The Choice

There was once a forest divided by a river, and two tribes lived on either side.

One day, a fire broke out in the western woods. No one knew who started it, but it spread fast. Homes burned. Trees died. The western tribe blamed the east. They crossed the river and set fire to the eastern trees. The eastern tribe, angry and grieving, sent people to burn the western fields. The west struck back again. Then the east. Back and forth. Over and over.

It went on for years. Then generations. Children were born into smoke. They learned the names of enemies before the names of trees. They sang stories of revenge before they knew how to grow food. The ground taught bitterness, and the sky carried memory. Eventually, the fires burned so long and so hot that the river dried up. And when there was no river left, just scorched ground and dry wind, both tribes stood in silence. The land held nothing. The fight had nothing left to take.

In the center of what used to be the riverbed, a child stood holding a green branch, still alive, heavy with seeds. One of the few things the fire hadn’t touched. She looked at both sides and said: “The fire doesn’t care who started it. If I burn for either of you, there will be no forest left at all.”

She knelt in the riverbed and pressed the seeds into the soil, directly in the center where the water once flowed, between the two scorched lands. Then she stood, crossed the ash-covered stones to the east, and planted more. Past the charred tree stumps and broken fields, she pressed seeds into the earth with her bare hands. Then she crossed west, through soot and silence, and did the same. Her hands moved slowly, and carefully. No one stopped her. She moved in silence and made space for something new to grow. And behind her, someone put down their torch. Then another. Then another...

The fire still burns in many places. It always has. Across borders, generations, and millennia. But so does the question.

What will grow because of you—the fire, or the forest?

Every generation inherits a landscape shaped by both fire and seed. Some come to destroy. Others come to restore. Those who carry the fire often move fast, driven by anger or fear. But those who carry the seed move with patience. They protect what matters, and believe in what could grow. In a world that forgets too easily, the ones who plant are the ones who remember. A single seed can become a forest, and a single act of care can echo long after we are gone. This is how the story continues through those who choose to begin again. Because they remind us that we are—

One people. One story. Many voices.

We belong.