“Are you a storyteller, Thomas Covenant?”
Absently he replied, “I was, once.”
“And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?”
… Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. “I live.”
“Another?” Foamfollower returned. “In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more — with one word you will make me weep.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson

One of the saddest stories I was ever told was about the last tree. I was very small, but it made me cry and I have never forgotten the dying branches of the very last tree in its fenced and guarded little island of grass and the last rabbit that shared its final days.

The story shared the memories of the…