Pure Perfection

“Stop, there’s a –” THUMP! “Okay.”

  Sighing, I ambled over. “Break anything?”

  “Nope, don’t think so. Give me a hand, maybe?”

  I looked towards the sky, relishing the warm sun pouring onto my face. I really needed to get out of my dark, cramped apartment more. Heck, my mother called me a ‘fungus’ because I always sat in a dark corner all day, not talking to any human being, wearing my glasses and keeping to myself. Birds were flitting across the sky. I guess it would be cool if I could be one too. An eagle, maybe. They were very cool. A sparrow? I hardly saw any of those these days. Then again, I didn’t see much other than my gadgets’ screens, books and the walls of my apartment.

  Ian getting up from the ground with a long, low, painful groan broke me out of my reverie.

  I looked at him with a smile, to be returned by a glare.

  “Hey, wow – are those butterflies?” Beautiful animals, insects or trees always distracted him, and it did.

  He hummed, lifting his camera to his eyes, and clicking a few times.

  I gotta say, if not for Ian, I might have missed all this. He was a nature enthusiast, and really loved wildlife photography. He always had a camera dangling from his neck, ‘just in case'. After initial sarcasm, I had quickly come to realize that the very expensive thing was not just for show-off. He did it for a living. Alongside other nature stuff. He was always outside for something or the other. His job was perfect for someone who loved spending time outdoors, amidst birds and trees and whatever.

  As we walked off, I turned my face to the sky to breathe in the fresh air … and instantly wrinkled my nose.

  “Where did the smoke come from?” I mumbled. It was pretty obvious – a few cars had just driven past the entry gates to get to the parking, making loud sounds, and letting out voluminous amounts of smoke in the air.

  “Dude! What’s wrong with these people? Would it kill them to get those rusty, old things checked? Or maybe walk or cycle here?” Ian just looked on silently, and shrugged.

   I looked at the sparse rides in the carnival. Not one of them ran on electricity. In an urban city, they would be substantially boring. But out over here, with flowers and trees all around the place, the woods right outside the boundaries, it was a miniature heaven in the lap of nature. The birds that had momentarily flown away from the noise and smoke, came flitting back, enjoying the sun as much as I was.

  It was so peaceful. No noise other than the friendly chatter of the few people around us and the birds singing. No loud machines, no jammed roads, no ugly buildings blocking the breeze, no stupid skyscrapers obscuring the view of the skyline. Warm sunshine. Felt like the perfect setting for a touchy-feely, emotional movie.

  And where did that thought come from?

  A few rides and unpleasant whiffs of smoke later, Ian walked over to the hot-dog stands with me in tow. As we sat down to eat, Ian looked at me seriously. Which was rare.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “You need brain cells for that.”

  “I’m serious.’’

  “Okay, sorry.”

  “And that was so overused.”

  “You were saying?” A substantial amount of our conversations went like this.

  “So, as I was saying … this is a beautiful place. As in, miniature heaven kinda beautiful – at least for me.” For me, too, dude. But he didn’t look like he wanted to get interrupted.

  “Lovely scenery, fresh air, quaint ambiance –” Nice words. “- and you saw how all of that got disturbed by a couple of people driving those horrible vehicles into this place, right into the heart of nature. They are exploiting the Earth that has given us so much. Did you see how those poor birds had to fly away because they couldn’t bear all that smoke? They are being chased out of their own habitat. Because of our vanity. Is it that hard to cycle or walk here? Think about those thousands of poor birds, animals and insects – their homes getting invaded upon and hacked down. And then, when they enter our homes looking for refuge, they themselves are killed. And the irony that the same homes that we now claim as our own are made out of theirs.” So this was what Ian had been thinking all this time he’d been quiet.

