...

“Don’t you regret it?” Asked the wise old tree, staring down at the beaten, bloodied body of the man below it.

“Regret it? I would never regret a life lived by principal. A life where I believed in my fellow man.” He coughed.

The tree sighed; the passage of decades creaked between its bark.
“But look where it got you. Battered and fallen.”

The man sputtered out the remains of a laugh as the ocean would a carcass unto the shore.

“Everyone dies, I got to do it with purpose.”