Setting: A murky, grey wasteland. The stage is littered with jagged stumps and skeletal factory parts. A single, rusty ladder leads up to the ONCE-LER’s shuttered window. The air smells of "smogulous smoke."

(A pause. His voice softens.) You kept it.

(Clutching the jar to his chest) So what do you want? A confession? A tear? A promise to fix what I poisoned last year?

(A long silence. Then, barely a whisper.) …Ted.

(To the audience, breaking the fourth wall) He lifted me up by the scruff of my soul. He said, “Unless someone like you…” (He stops, choked.) …cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

The game? Boy, the game ended ten thousand stumps back. You’ve turned the Truffula groves into bric-a-brac and a shack! You’ve silenced the Swomee-Swans, choked the Humming-Fish dumb. And still you sit there, counting your nails and your thumb.

(Smiling, fading into a soft golden light) I speak for the trees. And today, Once-ler… so do you.

(Singing softly, a melody rising) Plant it in the shadow of the mess you made. Let the roots break the concrete where the profit laid. One seed doesn’t fix it. One tree doesn’t mend. But a forest of sorry’s a forest, my friend.

I couldn’t plant it. I couldn’t let go. That seed was a mirror—too painful to show. But hiding the seed doesn’t hide the crime. The Lorax was right. I was stealing… not time.

(Stepping closer. Not angry now. Almost gentle.) I didn’t leave you. You left me for dead. You traded the sky for a roof ’round your head. You traded the breeze for the smell of the vat. And now all you’ve got is a dusty old flat.