DESIGN FICTION: Citizen Oak
DESIGN FICTION: CITIZEN OAK
Milwaukee, 2031
Mason Brint is unrepentant.
His handlebar moustache curls in contempt as he spits out the words in dry Mid-Western. "What I did was a god-given right, and you assclown tree-huggers are insane if you think it isn't".
Mason Brint is unbending.
He will not backdown. He will not admit his guilt. And so he sits behind the plexiglass screen in blazing orange overalls. Thick fingers grip black phone. Thick eyebrows overhanging fuming black eyes.
Mason Brint is a murderer.
Convicted. He committed the crime; said so himself. But he doesn't believe murder is a crime. Not unless the victim is a person. And this victim, this citizen of the United States of America was not a person. His victim was 326 years old, though spritely enough. His victim was Old Addler, a 326 year-old Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa). One of the oldest old growth trees in the Mid-West. A living being with the same rights as you or I. A national treasure. 'Damn good timber'.
"If I'm a murderer then I come from a long line of murderers. Proud killers too. Brints, or the O'Malleys, or Smiths, all the way back to the Civil War, we've been tree killers and handsomely rewarded for it. And we're suddenly murderers. Give me a f***kin' break, man. This is some insane Nazi s**t.”
Strong words, made stronger still by the fact that Mason Brint will join Old Addler in the afterlife at 2pm on Friday 9th May this year. He's sentenced to death by chemical injection. A fate he could have avoided by admitting guilt and voicing remorse for his actions. He could still. But he will not.
Brint's words have struck a chord with working class America; he's the latest in long line of eco-martyrs to grace our screens. His dry, no-nonsense language; his Mid-Western drawl, his man's man appeal have made him a rallying point for the tens of millions of working class conservatives who think the environmental movement has gone too far. No tree is worth a man's life.
But we've seen this all before. We saw it with Harley Rowe-Smith, with Josh Federling, with Frank Mackay. All serving life sentences for tree-felling.
Brint will be the first to face the axe for his crimes against a citizen tree.
— — —
Addendum: Two months after this piece, Mason Brint's execution was acquitted and the US constitution amended to forbid the death penalty in cases of humans against nature.
Addendum II: 7 years after this piece, Greg Volks an extremist anti-environmentalist and anarchist was charged with the destruction of the Solana Nature Reserve having purposefully started a forest fire that destroyed 4000 hectares of old growth forest. He received a sentence of 8 years in federal prison. Two days after his release he was murdered.
This is part of a planned series of 100 Design Fictions focusing on Biophilic Futures.