people who cut down the forest as he showed a log cabin and talked about the loggers, who must have thought the same thing that some of them must have definitely questioned the prospect of chopping down such beautiful trees and irreversibly ruining ecosystems for the sake of profit, striking it rich for what they were told was “a better future”.
Joe Cottonwood Dec 2016
Q. Is all lumber female?
A. No, only the pretty boards.
Q. Is that why those nasty two-by-fours are called studs?
A. In darkness within walls
they support our lives.

— The End —