PHQ-Nickname:
LordAsriel
Halfquake:
Garbage Fort
Level:
17
Total kills:
378,946
Birthday:
May 20th 1991
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| Mood: | peaceful |
| Type: | Story |
| Added: | May 24th 2005, 07:01:46 |
| Visits: | 1393 |
| Rating: | Not rated yet. |
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Description:
This a story I wrote feeling confused about human's nature. I've translated it from Spanish for you to read it, so don't disappoint me! |
The Old Willow
Once upon a time, somewhere between the limits of space-time, there was a gray Town, gray as existence itself, gray as the eternal emptiness, gray as inmortality.
In the exact center of this Village, since it's not possible to wait less from such a gray place, there was a Willow, width as a house and old as time. A long time ago, when the Town was yet happy and coloured, It had taken charge of instructing the villagers, making so in everything he knew, that was, indeed, everything been and for being. Inexhaustible source of knowledge it had been for with the Village.
Finally once, though it's not possible to determinate when, in a Village where Time has lost almost all its importance, the people managed to defeat in understanding speed to human mortality. Practically every single adult in the Village knew everything at all.
It was then, when the Village turned into Gray. In the beggining it was an uncertain and transparent gray as fog's one, and then a darken gray, maybe diverse in tones, but gray in essence.
The villagers percieved the change scarcely, and they didn't care about it but with convenience. Finally life had lost every surprise and it was possible to work in peace with the certain prediction of how things would be: exactly as they had been being until then, and there weren't any reasons for this to change.
It wasn't until the last track of undomitable knowledge dissappeared, when the Willow got aware of his mistake: he had transformed the Village in a gray place whit no creativity nor pasions. The Village turned sad and melancholic, and when a few Villagers tried to break monotony barrier, some good arguments from some other gray man were enough to bring them back to rutine.
It was true that people had now more knowledge (much more, probably, than any common mortal), but they lack completely of freedom's wisedom... they were now slaves of their destiny, a destiny that they themselves had imposed them and resigned to it. No, no, the Willow thought, I have imposed it to them, and it's my duty to retire that from their shoulders.
After that, the Willow emptied the villagers minds from all complex and non-insintive knowledge. It thought that if the Village wasn't happy knowing all, it will be happy whitout knowing anything at all. That way, plunged in ignorance, they wouldn't see where to expand themselves, and maybe, just maybe, they would be happy having the maximum of their potential, or at least whatever they thought it was the maximum.
In the beggining everything seemed to be right, all the pople had returned into their primitive and non-conscious status. The Village, though since the evolutive regression it had turned into an animal territory, it had completely brought back its colour. The impulse pasion floated in the air, as if the gray era had not existed.
There was nothing to complain about nor nothing to improve. They were happy just for being. The Willow could not have wished it better.
The time passed, however, and the Willow started realizing that he had committed another mistake. Of course, it was possible to be happy whitout knowing anything at all, but, what kind of happiness was that? The answer was now clear for the Willow: an ignoramus happiness, an animal happiness without more motive for its acts than the one of survival, or even more, a senseless and reasonless happiness; and just thinking of it made the Willow tremble because of its disgust.
It started thinking in a way to put the Village on the paths of Happiness. It revised, after a short Time that, as it's been said, lacks of importance, it revised that he had tried absolute knowledge, and it hadn't work, that wasn't happiness at all; it had tried absolute ignorance, and it hadn't work, that was senseless happiness, stupid if it fits... therefore, it reasoned, it had to find an average point between both limits.
After thinking, calculating and comparing until being absolutely sure that this time it won't have any mistakes, it gave the former villagers just the bit of reasoning, the bit of concience, so they could start evoluting their intelligence and their happiness from their roots.
In a beggining, as in all its intents, everything went on wheels. Villagers developed more haunt techniques, later agriculture, and so on. Of course, thought the Willow, it itself had taken charge of everything to be that way. It congratulated itself for its genious. Nothing could posibly go wrong because everything was precisely calculated. The Willow smiled for itself.
However, after a long time, the Willow started noticing that something was missing. To begin, the Village had lost the fluency it had before the Willow's arrive, in so immemoriable times that it itself, wise among wise persons, had problems to precise. They were again slaves of Destiny, and again it was the Willow the culprit of this. Impatient about villagers' happiness, the Willow acted as fast as it could. It simply gave the villagers the freedom of Election. He thought that would solve everything for once and forever.
How much he was mistaking, because, not that year, nor that month, but that same day, wars started. Wars by means of which villagers destroyed villagers, wars that destroyed the Village and Nature, wars that ended with the Willow's utopia.
The Willow started thinking seriously. That could not be solved by removing Will from villagers, because that would imply ignorant happiness. The Willow could not expect the wars to ended because probably that time every single villager would be dead. Finally, it came to the conclusion that it could restrict villagers' Will for their own good, whitout that to affect their happiness potential.
It intervened between men and informed them of their new restriction: they would not harm each other for any reason at all. It told them it was an absolute law and that them, physically, would not be able of breake it. After a short speech the troops moved back, though there still were those who changed fast glances with their comrades.
The Willow thought that he had finally built a path, with no chances of detour, right to happiness. The following days were happy and pleasants. Though the Village still had not the colours it had at the beggining, that seemed to be the way of things. Every single villager was in constant advance towards happiness, understanding more things and sharing them between them. Everything was perfect, or becoming perfect...
One of those fantastic days, the Willow recieved a messenger who inform it of a parade on its honor, to thank it for the ending of wars. As they wanted the spectacle to surprise it, they told it to wait whit its eyes closed until the set was ready. The Willow accede, why not?
It closed its eyes and waited. Far away he thought haring the sound of hundreds of steps approaching. Ah, he thought, here is when every effort, every penury and failure has its payment.
A violent shout made it get out of its absorption and open its eyes, just to see unnumerable villagers surrounding it and with their axes prepared. In the instant of the shout, the axes fell.
The Willow died agonizing while hundreds of axes were crushing its vital substence with no mercy. Little by little, the villagers felt how they were recoving the color of long ago, the one of those immemorial times. They got back their happiness, though uncomplete, more of the one they really needed. And most important of all, they got back their independence of that selfish and arrogant manipulator who insisted in perfect others, don't seeing that nobody but perhapes it needed to improve.
***
Thanking the reader for the time employed in lecture, I'd like to close this short literary work with two known phrases:
*Happiness is not in Science, but in acquiring Science*
Edgar Allan Poe
*Mistery is the most beautiful thing that it is allowed us to feel. It is the fundamental sensation, the origin of every true art and science. Who can not feel it, who is not able of being surprised or astonished, is dead. His eyes have become extinct.*
Albert Einstein
***
Lord Asriel Belacqua |
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