  “The world is changing so freakishly fast. There are so many species of  living creatures going extinct. Some have been getting poached to extinction right in front of our eyes. And I have been feeling so terrible lately, just sitting here , doing nothing, enjoying my naive human comforts, while so many animals are getting tortured – shipped off illegally, caged, tied down – creatures of the free air – and then killed. So many – and what am I doing? What are we doing? This is not progress; this is not development – not when, at the end of the day, we are still just killing innocent souls – exactly like our ancestors did, just at an exponentially higher level – to give ourselves the illusion of ‘progress’, when we should be looking out for ways to counteract the damage our ancestors have already done.”

  When Ian got emotional, he was very deep.

  He looked at me hopefully. “So … what I’m trying to say is … I wanna join an NGO or something – y’know – go on campaigns to ‘Stop Climate Change’, plantation drives, the sort – just try to actively DO something, and not just sit and watch as nature gets destroyed. I’ve already done my research and stuff, and was thinking I’ll visit the NGO tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, a few years later, I will have made an impact on the world – a good impact on the world; but that’s probably too far away. I just wanna try, though. I thought you, too, would be like-minded on this. So … you in?”

  Well, what could I say after that emotional, heart-felt rant?

                                                                                 ***

  “Wait, stop –“ THUMP! I sighed and ambled over – the same reaction every time for twenty years. Some things never change, do they?

  “I know that asking you this is probably useless –“ Isaac sighed. “But can you help me up, maybe?”

  Ignoring him, I turned my face to the sun, relishing the warm light on my face. I stayed outside a lot (I am a climate activist), but the sun on the 21^st of March, out over here in the countryside, right next to the woods, was just heavenly and … different. Birds flitted across the sky – I could see pigeons, cuckoos and Red – winged blackbirds. The woodpeckers were everywhere, which was nice, as I really liked them. I remember one of my first campaigns was to save woodpeckers from extinction. Good to know I'd made a difference. I looked with an infinite amount of pride towards the woods outside the boundary gates. We had pretty great history with those woods as well.

  My mom and Isaac’s dad had started plantation when they were 22, right next to the naturally – growing woods, in an effort to undo the damage tree-cutting had made. Throughout the years, both our families had, alongwith a few volunteers we hired, worked dedicatedly to expand the woods. Our efforts showed fruit, as our trees grew tall and strong right next to the natural woods, nearly indistinguishable from them. They were all just as gorgeous, and the inside was just as peaceful and beautiful. Due to the new tees, the pretty birds in the forest were breeding nicely, too.

  I turned to smile at a winded Isaac, who stared back glumly (as usual).

  I turned my nose to the air instead, breathing in the fresh, woodsy-smelling air. Electric cars pulled up into the parking lots, and I smiled as I remembered how hard our NGO had worked to stop petrol and diesel vehicles, especially in countryside areas. Like this one.

  Yeah, our families never had a quiet week. We were always up to something or the other, and I’m pretty glad to say that it wasn’t in vain. Though before starting, a lot of stuff had seemed extremely hard to complete (like the wood expansion); but all it took was time, patience and dedication. That much we all had.

  My mom told me sometimes (she still does) about how things were when she was my age, how people recklessly exploited nature, cut forests down, poached animals into extinction, coming close to completely exhausting their – our - energy resources (which caused a lot of pollution and problems). She had told me a lot of stuff, most of which I didn’t like, but she also said that she was incredibly happy to see such a huge change in her lifetime. She was happy that nowadays people donated for research to bio-engineer extinct animals back, she was happy that so many people joined our campaigns and plantation drives, happy that transportation had changed so drastically, that there was less pollution and traffic (everything was pretty much digital) – and we were a small, but proud, part of the revolution happening around the world. After all, this was what my mom our parents had dreamt about.

  My mom’s words had touched my heart. I don’t think I can imagine my life inside of an apartment or office building anymore. I felt so free when out in nature. So happy with the people I loved, working with each other to protect something we all honored. So happy about living my life doing something worthwhile, stuff that would not only benefit us, but the generations to come.

  I felt content, listening to the birds chirping, Isaac’s camera flashing next to me to capture the butterflies and bees going about their daily business, warm sunshine, fresh air, clean surroundings, peaceful atmosphere, nature enveloping us, away from any impurity … just pure perfection.