Hi all!
Let’s take a break from the harsh reality of Life by expressly veering away from the previous topic. C has been reading up on everyone’s comments and I thank all for their contributions. She said she’d keep me updated, but sadly hor, I’m recently too busy for her and vice versa. I’d like to keep you guys updated on this issue too. It’d be nice to know the outcome of it all, no? Whether for good or worse, I can have closure on this issue.
So today! Today, I shall be slightly whimsical and sprout a tale. Have you ever had an idea in your head but you just couldn’t explain it out or say it out? That the very idea occurs as a set of pictures that can only be passed on as a story? Here’s one of these moments.
Once upon a time, there lived a dormouse on a little orchard farm. Everyday in the early dawn, he would creep out of his little burrow and pluck the wild wheat outside his home, and munched on these kernels, watching the lazy sun take a slow hike up the sky.
Come the spring, he’d climb up shrubs and eat the sweet flower petals before the bees drew the nectar away.
Come the summer, he’d climb up the berry bushes and harvest some berries before the robins pluck them from their stems.
Come the autumn, he’d wait for the acorns to fall heavily from the old acorn tree before he’d pick them for storage.
Come the winter, he’d make himself plump and full from the wheat, the flowers, berries and acorns. He would make soft beds of crinkly leaves and bird fluff that fell from the sky, then snuggled up and sleep through the cold heavy snow.
This is our dormouse’s life. In this life, before it changed, he had 2 emotions.
First was happiness, this happens when he spots the wheat, the flowers, the berries and the acorns for his daily meals. Second was fear, this happens when he spots the eagles twirling circles every morning when the lazy sun took a slow hike up the sky.
That was all. He may have felt happiness when the eagles fail to spot him or he may have felt fear when the acorns took longer than usual to fall from the old acorn tree, but he's never said.
The little dormouse only knew where to find food and how to build shelter from the cold and the eagles. That was all too. As long as there are wild wheat outside his burrow, flowers in spring, berries in summer and acorn in the autumn and a long cozy sleep through winter, he know not what or who he is. He didn't have to.
Then one morning, while he was watching the sun hiking, he noticed there were no eagles twirling. Just as he might have felt happiness over it, a net swooped onto him and scooped him up. Quick as a wink, he was bundled into a tinny cage that felt cold as ice against his fur. In that moment, he knew terror. It was white-hot and seared through his trembling body.
In the next few hours, many millions of things happened that had never happened to our dormouse before. He was banged this way and that, then bruised up and down in the swinging cage. He heard the revving of an engine, the clanging of van doors slammed shut, he felt speed although he was standing still and it continued for a while, bumping him along. He saw his first human, then a couple more, all dressed in white as the van stopped and the van door crashed open. He saw a building, all glass and concrete and angles. He saw white rooms in white rooms in white rooms as he was taken deep into the building. And most astonishing of all, when the cage stopped wobbling and the door slid open, he tumbled into a bigger cage filled with ……
Dormice!
Wow! He exclaimed, shocked beyond measure. The journey had been harrowing, and to take in the images of 50 other dormice was something our dormouse would never forget.
Not that our dormouse knew what he looked like. But he just saw many animals with no difference among themselves! For one, they were all white. For two, they all had pink eyes and pink snout and pink whiskers. For three, they all acted the same way! They crowded him out and started sniffing him all over.
The dormouse touched himself and looked himself all over too. For the first time, he saw that his fur was a nice cinnamon brown. For the first time, he found that he also had pink paws. He leaned forward and sniffed the nearest white dormouse and found for the first time, he smelt different! While the white ones smell no different from the white room, which smells like this river near his burrow that floated full of dead fish, he smelt of home.
He smelt of sunshine that chased the dark and hiked the sky. He smelt of the wild wheat outside his home, the flowers in spring, the berries in summer and the acorns that fell in autumn. He smelt of the bed of crinkly leaves and the fluff that he snuggled under every night.
I’m Me! He squeaked.
Our dormouse has found Self.
to be continued......
