The factory was empty, his relatives were gone, the Lorax was gone, and everything around him was dead.
Perhaps his position would look bleak to some, to those who could only see that the material for his precious thneeds was gone, those who only saw that he was alone. But they had it wrong. He still had more than enough money left over to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, and, this was the important part, he had a whole sack of Truffula seeds. All it would take was a few years and he could start all over again. He would be more careful, make fewer thneeds (therefore making them more expensive), and make sure the trees were being re-grown to support his business.
He would make sure it lasted this time, he would be richer than ever, and maybe, with the forest being kept alive…Maybe the Lorax would come back, and bring everyone with him.
So he planted one neat little row of seeds near his house in the gritty soil, and watered them carefully with the murky water. He tended them with care and love and he marked each day off on his calendar to see how long it took them to grow. But after three weeks he got impatient, got down on his knees and grubbed around in the dirt with his bright green gloves until he pulled up a seed.
It broke apart in his fingers, the black bits falling as the damp smell of mould spread into the air and was quickly lost amid the pollution. The rest of the frantically uncovered row was no different. They had all died, died and rotted before they could even sprout.
After the first failure, weeks were spent making raised beds to keep the seeds out of the chemicals in the ground, and hundreds of dollars went to buying cleaner soil, that he had carted in from the farthest edges of the factory area. He planted again, and they pushed up many days later, green and alive. They were so bright he was sure that he had won.
But two days later they were brittle and grey. Maybe it was the air, or maybe the water. He didn't know. So he spent even more money on a greenhouse with vents and purifiers and a water system to match. Surely now the Truffulas would grow tall, and strong enough where they could be transplanted outside and live.
The seedlings did do better, and soon they were as high as his knee, their soft wisps reminding him of that first day, so long ago, when he'd knit his first thneed. He took them outside and planted them, gave them clean dirt, clean water, and a fan blowing clean air. These ones would make it, he knew they would.
And yet they didn't, nor did the next crop, or the one after. By then he had used all his money, and when the money ran out, so did the clean air and water. The pollution, held at bay for so long, stripped his house until it was grey and bare, and then the years stripped him until he matched. Even his green coats had faded until they too were a shadow of what they once were.
He had damaged the land too badly for it to support the Truffulas, not now, maybe not in his lifetime. But he couldn't give up completely, so he plundered the abandoned wasteland for bits and pieces to board his windows, put up his signs and set his traps. He shut himself in his house, and watched the road.
On occasion he would stroke the smooth shell of the seed he had saved, the seed he had managed to nurture from the Trufflula he had kept in his button hole. He would polish it and tuck it away when foul winds blew, keeping it dry and safe. And when the child rode up on the one-wheeled scooter one night, years after the Onceler had thought anyone could remember him, he was annoyed, he was bitter, he was angry.
But mostly he was afraid. Even if the boy cared, even if the girl he wanted to give it to cared, all he could do was wonder.
Wonder if it had been long enough yet.