Li 1 Ketherine Li 11 ENEX A Lethlean 2 April 2010 A Dollop of Wishful Thinking As I pushed through the thickest vines and plants,

the crushed leaves releasing a sulphurous stink into the air, I became aware of someone watching me. My animal instincts told me to bolt, but the rational human side of me told me to act like nothing was out of the ordinary. I continued to follow the backpacks that blinked in and out of focus as the jungle attempted to swallow them. It would not be able to digest them however. The expedition consisted of the brawniest of men, each trained and bred to do battle with the jungle, each fiercer than any monster that the jungle could belch. And then there was me. One moment I was concentrating on avoiding getting tangled in the undergrowth, the next I was frozen in place as a wail that only desperate men cry sliced through the air. These were the gruffest of men, but they were now scrambling like businessmen after a stock drop. I don t remember exactly what happens next, but do remember being eerily calm. Even though men were tearing through the foliage to run away from whatever horror they witnessed, I only felt curious. I was curious as to what could cause such uproar, curious to see what could inspire such terror.

Did you run now?

I should have run but I didn t. Instead I was walking forward. Strolling in fact, like it was a leisure garden instead of the gaping mouth of the unknown. I think...there was a blue light or perhaps it was red. A light of some sort surrounded something that could have been human if someone only had the vaguest inkling as to what one looked like. The next thing I know is black. Flashes of colours, snatches of conversation. Time floated by. Funny isn t it? You might think that life should stop and that the hourglass should freeze. You can shout at the heaven and beat your fists against the earth, but in the end life continues and one grain of sand follows another. I thought it would be the end, but somehow I was still alive. I knew I was alive because of the light, that blue or red light...Most often it s the obvious things that we forget.

Well do you remember anything else?

Li 2

I remember...a cage. Yes it was a cage, and I was inside. And outside of the cage, my cage, was a sprawling city of tree houses.

How were you able to see it? What was your point of view?

I was looking down on it. Like the way I suppose God would or a bird. Yes, I was like a bird except that I didn t sing in my cage.

What did you see?

Harmony. I saw harmony. The entire society worked together and there was laughter. Parents allowed their children out without fearing for their safety. People...well they didn t quite look like people, not like us. They were stockier and had more hair. They didn t wear any clothes not even loincloths, but they had flowers and grasses braided throughout their fur. They were happy and didn t seem to know what envy or hatred was. If they were upset, they settled things with a third party that made a compromise. I recall yearning to be down there with them, to be able to caper down the street with the wind tugging at me like a long lost friend. I eventually even got used to the light that saturated absolutely everything. I do wish I could remember what colour it was...but my brain seems to have blocked it out. I suppose it s the same way that you can t describe what colour light usually is. Do you know what colour light is?

No, I never really thought of that.

I suppose that is quite a silly question, isn t it Doctor? All this time I was hovering there in that cage, the bars stopping me from joining them. The most remarkable thing was their architecture, all built to my knowledge without any modern technology whatsoever. Instead they sung to the trees and the trees grew according to their hymns, creating natural winding staircases, shelves, beds all entirely made from solid wood. Nature wasn t scared of them and they weren t scared of nature. We always try to keep the wilderness at bay by building structures to shelter us in its womb. We create vehicles to transport us from shelter to shelter, and when we do venture out we re hidden in shells

Li 3 of material. Humans are always trying to find newer faster ways to tame and kill nature. You go to the supermarket and the shelves are lined with better more humane ways to destroy unwanted pests. But if you re killing them, how humane can it be? Either way, they re going to end up dead so does it matter how they got to that state? Ah, I suppose that is rather Machiavellian though. One time there was a death in the community. Someone of importance, I think. Everyone lined up in the streets and his body was paraded through the city. When people that we know die, we grieve because they will no longer be with us. Instead they celebrated the times that the deceased spent with them and rejoiced in the memories that they shared. Does that make them less selfish? I think that they weren t human. They couldn t be. Humans lack that selflessness, the ability to be happy with nothing. We constantly want more, strive for more, and work our bodies into the ground for vanities that are disposable. Our entire lives are centred on the materialistic, and we re so concentrated on what s right in front of our nose that we forget the whole picture. All those people sitting miserably at their desks for little sheets of paper, what is all of that suffering for? What is the point?

The point is to raise families and to better the world. Humans aren t really that bad.

Maybe we are, maybe we aren t. I haven t watched us the way that I watched the others. I hungered in my cage. I was starving, not for food but for their companionship. I wanted to be free like them.

Are you not free now?

No. I am shackled by my greed, my jealousies, and my anger. Even as I sit here talking to you I m a slave to gluttony, I m jealous that I m not one of them, and I m angry that I m jealous. That does make sense?

You can t be jealous of something that isn t real.

Not real? Oh yes. Not real. But sometimes it feels so real. If I close my eyes I can feel the cold metal of the cage that stopped me from being with the others. I can hear their laughter, I can see their smiles. What makes something not real? Reality is how we perceive things, is it not?

Li 4

But you always wake up in the end, don t you?

But it s always the same...dream. I don t like calling it such. It makes it sound like some sort of fantasy. Aren t people supposed to have different ones, aren t they supposed to change every night? I ve heard that some people don t even remember their subconscious adventures. The experiences are so vivid, and they aren t on repeat either. Every time I fall asleep I m transported back to that cage, my cage, and things continue where I left. Well not exactly where I left off but like how things move on if you leave it, every night without fail. I m starting to question which reality is in fact real. It s torture Doctor, to view the perfect world and to live an imperfect one. I simply wish that I could get out of my cage.