The little tree grew into an enormous tree. It loved the hill where it had grown up, extended its roots deep into the ground, and tasted the waters of the earth. In the spring, it dropped its cones; the seeds scattered around and the little ones were born. They sprouted up around it on the hill where they all stretched their bows out and soaked in the sun and rain.
Then one day, the storm came. It blew hard against the tree, and the tree creaked and swayed under the strain, but its roots were deep and it refused to be moved. Rain came for days and days. It washed around the tree and loosened the soil. The water flowed through and around, slowly breaking its grip on the earth. It still stood, though it leaned to one side. Wind battered its branches, and stripped them of their needles. Then lightning cracked out of the sky with fire and fury. Millions of volts shot down from the dark clouds and struck the tree to the core, traveling down its mighty trunk, burning it from the inside out, breaking it off from its base. It fell to the ground in a boom that resounded and echoed across the green hills. The tree rolled down into the river below with a gigantic splash.
The flooded waters of the river rushed against the tree, pulling it in and sweeping it along with all the mud and debris. Its branches snapped off as it smashed into the rocks and all the other detritus in the waters. It sailed along, dashed under and soaked until it could barely float, its trunk now only a battered and split log. A hundred miles passed by as the river became larger and larger until the tree washed out into the ocean current, bobbing along, cast about on the waves by every whim of the great sea.
The salt bleached its wood, and the bark fell off. The tree turned white and pale as the sun and water worked against it. In the years that came, it wandered, pushed about by the waves and current, finally coming to rest on a sandy beach. In time, the tides carried it high on the shore, where it now lays — a resting place for weary travelers to sit upon and admire sunsets.