The original, 1-page short story version of

THE TREE THAT BLASTED OFF:

Copyright © 1975 by Roger M. Wilcox. All rights reserved.
(writing on this story began 4-Jan-1975)
The original draft was written on a mechanical typewriter, single-spaced, with arbitrary margins, before I'd learned about those pesky little things called "paragraphs." All spellings, punctuation, overly long ellipses, capitalizations, colors, etc. are as in the original. Unfortunately, without scanning it in and presenting an image, I can't really convey all the typewriter overstrikes and formatting oddities I had to slog through in the original.

You have been warned.

CHAPTER 1; DOWN, & THEN UP..............................................

Once, in a forest, there was a tree, who's only wish was: to go up in space. Then, one day, some astronomers came to try out a new experament, they were going to, send a tree into space! And they picked THE tree that wanted to. At last, the tree's wish had come true! Just then, they dug the tree out (with some soil in it), put it in a tree pot, put IT in a rocket, & the count down.. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, egnition, blastoff! And the rocket blasted off! And guess where it landed, on mars! And then he saw a martion! Then the martion made the tree actually talk! And the tree talked to the martion for a while about his life & how it all began. And he said; well, it all started out, when I was a rock rolling into the mystery cave. Then, the mystery stone came down over the cave conceling the cave from everything around it. Then a mystyryous thing happened. For when I was in the cave, ZAP! A powerful ray came upon me. And I was a full-fleged-large martion (with my powers alredy in me)! And then, after 36 years, I grew up. Well then, the tree went off & walked around on mars (there was enough ocygen on mars (just barely enogh for a man) to brethe). And, he saw a rocket. And, he thought, "this could get me back to earth"! So he got in, closed the hatch, and started the count-down. "20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, egnition, BLASTOFF! & the rocket blasted off! 500 miles, 1,000, - 1,500 - 2,000 - 2,500 - 3,000 - 3,500 - 4,000 - 4,500 - 5,000 - 5,500 - 6,000, 7,000 - 8,000 - 9,000 - 10,000 - 12,000 - 14,000 - 16,000 - 18,000 - 20,000 - 25,000 - 30,000 - 40,000 - 60,000 - 80,000 - 100,000 - 150,000 - 200,000! And still higher! Until he reached earth. And the tree never wished to go up into space again (for the ride got him air-sick).

THE END!

A 'WILCOX' PRESENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Author's notes from 2013:

The inspiration for this story came from a 4-page typewritten short story my dad wrote, titled The Sad and Lonely Tree. In that story, a tree in the forest was sad and lonely because it was a little taller than all the other trees. It met another tree who was also sad and lonely, because it was a little shorter than all the other trees. But eventually, the larger tree achieved its dream of growing majestically high and, um, towering over all the other trees in the forest. And the little tree eventually achieved its dream of getting one of its branches high enough to capture some sunlight. It's a wonder it didn't die from photosynthetic starvation. Anyhow, part of this story must have resonated with me at the time, so I naturally combined it with space travel, which makes any story better.
My knowledge of "martions", and their powers, came from that well-researched documentary series My Favorite Martian. The details of their life cycle presented here may represent original research.
Can you tell that my 9-year-old self loved countdowns?

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