Far outside of town where the grass had begun to grow and where the wind no longer smelt sour when it blew lived a man, a man named the Once-ler.
The Once-ler, now an old man, lay in bed alone with his thoughts. His mind cluttered with the fog of his past. The loss chances and regrets were piled high atop shoulders, like the weight of the world. For you see, it was his fault for the loss of Truffula trees… Oh, that Thneed, that Thneed, that something that everyone someone should need, had indeed cost him everything he once held dear. Greed became a part of him, had changed him and had given him a thirst, one that could never be quenched or could never be satisfied. By the time he realized what Greed had done to him, it was too already late. The trees and creatures were gone and left behind was the source of their despair. Although, the he did have a hand in the destruction of those precious Truffula tress and the lifting of the Lorax, he was offered the chance for redemption of all his past deeds. Redemption, that is, in the form of a boy and a seed.
The wind blows here now, carrying the scent of butterfly milk through the air and the far off songs of the swomee swans. This aroused the man from his thoughts. He stepped from the bed across the room to the pane of the window, felt the breeze against his mustached face and admired his work. Redemption tasted sweet- like that of marshmallows, and for him that was good enough.