Breathing Wastes

The Once-ler said a lot to the Truffula seed over the years. And whenever there was some inkling of self-awareness present in his mind, he was sure he made a sight when doing it, too.

After all, what would Mom say? Or the rest of his family? Or any of his former employees? Was there a universally accepted reaction to seeing someone who used to clench a stretch of land in his money-green fist be reduced to scratching around in the dirt in front of his own factory every day, wasting his breath on a tiny brown dot that couldn't even answer him back?

All things considered, they'd probably laugh. It was most likely hilarious that the knees on his pantsuit were being worn out from so much kneeling, dark and slightly torn from the sandy earth no longer suited for growing much of anything, anymore. The same could be said for his poor gloves, and the elbows of his jacket, and his scuffed up shoes, and... everything about what he wore had gotten its share of abuse over the years, really.

His body, too, considering how his unkempt mat of hair itched his scalp too often to be normal and how too much of his skin had gone dry and rough like paper and how every morning it was a struggle just to get out of bed (though he had his counterpart for that, not that he could remember ever thanking him for it).

Truthfully, he wouldn't have blamed anyone for laughing at him. Only thing was, it still wasn't enough to make him stop.

Always, he spoke as if telling the seed a secret. Sometimes hushed little words, sometimes actual sentences, but mostly just snatches of scattered thought he had no time to run through any sanity filter before his lips moved with them. It's fine don't worry, he'd say. Trust me I won't hurt you. Are you even there?

And once in a while, at the most desperate times (which happened more and more often each year), the Once-ler would let himself think that maybe the reason nothing was getting better was that he just hadn't said the right thing.

Like now, for instance, on a windy day six years after his fall.

Watching this most recent conversation from his spot leaning against the door frame of the old factory's main entrance, his counterpart could hear every word.

"I get it," the Once-ler took in a shuddering breath of sour air, sitting cross-legged in front of the seed and the Unless monument and a chipped wine glass filled with cloudy water, "or at least I think I do, and I might not. But y'know, if I don't, I think I'm at least on the verge of getting it."

He hesitated, looking down, and the young man raised his eyebrows in concern. Just what was his older self about to-

"Well, what I mean to say is that I get one thing. It might not be all of what I need to get but... I understand. I think. I- um."

The man uncrossed his legs, bringing them up so he could wrap his stick-thin arms around them. He looked up at the sky.

"I'm really selfish, aren't I?"

The young man would never have any idea of why those words gripped him like they did, made something in his chest seize so hard that he nearly lost his breath, but he kept the impulse to run out there and throw his arms around the other firmly under control. For now.

"I mean, obviously I was like that before, when the company was up and I was making the theeds, and all that. It's... why this all happened, I guess. But I just realized, I'm not sure if I ever stopped being selfish. Maybe I never realized how deep it went because I wasn't too much of an ass about it along the way? I don't know."

He rested his chin on his knees, squinting towards the distance. If he concentrated really hard, he might have been able to see a fuzzy line of pink through the smog on the horizon, the closest thing this wasteland would ever get to a sunset.

"I've always wondered why my... efforts? Yeah, why my efforts never got through to you, and I'm starting to think that those efforts were never for you. They were for me." He swallowed, taking off his hat and setting it to the side. "I've been trying to fix it because I wanted to feel better. I wanted you to grow, sure, but even when it came to this, I was still the most important thing."

Still barely able to process what he was hearing, the man in gray just blinked as the Once-ler pressed the back of his hand to his eyes for a second, not caring that he was getting dirt all over his face.

"Is that what happens, usually? Do people who go out with something to prove always end up like this? Does this- ah, of course not. This happened because I was blind and stupid and... man." He scrubbed at his bloodshot eyes again, vision blurred and swimming. The seed still sat where he'd placed it, silent and unaware.

"Y'know something?" he murmured, barely able to keep his voice from cracking like he was still a teenager. "I really hate this suit. It's color. It's color is ugly. Like... nuclear sludge or something."

He tried to laugh it off (laugh everything off, though that kind of seemed like his counterpart's job) but stopped himself, clamping his mouth shut before he could cry or puke or whatever stupid thing his body wanted to make him do besides laugh.

A split second before the young man took a step forward to finally, finally close the distance between them, though, the Once-ler seemed to collect himself, rising to his knees. He tilted his head in the seed's direction.

"So yeah, I get it. This is not about me. It's about you, and what you can do, and this place you need to help, and unless..."

He looked down, biting his lip as his shoulders started to shake. To think that the meaning of that one word still hadn't come to him after all these years.

"Unless you... just..."

The Once-ler closed his eyes, sighing in defeat as a couple of escaped tears tracked lines in the grime on his cheeks. He scooped the seed up in his hands, brought it up so he could gently press it to his lips.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? Please grow. For everyone."

And it was hard to predict and impossible to know how many people would have laughed at the crazy old Once-ler who didn't know when to quit, who stared at a little brown dot like it was the Most Important Thing as he tipped a half-full glass over it, wetting the seed and his gloves and the ground as if he could afford to waste water.

That's what they'd think, he knew, if they could see him. Crazy old Once-ler, who cried over plants that refused to grow. Crazy old Once-ler, who still wasn't forgiven by the world he'd destroyed. Crazy old Once-ler, who lived in the middle of the nowhere he'd created. Crazy old Once-ler, who was reduced to sinking into the arms of a younger, imaginary (?) version of himself because there was no one else around.

Oh, well. At least those arms were warm.

After that, he never spoke to the Truffula seed again.