Introduction

As usual, I don’t know where to start. For the past few months, I’ve been surrounded by mountains. Now, well, I look out the window and see grass.

I guess I’ll start there. Always start with nature. The world I want to build in my head has already been built in nature.

Maybe not all of the world I imagine can be seen in nature. I can’t imagine nature being as sporadic as the story I see in my head. Maybe nature is.

Welcome to a story.

Train Car

A man, in a metal train car. Never in control and always searching. For what? He doesn’t know yet. Neither do I, I think. But we will find something. Perhaps, we need to keep searching with the man.

Wait, where are we? We’re surrounded by green. So are most frogs. The train car is not green, however. The outside is. The man is surrounded by green.

I think he is searching for an exit to the train car. Maybe not. Searching, searching, searching. Oh! A light in the corner.

It was nothing. Let’s leave the train car. The man considers the place his home. He keeps searching for something in his own home. We keep searching with him. Maybe we should tell him that there is nothing to find besides metal seats underneath piles of grass.

Who sits in those metal seats?

Passerby

The man sees a frog hop on to the metal seat. The frog thought that it represented nature. Yet, the frog was unaware that nature surrounded it. The frog was searching for something, like the man. The frog found nothing.

After leaving the seat, the frog jumped into a pond just outside. The man followed. I guess he was never searching for an exit, the man was just searching for a story. A story of someone who sat in the metal seats. Looking out the windows, seeing a tunnel wall or a skyscraper.

After jumping into the pond with the frog, the man found darkness. I guess it’s a really deep pond. Maybe there is more to life than the train car. That place has plenty of stories, however.

Imaginary Friends

While in the pond, the man imagines the train car. Surrounded by green. Around, the train car, swans float, pestered by a slippery hand from underneath. Perhaps that hand is looking for something. Maybe the man inside the water that surrounds the train car is searching for control.

Bubbles appear at the top of the moat. Screaming from underneath. The man inside the pond opens the train door. The bubbles stopped. For some reason, the grass that surrounds the train is wet with tears. Something, somebody was set free. Somebody knew about the man.

Maybe that was a friend. Maybe it was someone searching for something, like the frog. Hopefully the man inside the moat found something comforting.

Skyline

We find ourselves back in the train car with the man. Has the man ever sat in a metal seat? I think the man is too afraid of who has been there before him. The man doesn’t know the stories of those who sat there before him.

We tell him those fears are irrational, yet he doesn’t listen. Maybe the man will find a new seat one day.

After walking around for sometime, searching for something, we feel the wind blow. On one of the seats, the wind revealed a painting of a bridge, with buildings in the background. It’s the dream of a young man who seeks freedom from the metal train, from all the machinery, from the tunnel that the train car is about to go into.

At the bottom of the painting, we see the grass. The grass surrounded even the boy. The man inside the metal car is comforted by the painting. For some reason, it reminds him of a childhood that… well, I don’t know if the man had a childhood. Maybe that’s what he is searching for in the train.

Nurtured

The man realized he had a childhood. He was cared for and never forgotten. He was loved by somebody. He realized that he never had to search for something. Maybe we should stop searching too.

We sit in a metal seat next to the man. He should have never been afraid to sit in the seat. For some reason, he thought he would inherit the stories of those in the seat before us.

No. That doesn’t make any sense. The man has his own story.

Everything was with the man all along. The story of the young boy and the man in the moat, who was surrounded by swans. The story of the frog. The man was surrounded by stories.

For some reason, the man never appreciated the stories. He never appreciated the wind that blew the grass, revealing more stories. He never appreciated the frog, or nature.

Nature nurtured the man.

Mom

The man’s mother nurtured him as well. His mother gave him a childhood. A story. Even inside the metal train, the man’s mom was still there. In his memories he saw a young man, a man seeking control. He saw his mother.

His mother was there when he opened the door while underneath the pond. The man found someone comforting. Someone who was in control. Someone who is never afraid.

Maybe the man was looking for his mom. He found the memories, the stories that his mom gave him.

She was there the whole time.