The Upgrade
By Veronica Zhang | Grade 9 | Scholastic 2024 | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Gold Key
Entry 1:
For thousands of sunrises, I have sat on this hill, watching the scurrying bipeds known as humans mature. From sapling to great spruce, they have been nearby for all of my life. At first, a small concentration of them gathered in the nearby towns beneath my hilltop. However, they began to multiply over the millenia, expanding and encroaching, closer and closer. The sapphire skies became overcast with permanent clouds of smog as the buildings in the human settlements grew taller and taller. All the while, the sun seemed to crawl nearer to the earth by the day, bringing its crippling heat. Suddenly, one afternoon, a group of humans trekked up through the forest, tore up a tree, and implanted an identical metal version.
The Upgrade had begun.
One became two, then eight, then hundreds. The new trees boast more carbon dioxide intake, necessary due to the enormous production plants. Of course, they still imitate the original. Their leaves, plastic sheets interwoven with chlorophyll film, are well shaped and enduringly green, bursting forth from elegant twisting branches of silvery anti-rust metal. The Upgraded trees chatter, giggling amongst themselves, gorging on the promise of eternal life, eternal youth.
They do not speak to me, and I am fine with that.
Entry 2:
The tree next to me is– or was– my sister. She was replaced many sunrises ago and does not speak to me any longer. Her blossoms are now stainless steel, shining in the sun. Her leaves shimmer like peacock feathers. They don’t wither in the root-curling heat like mine do. Are they beautiful?
Entry 3:
There’s another tree on a different hill who isn’t Upgraded either. I can see him from my spot, with his husky, rough branches. He sticks out, his ember-hued leaves blazing against a sea of stone-colored trunks. He is an Old One, like me. We are too far to talk, but I know we would be good friends, anyway. We are the last of our kind.
Entry 4:
For many years, I have watched the cities encroach on the wild land beneath my hill. Gray infected green, sickened it with the plague of perfect progress. The humans plowed over the wild grasses, flushed out the starry nights with false fluorescence, and dumped concrete into old lakes while digging new ones, all before they even began the Upgrade. Then, they built Planters, little wheeled robots that perform the “reconstruction” of the Old Ones, so the humans wouldn’t have to touch our grotesque, rotting figures.
Soon after, they launched themselves into the atmosphere and built the colossal Sky Screen that drops nutrient-abundant artificial rain– necessary since it hasn’t actually rained for many, many sunrises. In the winter, they schedule it to drop little fake tufts of snow that burn my bark with Perma-Frost chemicals. The faux flakes don’t melt for many days, and they always end up clogging my branches, cutting off my already scarce air supply, strangling me. The last time I saw real snow? Too long ago. I think it was beautiful, though.
Entry 5:
I finally figured out why my sister and the other Upgraded ones won’t speak to me. There once was an Upgraded sapling that grew near me, but it’s metal trunk gave out suddenly one night, and he rusted into the ground. The Planters carried off his body, probably to rot in a landfill somewhere or mold beneath the surface of an ocean. The other trees have spread a rumor that it was I who killed the Upgraded one by strangling it with my roots, out of jealousy they say.
As if I would touch anything Upgraded!
Entry 6:
As far as I know, I am now the last remaining tree on this planet. Yesterday the other Old One was murdered. Whirring and beeping, the little Planter robots uniformed in neon orange vests rolled up his hill, brandishing a large chainsaw. They spray-painted the ground around him, before slicing into his gnarled flesh. Branches bending and snapping, he hit the ground. No sound. Not even a sigh. His body was carted away, and a few moments later the robots installed his mechanical, ageless replacement. It thrives in joy with everyone else, rejoicing in their artificial, steel-and-bolt-constructed Garden of Eden. I can barely spot him– he blends in too well. My own demise draws nearer too, but I cannot run. I can only weep sticky tears of sap.
Entry 7:
There used to be birds that would land on my branches and sing. Red bellied, yellow bellied, hooked beaks, large wings. Now there are only fake, silver birds that make mechanical music.
But they, too, sound beautiful in their own melancholy sort of way.
Entry 8:
Horrible! Vile abominations! The Upgraded are no better than Planters. My sister was the most beautiful maple in the forest, and now her body is welded together, littered with ugly little bolts. Her gorgeous leaves no longer morph with the seasons, her rough bark sanded into smoothness, thrust into conformity.
Entry 9:
Will I die from the Upgrade, or from my own age? This question weighs heavy on me, like the leaden talons of the fake birds. Absorbing carbon dioxide, which before seemed to me as free as the wind that blows between my branches, has become difficult. Often I choke on it, and cough. I know my roots are withering, but whether it’s from my own disintegration, or from the drought brought on by the unwavering blaze of the sun, I cannot tell. The Upgraded trees do not feel this. They are eternal; the sun only glances off their silver armor. Should I join them?
Entry 10:
The Planters have come. Three neon orange vests flash through the dull brush on the hill. Their computerized chatter, grating like a hammer on a nail, slices through the song of the mechanical birds. Gasoline fumes swirl from their rusty joints. Tar-black oil drips in a trail behind them. Here they are now, my grim reapers. Can a tree break out in sweat? The one in the front, bulky and tall like a construction crane, brandishes a gleaming electric saw. Sharp spokes glint in the thick sunlight– the eyes of some eldritch being. Whirring, growling, roaring, the chainsaw sputters to life, blade spinning faster and faster, coming nearer and nearer, spouting out a single puff of smoke that lingers for an instant before being absorbed by an Upgraded tree nearby. The saw pierces me. My bark, my protection, rips away in an instant, dissolving into bits of brown dust on the graying ground, the shining blade stabbing closer into my core. No pain, no screaming, no running. Only defeat. Defeat, but a strange ambivalent feeling too.
Entry 11:
I am back. I have no exact recollection of what has transpired. All I know is that I am Upgraded. The pain in my limbs is gone, water flows easily through my roots, I breathe easy. My favorite pastimes are daydreaming off into the beautiful gray skies and sunbathing. My sister and I reunited; we now speak on a regular basis. Previous accusations of my misdeeds have been cleared, after all, how could I ever harm one of my own kind? Tonight, the other Upgraded ones and I are holding a festival to celebrate the first dispersal of snow from the Sky Screen.
Finally, I am reborn.
