Meet my photosynthetic friends
Growing up as a kid, I never understood why people took normal routes home after school. I’d close from school, jump the fence and start a journey through the forest.
I met and made a lot of animal friends - pythons, monkeys, birds, bees and so on.
There were no paths in the forest, you just use the sun as your compass and make your way in the thicket.
The forest was so large and every moment in it so unique that some days I met beautiful flowing rivers, had a swim and by the time I returned the next day, they were gone. No way to figure out where the river was. Beautiful, shiny, curvy river, gone just like that.
The smell of a thousand trees is some special kind relaxing healing that can’t ever be experienced in urban areas. It’s better than a million therapies.
The air is thin, cool and whispers in your ear. It’s the best music in the world. A tiny little boy in his school uniform, scaling through ridges in the middle of the vast forest while clinging on to tree stomps was what I was.
Every day while the teacher taught in class, I sat somewhere at the back imagining what next I will encounter in the forest on my way home.
Somehow I get the feeling that when I am there the trees know I’m there. I could almost feel their big round leavy eyes smiling down at me as I work my way in between their legs. They’ve offered me so many awesome fruits of theirs that no one in the world ever tasted.
The animals were very beautiful, there was always a squirrel that will run across somewhere. Sometimes a monkey will follow me for half a mile from the treetops. A swarm of bees once attacked me and stung the living hell out of me. All the stings were on my head. I went full-mad for half an hour, used my head to cultivate the humus soil while screaming the whole time. We later became friends though, I forgive them. I now know that bees only sting you if you try to scoop their honey with fear within you. They only want to see you do it with a smile.
If I took a taxicab, I’d be home within minutes, but that forest route usually takes 4 hours. 4 beautiful, exciting, exhilarating, delightful, gladening, adventurous, uplifting, invigorating, breathtaking and mind-blowing hours.
Every time I exited the forest on the other end, I usually find myself facing a local market which had a video game house in it. I would spend my saved transport money in the game house.
Unplugging from the forest and right into a game house was like pure weed. It’s like sticking your nose out of some burning marijuana and right into some heroine live and direct. The feeling was esoteric. Ecstatic sensory overload.
The video games offered me an opportunity to explore the imaginary world. The thing was new at the time.
Of course, I failed all my tests and missed many of my exams at school. My father withdrew me from that school a year later due to my abysmal poor performance. Till today, I never told anyone why I missed so many classes. The test scores meant nothing to me when I can’t just stop thinking of the best way to climb the new tree friend I met the day before.
Sometimes, all these technologies, concrete, CO2, electricity, metals and the internet make me miss my photosynthetic friends, millions of them.
