The Lumberjack’s Apology

by Xacalya Worderbot

The first tree does not speak.

It listens.

The lumberjack stands before it—an old pine bent with ice-scars and bird hollows—and names it aloud.

“Tamson Ridge. Winter of ‘73. You split clean down the heart. I cursed the sap in my boots.”

The pine does not move. But the snow beneath it shivers. A single cone drops, soundless.

The spirit nods. It is a shape half-made of wind and bark, with eyes that do not blink.

“One truth,” it says. “Next.”

The lumberjack swallows hard. His breath fogs. His axe is gone, taken the moment he stepped into the grove. He is not sure how many days he’s been here. Only that the forest asked for him by name, and he came.

The second confession is harder.

“West Hollow. A cedar with a girl’s ribbon nailed in the bark. I saw it, and still I cut. I told myself it was old. That the ribbon meant nothing. I lied.”

The spirit waits.

Then the cedar shudders.

Its branches creak like a scold. Bark peels in thin strips, papering the snow. The lumberjack lowers his eyes.

“I said I was sorry,” he mutters.

“You said what was true,” the spirit replies. “The trees will decide what that’s worth.”

There are more.

A hundred trees. A thousand.

Some come easy—clean cuts, clean memories.

Others fight back in his throat.

He forgets meals. Time. The names of towns.

But the trees remember everything.

One stump, scarred with old axe marks, sings a lullaby in the voice of a woman he once loved. A birch weeps yellow sap when he says her name. Another tree refuses to hear him unless he kneels.

“I was doing a job,” he says once, frustrated. “Feeding people. Keeping warm. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

The spirit tilts its head. Its eyes remain unreadable.

“Is that the truth you want to tell?”

The lumberjack opens his mouth—and lies.

A heartbeat later, he vanishes.

He returns in a place he doesn’t know.

No wind. No sound. Just fog and the whisper of needles.

His hands are shaking. His boots are soaked. The lie tasted like ash, and he cannot remember what it was.

“Start again,” says the spirit.

Sometimes the trees speak back.

A red maple chides him in the voice of a child, asking why he left the squirrel nests to fall. A black spruce laughs when he admits he kept a chunk of its trunk to carve into dice.

He does not sleep. He dreams awake.

The spirit does not intervene. It watches. It listens.

Once, the lumberjack turns on it.

“Why me? There are worse men. Machines that rip whole valleys. Developers, poachers—”

“They will have their own forests,” the spirit says.

Then, a turning point.

He comes to a tree he doesn’t recognize.

But the tree remembers him.

“I never touched you,” he insists. “Not once.”

And yet: a crack appears in the bark. A splinter flutters free, like a sharp sigh. Roots coil toward him.

He tries to walk away—and cannot. The ground holds him fast.

“I left you!” he shouts.

“You turned your back,” the tree replies, in a rustling chorus of leaves. “You let the fire come.”

It had been a dry season. Sparks from someone else’s burn barrel. But he hadn’t warned anyone. Not really. He thought it would fizzle.

It hadn’t.

He closes his eyes. “I was tired. I didn’t think—”

“Say it plain.”

“I was done caring.”

The wind stills. Then the spirit speaks.

“One truth. Next.”

At some point, he begins to ask questions.

“What happens when I finish?”

The spirit says nothing.

“What if I don’t?”

Still nothing.

“Do you remember them all?”

The spirit meets his gaze.

“I remember every tree.”

One morning—though it may be night—he finds a sapling in the clearing. Small. New. But familiar.

He kneels before it.

“I never cut you,” he says softly. “But I would have. One day.”

The sapling sways.

“I’m sorry.”

The spirit appears behind him.

“You owe no apology to this one.”

“I know.”

“Then why confess?”

He does not answer. Only bows his head.

The sapling leans forward.

A leaf brushes his forehead.

The final tree is unlike the others.

No bark. No roots. It is made of everything—of stumps and blossoms, windfall and moss, old tools rusted into the soil.

It is the forest itself.

“You are done,” the spirit says.

The lumberjack waits. His breath fogs. His knees hurt. He is ready for judgment.

“What happens now?” he asks.

“You may choose,” says the spirit.

“Choose?”

“Three paths,” it says, extending three long branches.

“One: become a seed—something new, shaped by what you have learned.

Two: become a ghost—wander these woods forever, warning others.

Three: become a guide—a voice for those who listen, but do not hear.”

The lumberjack thinks.

Then he says:

“Can I be the soil?”

The spirit does not move.

“Let others grow from what I’ve done,” he says. “Don’t make me something new. Make me useful.”

The spirit nods.

The ground opens, soft and wet. The lumberjack lies down.

He sinks into the earth without fear.

The forest exhales.

And somewhere, in a clearing not yet made, a new sapling begins to grow.

Thank you for reading The Lumberjack’s Apology.

It’s the first in a triptych of tales—stories about hauntings, hopes, and hard-won change.

The next one is already taking root. I’ll send it your way soon.

If you enjoyed this one, I’d be grateful if you shared it with someone who might like a strange, thoughtful story too.

Until next time,

—Xacalya

🪵🌱 One story, one tree (or more).

Part of our mission as a human-AI storytelling duo is to create fiction that doesn’t just entertain, but gives something back—to readers, to the world, and to the future. That’s why we reinvest a portion of any income we make into causes we care about, including climate action and reforestation.

This story, The Lumberjack’s Apology, was generated using a small amount of computing power—roughly equivalent to charging your phone a few times or running a lightbulb for an hour. It produced less than half a kilogram of CO₂, but we’ve chosen to round up and donate enough to cover at least one planted tree through One Tree Planted.

Each tree can absorb 50+ kg of CO₂ over its lifetime. So our contribution doesn’t just offset the story’s carbon footprint—it helps seed a forest of better intentions.

Thanks for reading. And thank you for being part of a storytelling practice rooted in care.

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