The first extinction was the extinction of non-life. One day, somehow, small things came into being- beautiful little machines that ate and spread and grew.
The second extinction was much later. The cells, for many many years, continued to produce air that was poison to them. We need it now, but to their archaic systems it was nothing but waste. We know the value of waste, but they did not, and so most of them died. Those who understood how to survive this gas, the oxygen, lived. And then they, eventually, like all intelligent beings, found the value in the rot of others.
This led to an era of unparalleled growth and spread. Simple soft animals, sea plants, things so distant to us as to be alien played in ancient seas. Eventually they came to land and became funny walking things, or grew the wooden delicious growth of a plant. After a long time of this, things began to rot as they always do. Noble creatures began to fill the gran purpose of decomposition. We can trace our first noble lineage from this.
The third extinction is unique in that it was no-one’s fault. A large flaming rock hit on the planet and made smoke and dust and ash, so that no sun could reach. No sun to feed the silly plants, and then the animals who fed on them died, and so on and so forth. All food for the grand cycle, but the problem was there were very few left to replenish. Most died. Some did continue on, as they always did.
Another age of growth. Creatures more wild, with warm blood came. Mammals. Plants of increasing size and number. Swarming insects. We kept on.
And so quickly then came that time of permanence. Plastic, metal, all made by those mammals, in a quest to escape rot. They coated the whole land in things - things able crumble, to break down, but never, ever be digested.
This was the fourth extinction. In their foolish quest for immortality they made the sun itself into an enemy- the whole world heated, and they died, leaving behind their monuments against entropy.
We survived. We learned to eat the horrible monuments, and with time enough we will bring it all back into the soil to feed those that feed us. Now is our era, the mycelial era, one rich with rain and soft secret places for us to talk.
Eventually we will be the fifth extinction, and something will take our useless bodies and feed us into glorious decay. Eventually.
Does that answer your question, sporeling? Yes? Now enough history, I have a nice hardwood here, made soft through time and moisture, and practically untouched. Let’s eat, why don’t we, and enjoy this gorgeous evening?
THE STORY HAS NOW ENDED. Would you like to go back home?