Day 3: Write about life in the POV of an animal
The first view that I knew was a faded turquoise.
Everybody around me seemed perfectly content, but something about the scenery made me uneasy. The turquoise cornered us in. It was vast, stretching from the sky all the way down to the pebbles beneath us. I felt like I was stuck in a box. Maybe I was. Our only solace from the protruding walls was a giant, see through pane. Beyond the pane was a world of space and colour. Tall, tanned creatures wandered throughout grey isles filled with trinkets. Sometimes they would walk right down to the pane, and stare down at us like a predator stalking their prey. But they were always gentle giants; as uncomfortable as it is to be glared at by a giant set of eyes, none of them ever tried to harm us. They didn't have 3 turquoise walls trapping them in place. They weren’t trapped in place at all. I envied them deeply.
The strangest thing about my life in the box was the net. Every once in a while, a large white net would reach down and scoop one of us up, beyond the sky, into whatever lies beyond the surface. It’s always a shock for the newbies, but after a while it becomes just another part of our routine. Some of us would purposely try to be the ones caught. Some of us avoided it like a plague. Some of us simply let the net decide our fate. Whatever the outcome, it was never a big deal. We simply said our quick goodbyes, wishing them the best for wherever life was taking them, and after we watched the net leave the sky, we would go about our day as normal. We all had our theories about what happens when the net takes you, but we only ever treated them like fairy tales. I watched many friends come and go from the box. So many that I had stopped believing that I would ever be taken myself. It wasn't something I avoided, but I didn’t yearn for it either.
The day that it did happen, I hadn’t even seen the net enter the box. I was facing the pane, watching one of the giants staring in at us. Suddenly my vision was clouded by mesh. I didn’t know what was going on. All I could see was a faded white. Everyone around me began to wish me well. The net started rising. Suddenly, I felt so guilty. Guilty for all the times I sent friends off so nonchalantly, guilty for not allowing myself to worry too hard about what ended up happening to them. Being taken from all you’ve ever known at a moment's notice with absolutely no idea what will happen to you next is a horrifying experience. Nothing was ever going to be the same, and I hardly had a second to process that fact.
Then everything became heavy. I felt like I’d gained 100 pounds in a second. Then I couldn’t breathe.
Then I was placed into a cloudy sphere. My weight felt back to normal and I could breathe again. For the first time in my life, the 3 turquoise walls were gone. Everything around me looked like what I saw beyond the clear pane, but warped. It took me a moment to realize that the sphere was moving. Colours morphed and swirled around me as the orb moved, rocking me back and forth with its momentum. The orb would occasionally stop moving and start again, and the light shining onto me varied from non existent to so glaring that it made my eyes hurt. As time went on inside of the orb, I started to wonder if this would be my new normal. If it was, I’m sure I would have become completely miserable after a while. I had already started missing the turquoise walls.
Then the orb burst, and I tumbled out into a brand new box that would make up the rest of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment