This is page 5 from Book of Pages. Early in his journey from the monastery to the Metropolis, Jiriki has a strange encounter in the wilderness.
The Metropolis is progressing fast, like the Sprinting Tree.
What has happened there, Jiriki, is what we call progress. Now technology has taken the reins and the pace is ever increasing: more, more, faster, faster! It is a huge mistake. Let me tell you about the Sprinting Tree which, I have come to suspect, was grown purely for the purposes of analogy.
There are no trees in the Metropolis, because we can fabricate shade and oxygen in our own modern ways. But for a number of reasons, none of them particularly compassionate, trees have not escaped the attention of our science. We can correct genetics to get a better shaped tree, to produce fruit that is the right size, shape and colour, and that contains all the right additives. So it is that we could, just as easily, make the Sprinting Tree.
Ordinary trees grow, and they grow towards the sun. But the genetic engineers, for the sake of treekind, created an improved strain: the Sprinting Tree, which didn’t just grow towards the sun — it got up and ran towards it.
It’s not clear to the genetic engineers what went wrong with the Sprinting Tree. It ought to have been a success; it had an impressive turn of speed, and could cover great distances tirelessly. Infinite improvements on being rooted to the ground and just straining towards the light! But from time to time they find one that has finally died, lying toppled at the end of its trail of mighty, bounding rootprints. When they come to examine it, they always discover the same disappointing result: it’s nothing more than, well, wood: the same stuff as all of its motionless predecessors.
Perhaps if they had given it more knees or made the legs longer, it would have gone fast enough to make a difference. Or perhaps that’s not it at all.
