Old, weak, senile, couldn't even remember her teeth. That was Grammy Norma. Short and plump like a partridge without its pear tree. Tree...

"Truffula trees," she'd catch herself mumbling under her breath once in a while. Rarely, but every so often one must speak the forbidden words. She learned that many years ago, when secrets possessed greater power and danger. So she spoke it, treating herself. "Truffula tree, Truffula tree..."

How nicely it rolled off her tongue. How nicely its tufts felt in her thneeds...oh the thneed. How nice a pinkish thneed looked around his neck, always wrapped there to remind him of his beginnings...

"Thneed," she muttered. "Tree...I wish he hadn't done it."

This was all his fault, wasn't it? The plastic prison disguised as a paradise, the barren wasteland beyond the wall, even their supposedly benevolent master might not have been able to seize power if it weren't for him.

"Your fault, your fault..." Yes his fault, but not his alone.

"My fault, my fault..." She only encouraged him. She let him jeopardize every living creature in the area, including her. She praised his accomplishments, assured him everything would be fine...where would they be if she hadn't buried him in false hopes?

Then again, he had an undeterred sense of optimism. Norma knew he would stop at nothing to get his horrid family's admiration, whether it meant dooming a wilderness or casting aside his promises. Love truly was blind.

Blind. Her glasses were no longer effective. The pollution, her age, the plastic suffocating her soul took a toll on her health. Her once beautiful red ringlets now curled into a gray puff. Though she had never been tall, Norma knew she shrunk quite a bit. Now and then she wondered if he would recognize her now.

Jodi, her only child, lived in blissful ignorance. Like a child. If only she could have stayed a child forever as well. But reality made her a century older than her physical age. Though Jodi's innocence annoyed her at times, it brought more relief than pain. Jodi could live without fear in Thneedville while still carrying her mother's latent strength. It had been hard enough raising her without him, the father.

Oh how she looked like him! The ebony hair, the scattered freckles, the childish optimism. If anyone resembled him better, it would be Jodi's own son, Ted! Watching him grow up brought back memories of a boy not so different who lived a long long time ago.

Though he landed them in this state of brainwashed, literally artificial happiness, Norma loved him. As young whippersnappers, they'd been bosom friends, frolicking across the grassy plains of their hometown. Shining sun, twittering birds, blue skies-, a summer haze perfectly summed up their relationship then. The only cloud on the horizon would be his family, that dreadful mother who refused to show any love for him. Not exactly to the point of abuse, but her parenting seriously lacked whatever it took to be a decent mother.

Even when they reached adulthood, when Norma rounded out into a plump young lady while he resembled a telephone pole more than a man, they remained close. Violet sunsets tinged with gold, secret whispers among the wind, fireflies surrounding them in a magical aura...those things made up their young love. But his optimism got in the way, so he set out on a ridiculous quest to make his thneed in hopes of making his ungrateful mother proud.

While he rode his wagon out west, Norma cooked and cleaned at home. She waited for days, not receiving one letter. She knew not where he went nor whether he'd come back. It depressed her. But one morning her father came running with exciting news: they could become rich! Her sweetheart hit the jackpot selling thneeds made out of Truffula trees! Giddy, they packed all they had and moved to the paradise he found.

Oh what beauty! Emerald lawns, sapphire water, trees like lollipops! Norma couldn't remember a single bad thing about reuniting with her beloved. Except for, of course, his optimism about cutting the trees down. But why spoil happy days with worries? How bad could one fallen tree be?

One tree fell after another. Money flowed faster than the river, which turned from a rich azure to a stagnant black. The critters that roamed the forest vanished. A city sprung up, based off making thneeds. Rich beyond his wildest dreams, he became more and more cheerful. But too much cheer brings carelessness. Carefree-ness. Callousness.

Green. Not the pastel greens of their childhood romps or summer romance, but the green of money. He now dressed only in green, save for that pink thneed. Thneeds were abundant; after all, twas called Thneedville for a reason. Norma had more thneeds than her closet could hold, but she paid for not even one; each had been a gift from him, for giving him the hope that he could make it this far.

Norma could describe this point in their relationship as one thing: concerning. She fretted about many things. Her dad's ailing health, the environment, her beloved... was he truly the boy she fell in love with? He gave her attention and material wealth, but his mind seemed preoccupied with the numbers in his account. So much to the point where Norma constantly considered throwing the thneeds back at him and leaving. But love makes one blind, so she stayed.

Of course, that period ended when the last tree crashed to the ground. Everyone left; his family dumped him with no qualms. Only those who could not afford to leave remained, including Norma and her widowed mom. Her now partner's proud green suit sagged from sadness. Smog dyed the sky black, working its way into everyone's lungs. Devoid of joy, life, and trees, a somber reality set in.

