Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the concept of time is how relative it is. Nowadays this is quite a well know abstract idea related to time, which became popular at the beginning of the past century, but really we are all familiar with it. The time of dreams, the time of fun and games, they run differently from the time of boredom and work, and somebody who is completely cut off from the world more or less quickly loses the awareness of the passage of time.
The Huma bird never really thought about time at all, it had no concept for it before his current situation, and actually all it knew was that now was not then, and the then was not the time before that. All it knew and all it cared to know was that now it was just it and his friend all around him, a leafy sky that covered the well which was now his home. While being aware of its friend's presence, he could barely make out what it actually was like from the inside, only remembering what it looked on the outside when he first landed in that clearing. But now even if he had wanted to he wouldn't have been able to go out and look at it, for its world had become dim. While before the shimmering of the water from the rare rays that broke through the thick leafy dome would catch its eye swiftly, all it could see now instead of the small glistening waves were lights and shadows. It heard the sounds of insects, followed them around the well and usually caught them unless they managed to escape, and then the bird would hit the sides of the shallow well, the limit it couldn't and wouldn't cross. The only thing ticking in his armless clock was caused usually by the event of something or someone breaking into that bubble of darkness and sounds of water. Lots and many had fallen in the well, terrifying the animal. Often they managed to leave, sometimes with help from the outside, sometimes from within, when the bird recognized that whatever it was that broke its peace was not a threat. But many and lots never did manage. Many and lots where at the bottom of that well. To many for logic and plausibility to accomodate. But the Huma bird had neither of these concepts and wasn't concerned. It seemed to the bird though, that its friend might have been friendly to none but him. Infact, it seemed so that anything else which had fallen in there, before and after the Huma bird had either perished in the well, or had escaped this fate by the skin of their teeth. The bird didn't question the geranium. It was blind, but it was safe. It had become a judge of life and death, helping the creatures that fell in the well at his whim and not at their need, but the geranium didn't judge it. But really why would it when it was the one luring creatures in the well?
The Huma bird would swim when it was awake, eat when it was hungry and sleep when sleep took it. It usually dreamt about being in the well covered by the white geranium, so that dreams and reality couldn't really be told apart, aside from the fact, perhaps, that in its dreams the Huma bird could see, and what it saw where the countless victims of the well, reaching up towards it, the well now many feet deep in the realm of its dreams.
It happened one night that the Huma bird was awoked and startled by many harsh noises, chaperoned by the clap of thunder. Beyong the thick foliage of its friend it could see a strong lively light and a strange heat was beginning to make its way through the leafy dome. Suddenly something big broke through the foliage, an extremely large object, incredibly hot, which split the large plant in two. The bird saw the light come to life as it latched on to its friend and suddenly his geranium pal was caught in the very same heat as the large object. The bird didn't know what to do. It looked up, experiencing a different kind of darkness than what it had become used to. This darkness was suddenly broken by a strong surge of loud light, which came to land very close to the bird. A familiar rush took over the animal as, for the first time since it could remember, it opened its wings and tried to lunge upwards. It failed multiple times, until it managed to hop on the brick wall of the side of the well, and from there, as it jumped and flapped its wings the bird gained air beneath it . It went up as far as it could, leaving the flaming geranium behind, so far up that suddenly all it could see below it was a terribly hot carpet of light, and above was that darkness that it was becoming so fond of, reaching towards it more and more.
Suddenly a new loud skylight broke in the dark, but this time, it went for the bird with speed and cruelty. As the Huma bird was hit by lightning it lost consciousness once, twice, a miriad of times, it felt like a never ending falling nightmare. All it could tell was that a dark hole, surrounded by light was now approaching it at an incredible speed and that the cold air was whipping its now featherless skin. Of that dark hole it tried to imagine the nature, what it would feel like, what it would sound like, would it be cold or would it be warm? Was that the bottom of the well it too was finally falling to? The one from its dream that was deep enough to hold infinite souls and now its own?
The water hit it at full speed and the bird lost consciousness again, this time the cold was unbearable. It shivered back to reality only to see darkness all around it again, a fainter and fainter ring of light surrounding the dark watery hole, then nothing. Then everything.
"I know you"
