Eshgham

afterwords

...

I think it was Allan Watts who said that when humans build we build in straight lines and blocks, but when nature builds it builds wiggles and circles and honeycombs.

During this period of social-distancing, I had the privilege of getting out of the city and going away to the very north of the country. It's where most of this story was thought up, and while writing it, I had two goals in mind: to make my writing as poetic as the vast and open landscape and imbue it with the serenity I felt while out in nature. And the other: to dare myself to write something short and sweet.

Here's something to know about the north of Sweden in June: the sun doesn't set. You read that right. THE SUN DOESN'T SET. It makes for sleepless nights spent staring at a sunlit ceiling in quiet contemplation. Pondering over every wound plaguing the world today, only to realise that I don't really know how or what will make it better. I don't have a fix-it-all band-aid nor do I have disinfectant salve. But I realised, I have this. I have my writing. Where I can dream up perfect worlds in which love always conquers. Where people of the same gender can love freely without shame or harassment. Where different nationalities can coexist without the threat of violence and xenophobia, and where the end-goal is always self-determination and freedom from oppression and tyranny.

In engineering, the process of gathering innovation from nature is called biomimicry. It's when scientist study the aerodynamics of bumblebees for example to understand how they fly, so that they can apply it to machines. Similarly, as a writer I found myself looking to nature, not to mimic it, but to reshape our rigid manmade structures so that we're more in harmony with it and with ourselves. I believe this story is my plea in a way for us to slow down, fall into step with nature again. Change our focal point from our ego and redirect it to the closest sentient being. To really try and understand the other, to place ourselves in their shoes, to see their multiplicity—and perhaps through that process come to understand what unites us and fight for that cause.

To my dear readers, I just want to say: thank you for giving me this opportunity, this voice. I wouldn't be here writing this if it weren't for you stoking fire to my confidence and helping me post more of my stories and share my ideas with you.

Thank you for reading this story, for voting, for commenting and giving feedback that'll only help me grow.

Lastly, take care of yourselves. I mean it. It's a scary time, but we'll get through it. Remember, our hardships and heartaches and anxieties will pass. Yes, as impossible as it seems now, this too shall pass.

Thank you and enjoy the playlist that follows.