It is night as I am driving with my windshield constantly getting plopped with rain and the roads covered with mist towards an old village near the mountains I once called my home. Not only does the crashing of raindrops, clanking of bottles and cans, and swishing and squeaking of the wiper against my car's windshield clutter my ear, but also the rushing of various cars coming and going with their lights flickering through the mist and rain to this place that I am so used to being silent as a child. Faster and faster I drove my car, so I could still catch the early morning, but the slippery road got me and nearly gave way to my demise to the road's bank with a tree by its side, luckily my foot caught wind of the situation and quickly slammed on the breaks; thus I continued on my long drive.
By dawn, I arrived at the edge of the village and parked my car as it could not handle the dirt road here. There was no more rain, yet the wet air as it howls and rustles the leaves and grasses makes my skin shiver and freeze my breath. I cannot see far towards the distance with the thick fog against me. However, such a mist cannot stop me from my tracks, it will never stop me to go back home, thus I started to walk blindly across the dirt road my ancestors made. As I was walking, the hours seem not to pass as the light barely pierced the sky, but only the high mountain whose silhouette I could see against the sea of haze; the sky's roar echoed through the woodlands, but it might as well be the horrid screams of crows, and the cries of beasts and prey lurking in grass and forest. The place is just desolate and eerie, contrary to the past where it was all summer and lively the wind sings its song.
Never have I felt lonelier in such a place before, never have I seen a place so gloomy as this. Thus, deep in the road I stopped walking and sat on the grass, it was all silent except the noise made by my breathing, no howls nor roars nor plip-plops. Suddenly, against the haze, I saw a running shadow: alone the shadow gleefully sings, dancing, and laughing around juxtapose to the road's melancholy. The shadow approached me still dancing, a child, and said to me thus, "Oh, mister, what a wonderful day is it to be frolicking around the forest and grass? The singing of birds atop the magnificent trees! Howling of the winds making the grasses, shrubs, leaves, and even trees dance in folly! The streaks of sunlight making its way to the ground so they could run about the land! The roars of beasts and crying of prey from their little play! Such a majestic day! Isn't it, mister?" and before I could utter a reply the child left in amusement, and back to the obscurity of this place of misery. What the child, who might as well be a ghost, said left me awestruck and shaking as if I had just entered back to this place; already I was a cracked shellfish, and now I am shell without the fish. A tear nearly grazed my skin, but the frosty wind slapped me freezing what I almost shed. What was I thinking! Thanks to the inanimate I was relieved of all my fears. How a man can be so stupid to be afraid of the journey he has beset himself to find peace? Thus, I stood again, triumphantly against the coward who was I and continued to walk towards the village, still following the dirt road.
