I have been sitting by the water for an hour now, waiting for some form of inspiration. It hasn't hit me yet, but something else has... Peace. Tranquillity. A clear mind. Freedom....

The silence of the city, I know is so close behind me, is a startling discovery in the cover of trees. I hear no cars, no sirens, no people... it is as if I am alone in the world... What an interesting, though lonely, thought that would be.

The singing birds, happily chanting away while they make their homes, feed whatever children they may have or just go about their daily routines.... its hypnotizing. Better than any form of song one would find on the radio. Bieber's chirp is more like the sound a bird would make had it been hit by a car and dying a slow painful death... I believe the bird would still sound better.

A sound above me wakes me from my thoughts...

The chattering of squirrels while they gossip and fight over who stole whose nuts, some snickers so human-like I can almost picture what they are saying.

For once in my life, my mind is free. There is no pressing submission to make, no class to get to, no prof to breathe down my throat... I am free to be irrevocably in awe at the nature that surrounds me.

The water is cold, there is ice floating on top of it, but I feel a strong desire to swim in it. I could disregard the hypothermia, forget the dangerous current and its crossing undertow... I would become one with the purest nature can offer. A mermaid without a tail. The Lady of the Lake, if you will....

I know that the water is a death trap dressed as a beautiful serene scene, but I am entranced by it. I cannot stare away from the way it glitters in the sunlight, like a sea of sparkles having been tossed in front of me. The suns reflection a flurry of golden sparkles against blue, dark green and silver. I want to roll in the sparkles, become a shiny new me.

I don't move from my perch on a large boulder. I yearn to, but cannot fight the input that has been fed to me since I was but a child: DO NOT GO INTO WATER UNATTENDED!

I have always been described as a fish. I swim better and faster than I run. I feel in some ways, like the water... all water... is a lover. It holds me, caresses me, keeps me safe. If I could, I would live within its body as one, no different than the fish who are captured from that peace.

I don't fish. I don't believe in hurting another creature. I don't believe in taking something away from something as majestic and vast as a home of the sea. The water is all connecting, a means of getting anywhere you wish just by swimming. The dangers that lurk below the sea, are nothing like those that lurk above it. The hooks, the knives, the guns, the wars.... People in their natural state: bringers of death.

I am not one of them. I do not fit within the social boundaries of being such as they are. I refuse to kill. I will not pass a wounded creature, even one as faulty as a human, without offering aid.

I will never become a clone or a duplicate. Were we not created differently? What point is there to becoming as another is?

For now, on my perch, I am as we all should be. Naked of all materialistic properties. Clear of all inhuman enforced ideas. Free from the life that is enforced upon any and all who society deems savage.

I stand upon my perch, having made my decision.

The voices of men are drawing near. My perch and I will be discovered in moments.

I am one jump from the water. One jump from the land. I desire both: the human within me desires the safety of a world I would rather not exist in. The native animal within me desires the water, the freedom, the world I was ripped from.

The bushes move, the men are here...

With a final look of desire and passion: I jump.


*********************************************************

My first piece in some time, I hope you enjoy it!