When the dusk came, I felt so suffocated by the crowd around me that my instinct urged me to go out. And so I did.
I wanders around the platforms atop of campus complex where the air was good. But something was missing, something I was deprived of.
I moved to a stairway where I saw the sun painting the cloud purple and black like magic. But something was missing, something I was craving for.
Finally, when the last trace of sun perished from the horizon, I wandered across a small patch of grass, and stopped at a giant tree. Refreshing dizziness took over me. and I found myself attracted to the giant figure. What attracted me? Was it the looming shadow? The ages of time it standing alone? Or was it the scent of mold that resides in it all the time? I didn't know. I couldn't think. I found myself touching the tree with my hand, sniffing on it with my nose. And the urges in me started to fade away. I sat on its root, and started talking to it, like I did to that good friend of mine back in high school. It answered, like that friend of mine did, yet in a rather mocking manner. It mocked my arrogance to think myself to be the only being trying to be its friend and reside by its side. And then, I felt something else.
A wet, linear being crawled on my foot, my leg, and then rushed up until it touched the tree again. "Sorry if I interrupted something." I stood up and smiled. It didn't answer. Rather, it continued its crawling until disappearing inside the folds of the bark again. Then I saw more of them, shadows, moving up and down the bough. And I realised that the touch of one of my fingers was actually softer than the rest. I withdrew my hand. Lit a torch light. And figured what those linear beings were and what my finger landed on--
caterpillars.
I don't know how many of them were there, and why do they reside on the bough rather than leaves. Perhaps there is something different in their mouth that permits them to actually sip the nutrition directly from the sieve tube? And then I suddenly realised what the tree actually meant when mocking my arrogance. Though it does withstand ages of time on the grassland with few human approaching. I was a fool to think it to be alone. A bunch of creatures resides in it. And their interaction are so intimate and long-lasting that my sudden and clumsy claim of friendship appears a joke to it. What do I have to claim myself a place aside of it? What am I to it anyway? I was just a drunk lunatic, who comes and goes like wind.
And it's right. I am but a mere passerby. A nomad being with no clan, no pride to reside with. I can long for a place where I, alone, belongs to. But such is, as this time withstanding tree reveals, a mere fantasy of mine. I can stalk anywhere I please. And even have a lot of fun there. But without the capability of cherishing other beings, and being cherished by other beings. There is no home to me. And there will never be a home for me.
I left the tree, sad yet satisfied, just like how I left everything else. And I didn't look back.
