Chapter Text

I paced about, preening and strutting.

It was only two hours until ribbon cutting.

... Now fifty nine minutes, plus one hour.

The Lorax just stood there, expression dour.

"What's wrong old chap?" I said,

As I gave a soft clap to his old furry head.

"A bright new era is today beginning.

You shouldn't frown, you should be grinning."

"I never thought a day would come,"

Said the old Lorax, still quite glum,

"That I would assist in building a factory.

As tree-speakers go, I'm quite unsatisfactory."

"Nonsense!" said I. "Don't feel so low.

We both had a point many years ago.

Skies must be blue, and clean water must flow,

yet business is business, and businesses grow.

Look at what's happened, in a world without thneeds.

People buy many more garments to meet all their needs.

There are lots more factories both big and small,

but our new establishment replaces them all --

Duck farms filling pillows, cobblers cobbling cleats,

farmers felling willows to plant flax fields to make sheets,

companies crocheting curtains, knitters knitting napkins,

shirt makers for certain, and milliners with their hat pins.

But this factory here, you silly goose,

makes a product specifically meant for reuse!

And its brilliant design is all thanks to you!

This factory makes the world have _less_ trash goo.

We built atop landfill, and who thanks us for that?

The brown bar-ba-loots, from whom we took no habitat.

We're powered by sunlight and wind, by natural gas

That comes from the landfill's decomposing morass.

And remember new chum, the best part of all,

is that our raw materials come from that Pacific trash ball.

We've planned well and we've fulfilled all of your wishes,

and our thneed-making now cleans the home of the fishes.

I am sorry, my friend, how we got such a bad start,

but now can't we agree, that business can be smart?"

The Lorax gave a sigh, then he gave a slight smile.

"I suppose I'll get used to it, in a little while.

I must say I'm happy that some profits from these thneeds

are going to the planting of truffula seeds.

But we must not let success and profit's great appeals

ever let us forget our earthly core ideals."

"Of course you're right, stout little friend.

But look -- our wait is at an end.

The words you speak have never been truer.

But it's time to give the grand opening tour."

And then I saw a great crowd accrue,

and right at the front stood Cindy Lou Who.

Our grand opening day had very fine weather,

And the Lorax and I cut the ribbon together.

In the grand entrance hall

I addressed the great mob.

"Now I'll tell you all

about the first thneed process job.

Out in the brine off the coast of Waikiki

our fleet is at work making the seas squeaky

clean with a wondrous boat I call the goo-gitcher-snatch.

It's the greatest new thing for gobbling up trash.

Twelve gitcher-snatch boats feed three gitcher-snatch ships,

which bring junk to the shore on rotating shifts.

While in the ship's hold, the gook starts to mold.

By the time it hits shore, it's turned into a gruel,

and the slime near the floor makes a great truck fuel.

Fueled with gruel and filled with old swill,

our trucks filled with junk drive over hill

over dale and down valley

then into this alley --"

Then I pointed through a great window pane

to the row of trash trucks filling the lane.

"But these loads of trash are the greatest of loot!

Let's see what happens once they go down the chute."

The crowd trickled down in groups and in pairs,

down to the basement, down the great stairs.

"And here," I said, "Is the filth-filter-foo.

It filters trash solids out of the goo.

The trash solids head up this big conveyor belt,

with lamps overhead to make melty things melt.

The chunks get dumped into my big-bit-blitzer.

What does it do? It makes little bits, sir.

It makes the big bits tiny and wee,

and they rejoin the goo in device number three.

Three is the boiler, it boils the mixture

and squeezes it into this pasta-mold fixture.

The boiling sanitizes, denatures, and cleans.

It converts into oxides harmful alkenes.

Then once we've got a uniformly thick paste,

we squeeze it out with speed and with haste.

As soon as it's ready it's turned into spaghetti.

The strands are strewn down this ramp to this oven

where they get nicely dried, then they get some more lovin'.

Now follow me into room number four,

with the grand brushing-felting plush-belting floor.

Here the dry strands are brushed out all thin

As combs dart out, dart back, and dart in.

On the mish-misher-mat they get all hammered flat.

They're clipped, twisted, and twined into thin strands of felt,

then brushed into softness as they head off on that belt.

The belt leads to the thneedlery, a place very secret,

and no one may see by what pattern a thneed's knit.

But you special guests just now may peer low

down through these grates to see thneed ground zero.

The finest knitting machines ever have I unfurled,

the fastest contraptions to have knitted or purled.

And now friends let's come watch the packaging

by this row of devices I call the pack-job-ring.

Each thneed is folded, then tied with itself.

Each thneed is tagged but needs no bag for the shelf.

No fancy little carton, no display case,

no wasted materials taking up space.

Just one big box for each thneed shipment.

We're trying real hard to keep things efficient.

Then out to the stores in our goo fueled truck.

Now let me show you what we'll do with our earned bucks.

The crowd walked out back, and out there to greet 'em

was our brand shining new trufful-arboretum.

Hundreds of saplings lined up in rows,

All covered in thneeds to protect them from snows.

"Now before you go home and enjoy the rest of this day,

my co-founder the Lorax has something to say."

"Hello," said the Lorax, "It's been good to meet you,

to come back and to be able to greet you.

We've got a great factory, none could be keener.

It doesn't pollute, it's a trash cleaner.

The thneed's a clever thing: a towel, a washcloth, a dress.

But none of this will mean anything, unless--

Unless we all remember each day

to cherish earth's worth in every way.

Just this one factory isn't enough.

We must change them all, though it'll be tough.

The thneed's not enough, though it's great for clothes.

We must change cars, toys, and how food grows.

We need fewer whistles and bells.

What we need is to change ourselves.

We can't let sprawling towns get so out of hand.

The bar-ba-loots need their wild land!

Yet today is not the day for such words of woe.

It is a happy day, and I'll say before I go,

that I'm proud our old Once-ler has learned

that there's more to life than what we've earned.

And I'm glad to say that he taught me a thing or two

about how business isn't all bad, it depends what you do.

But now I must travel, to places high and low.

Thank you, Once-ler, for showing me that people do grow."

And with that he lifted himself up by his seat

and vanished in the haze of the summer heat.

The crowd's gaze followed him as away he flew.

There was just one more thing I had to do.

From out of the crowd I called up a young fellow.

He looked quite nervous, his face turning yellow.

"Let's applaud this young man for his great deeds.

It was he who planted the last truffula seeds.

Not a tree in the trufful-arboretum would be here without his work

to pot, sprout, and peat them, and never to shirk,

to give them fresh water, feed them fresh air.

Those last few seeds, he gave them great care.

And now my young friend, when these trees are full grown,

I've got a new job for you, all for your own.

You were the 'Unless,' and you've shown great vim and great nerve.

And I'd like you to run a wildlife preserve.

We'll replant them all among the old truffula stumps.

We'll plant them in patches, copses, and clumps.

We'll bring back the landscape to what it once was.

As humming fish hum and bumble bees buzz,

the swamy-swans can all come back to nest

and the bar-ba-loots eat the fruit they like best."

The chap flashed a grin as he shook my hand

and he looked out with hope across the land.

He stepped to the microphone, the crowd to address,

and he said these five words, "Remember. _You_ are the Unless."