Consumed by the world

Prologue

In a world lit by a thousand screens one can't experience darkness.

I lacked of the awareness of time. Time hadn't a definition, it didn't have to. Life at Guapo was peaceful. The nights were dark, real dark, but comforting. The days weren't spilled, there was always something to do and if there wasn't anything to do within your family, you'd help others. My favorite part of our island is the silence. When the animals kept quiet and the people listened, really listened, there was nothing to hear. That time, that life was taken from me about a month ago. Taken, spoiled and destroyed.

It started the day after Huyburay. Huyburay was a local feast in our community. During Huyburay the ones in need were assisted. Huyburay made us connect better, it made us care about others and not only ourselves. Huyburay reminds us of our personality, it teaches us to help those who need it. I think it's beautiful and I like to think that in an other universe, they have some kind of Huyburay as well. We close the Huyburay feast off with a loud ballad. We all break the silence for just a couple of minutes, letting the sky know that we are here. Maybe that's pathetic, the sky which changes every second we look at it, even when we don't know it, even when it seems to hold stil. Time holding still. Pathetic, maybe, but it helped us. We didn't know if there were others except us. That thought kept us up at night. What if there were others? Living their lives, completely different the way we do. Do they need our help... or are we the ones in need of it?

The moment the ships appeared in the ocean view our community held stil. We did what we only thought was right; we followed our intuition. What we did: nothing. We kept the silence which our island maintained. There wasn't any need of telling each other to be silent, we just did. We didn't even know what ships where back then, if I only could go back to that time again. Back to not knowing.

The human brain is complicated but extraordinary at the same time. We can learn so much but once we learned we can't forget. Wouldn't it be great to forget?

The ships took us, well the people took us but we could only focus on the massive ships that where only a couple feet away from our shore. We hadn't seen anything like it before, still we weren't scared. If you have lived on an island with only mother nature that decides your faith... you get less afraid. Fear is temporary just like anger or happiness. These people on board, they all seemed so unhappy. They were confused by the view of us, it was written all over their faces. They looked at us at a certain way, they felt pity, you could feel them having pity. But are we to ones who need their pity? Certainly not. The moment they brought us to their shore, a skyline filled with weird shapes, skyscrapers I learned, I wanted to run back where I came from. The people who lived among those skyscrapers they were all consumed by their tiny screens they carried. There was no nature to see, a side from a little square with some trees and a few bushes, a park they call it. The smell, the awful smell, it is something I still can't get used to. When I stepped into their environment I wanted to go back, go back in time, erase the view of their pathetic life and live on our island again. I can't, I'll never forget how hard I try. I tried to live how they do, I really did but once you have lived your entire life without 'phones', electronic and flowing water out of the tap you can't enjoy those things because they aren't necessary. You are always trying to maintain your instincts, it's appealing to settle yourself and get comfortable, but I wanted to keep the part of me which I know the best: being out in the open, all by yourself. When I see these people, I see weakness, they are all saying that they are strong, mentally and physically. Are they? Can they survive without their screens and their homes. Can they seek the risks of mother nature just to find food for the ones who need it. Can they share their belongings even if you have not many? They can't. They can't even hold still for just a second to help a man who is laying aside the roadway, they just can't give him something, anything. They have it all, a home, a phone, a car, money, food, expensive clothes and so on but giving one thing, one tiny thing to those in need? They can't. They are weak and wouldn't survive if they'd have to. I despise them, all of them. I need to go back home, back to the nature... back to the darkness.