The World

The world spoke to him. He listened. It whispered softly of sun laced days, where all that mattered were blue skies and the wind. It tickled his ear and murmured of a time where all that seemed meaningful was how many moments a person spent with people he called friends. How much time he spent smiling.

The world spoke to him—in such a way that no others could hear—and in these talks he learned how to be happy. He learned that, in the end, everything would rust and burn. He learned that nothing beyond his love for others actually mattered. He was told about the delusions of grandeur Humanity held for itself—the way they so blindly followed a path that lead them nowhere.

Even after listening to this, he merely listened. It was a soft prick in his mind and nothing more. What the real world and his real life meant to him were much more than a mere fantasy given by hallucination or dream. There was a problem, though. A problem caused by speaking with the world; he began to see things differently than others. The way he looked at the real world made him. . .unorthodox. He didn't believe that certain things were right; he thought that working so hard to find a place in the real world just so you could stay in that same place the rest of your life was wrong. He thought that luxury was something corrupting those around him. He thought that the people he called his friends were doing things he didn't approve of. He thought that time ultimately was an imagined thing to keep deadlines and restrictions; that in all reality, time was irrelevent—especially when happiness was considered—and that it was only a boundry that kept people from being truly happy.

He couldn't see the reason in hampering with ones own mind—he thought that dealing with your problems face first and with a blunt sort of truth was the best way to handle things. He couldn't see the logic in war, or the justice in telling another person they were wrong. No single persons perspective was greater than another ones, so wasn't arguing a futile thing? Eventually, he started to think that maybe his way of thinking was unorthodox. That maybe it went against the real world.

And then it happened. Slowly, at first—so slow he barely recognized the fact. The “real” world started passing him by. It started moving away from him in a manner that seemed dreamed. The many people he considered friends had begun to abandon him; a friend would leave him for another, better place; or maybe because they were ignorant, and lost themselves in a tide of drugs and alchohol; or, they just seemed to disagree with what he thought was right. He never tried to convince them of anything—he only told them his opinions—and because of this, they labeled him as a fool. What sort of person would say time is a bad thing? What sort of person would decide that working for a better life in this place was wrong? What sort of person would think that getting yourself luxury and financial sanctity wasn't happiness?

It got to the point where he felt completely alone. He felt wrong, as if he'd betrayed some law that the people around him followed. He felt forsaken. The very friends he'd loved most had left him to live with his own ideas.

He watched what he considered the real world start to disappear; what was left in it's wake was a badland, a place of parched soil and mustard seed; a place that had stark sunlight and cold nights. From here he watched his world retreat over the horizon, and realized that this was the look of the world that had been speaking to him.

He stood there, staring off into the distance. His friends and family were in that place, trudging along with what was considered the real world. They were working hard for dreams and hopes. They were keeping themselves standing strait in a place that valued luxury and identity; that valued wealth and hard work; that valued redemptive violence; that valued the thought that, in order to get somewhere, sacrifices had to be made—some, more human than others. He smiled softly as he became totally and utterly impacted by how disgusting that world was.

He turned a different direction, gripping the idea that he was not abandoned by that place; that he had abandoned it. He had chosen to stay behind here, where time did not matter. And he began to walk—not forward, as his world was, but backward—and in that direction he marched vigorously. He did not know why he walked backwards. Maybe it was because of the way he thought or how he wanted to help others. Maybe it was because of how much he wanted true happiness and not some cop-out false happiness caused in a world of denial and lies.

It did not take him long to find a river. This river flowed the same direction he walked, and every day it emptied itself to the world around it. It was a beautiful, azure thing; within it sparkled an essence that made men weep; a beauty that staggered all in it's presence. There was always a desert surrounding him, and there was always a harsh wind and beating sunlight, but this river gave him just enough life to move on every day. At the end of the day there would be nothing left but small cutout in the land—a dried up and empty river bed where there had once been water--and yet every morning it would be full again, beginning with the new day. He felt the same. He felt that every day was a new day in this place, and that it was to be valued, no matter how bad it looked.

He realized in his travels that there were others like him; he could not see them, but he knew they were there. He knew that there were people who followed this sort of path, just like he did. They had left the world too, he thought. They felt as though the way people lived was wrong, and they had decided to walk backwards just as he did.

One day as he was walking he told himself something. He told himself that he would reach the oasis faster walking backwards rather than walking forwards, as the “real” world did. He did indeed reach the oasis, and there he found others like himself—and there he found the blue skies and beautiful environment he knew to be real; and there, without a care for time or identity (or luxury, for that matter), he lived the rest of his days happily with the many others he had found to enjoy that happiness with him.