Finally, for the first time since they reunited, Norma yelled at him. She shouted why, why did you ruin this landscape? Why did you not listen to the orange creature who warned you? Why did your love blind you?

Love...for his nonreciprocating family, for his fame, for money... her own love for him blinded her from the truth.

First startled, next angry, eventually saddened, he walked away. Unable to bear the consequences of the damage he'd done, he vanished.

"I loved you," he said, just before leaving. "I suppose we forgot ourselves. I am going to find the old me; you find the old Norma. When we have found them, go to where the grass doesn't grow. Bring a great grandfather snail, fifteen cents, and a nail. You may find him yet again." She never saw him again.

Life only got harder after that. Sickness, hunger, and poverty clouded her world. Her mother developed a cough so bad one evening that she did not wake up the next morning. Lonely, starving, clothed in rags...all she saw was gray. Grayness of despair, doom, death. She hated him. If he hadn't left to seek his fortune just three years ago, this might never have occurred.

Yet Norma was not alone. Small signs, like dizziness, came at first. Then sickness every morning. Finally it became visibly clear; he left her with a child.

Just as this good news arrived, so did misfortune. A new fellow called O-Hare found a way to sell fresh air to people. But only those who offered money or services could buy. Most had neither. Then came an even odder trade: raising babies. Poor families who could not afford air had the option to give O'Hare their small children, who would receive fresh air, but those who refused suffocated with their babies. Parental love led most to do what would ensure their children's lives. Others disappeared, so O'Hare got the orphans anyway.

For Norma, relinquishing her child was out of the question. She need air, yes, but she needed the baby as well. Several other young mothers, some divorced and some not, agreed. A little "club" formed, one based on survival. Pregnant and heroic, they'd steal plastic containers of oxygen. Though they longed to sabotage O'Hare once and for all, his toadies greatly outmatched them.

Sometime before her due date, Norma moved away from the barren wastelands with the club. Thanks to the money her beloved left, a walled city known as Thneedville became a viable living space. Desperate, people eagerly moved in. They seemed satisfied; the air drastically improved, the colors came back. Yet Norma felt troubled; a town completely made of plastic, made in a factory! Strange incidents kept happening. A lady or gent would speak out about trees or complain about the plastic tarp that covered the dirt; not too long afterwards, they'd find themselves in the ground. Suspicions abounded, but none could be proven. Thneedville survived this way for almost a year until the completion of the wall, the finishing touch on their prison. This was the place she brought her only child into.

Norma held Baby Jodi in her arms the day ninety-eight percent of the residents over fifteen dropped dead. Innocent parents angry that their children hadn't been returned to them breathed their last. Teenagers, whose new eyes gave Norma hope, let their eyelids flutter shut forever. A terrible plague caused by trees had killed them, according to O'Hare. But she knew the "plague" came from bad air in his morning delivery.

Thanks to the death of almost every adult, the young generation grew up under O'Hare's thumb. They never romped through grass or climbed a tree. They worshiped their "father" of sorts like a god. He seemed like a god at times, always orbiting above them in his nasty blimp.

Suddenly relieved her clandestine romance was unknown to even O'Hare, Norma used her wild imagination to build a new persona. She laughed more, getting into all sorts of minor mischief. Not enough to cause any real damage, but enough to let everyone take her for an idiot. One who could never pose a threat to O'Hare.

So many lives lost...all because of him.

She'd gotten used to this manufactured lifestyle, but in her heart a deep yearning for the natural ways cut like a jagged knife. The summer evenings of rock'n'roll, when he'd play for her. The fireflies lighting the way, those good times on the plains where trees were scarce, doubling their value. She liked trees, yes, but she preferred fewer trees; it made them more special.

Thirty years of pretending, watching Jodi grow up, taking her and Ted in when her husband "disappeared" after badmouthing O'Hare, and squelching these forbidden thoughts became habit. But one evening, at dinner, Ted (Lord, how did he look so much like his grandfather?) asked a strange question: where can I find a tree?

Tree. When did she last hear someone speak of a real tree? A secret smile played across her lips. Norma used her quick mind to dismiss poor Jodi before pouring out her secrets. Some of them.

"You need to find the Once-ler." Once. Once in a lifetime you find a love that blinds you. Once in a lifetime you fall for someone equally blind. Once in a thousand years that special someone ruins your life along with countless others. Once in an era you get to find that someone again. Once. Once again, for the first time in thirty years, she spoke his name.

"Once-ler."