The Inner Fires [Short Story]

I remember walking in an unknown land. I encountered the stunning sight of the glimmering summer ocean. My whole being stopped to take it all in. Beauty is too weak a word, we use it for too many things. All I can tell you is that when primordial poets first observed the earth, this is what they meant when they said Beauty. The more I stared at it the more details I noticed:
How the clouds gently strolled across the sky. How the sun generously bathed everything in golden light.

But the thing that strikes the most, perhaps, was the scope. I could feel my own mind being stretched out to infinity as I tried to take it in. It didn't make me feel insignificant, it made me feel ecstatic, because I knew I was a part of that infinity. I don't know how long I stood there, staring. It would have felt blasphemous to think in terms of time at this place, this altar of Beauty not made by the hands of Man.

After I was done honoring the view , I walked a little bit farther. I noticed there was another forest to the right of me. I walked right in like it was the house of an old friend who had told you that you could stop by anytime.

"Sssssshhhhhhh..... SsssshhhSSSshshhhhhh"... My ears caught the inviting tune of a stream nearby. I felt blessed; Life has provided a feast for me today! I followed the sound. I admired the water for a little while and then I placed my right foot on a rock in the stream, and when I felt that my footing was firm enough, I placed my left foot on it as well. I looked ahead. There was a rock within a step's distance of me for as far as I could see, like a little trail. My curious mind exclaimed: Maybe I could follow it to the source of the stream?

I walked on each rock, sometimes slipping a little bit into the water. I got to a certain point and there were no more rocks to step on, and the stream got too deep for it to be worth following to the end.

The last rock was big enough to sit on, and so I did, cross-legged like a meditating Buddha. I stared at the stream, my eyes darting along trying to follow the constant arising and dissolving of the water. As hard as my eyes and mind tried to discern where the waves began or ended, they just couldn't. The water was totally and utterly formless and wouldn't yield to my mind’s attempts to draw lines that would conceptualize it and make it easier to fathom.

Because of that, something in me snapped. My conceptual mind gave up trying to rationalize the world and saw the pure, raw elemental life constantly before it. Everything came alive and every second of me seeing this stream became the first time I had seen it over and over again.Pure novelty. It was the only true to way to see it; to see it in any other way would be a lie. There was nothing the same in the stream from moment to moment. It was an illusion that my mind had superimposed on it, making me see the concept of water instead of the water itself, making something solid out of something so fundamentally fluid.

I gazed at the stream,  enraptured at the sight of this simple awe.

But, tragically, that sense of separateness and sense of "I've seen this before"-ness came over me again, like a veil.

That whole sequence of events is immortal to me.

"Danny!" my mother cried from inside the house, interrupting my train of thought and snapping me out of my daze. I tried to bring the thoughts I was having about my summer vacation to some kind of conclusion, but then she cried again and the urgency in that second cry got me going inside the house from our yard, which I realized I had been laying in for the last twenty minutes at least.

I walked in and saw that she was serving breakfast. Dad was already at the table, eating. Bacon and eggs. "What were you doing out there, anyway? You were up pretty early.". "I was just thinking" I responded, trying to brush her question off so she wouldn't pin me down. She understood that and didn't press me any further. Sometimes her 18-year old son doesn’t want to make light of the shadows of his thoughts.

"Son, hurry up and finish, you’re going to be late for school". My Dad said in an authoritative tone. I ate as fast I could. The food was okay. I was too busy being in my head for me to enjoy the sensations of the food passing through my mouth. All three of us ate speedily. Mom and Dad had to go to work at roughly the same time that I had to go to school, and at this rate it looked like I would be late because they had to get to work first.

We all hopped in the car, driving. We had some standard chit-chat to fill the car with noise. Usual stuff, "What do you have for school today?" "What are you doing after school today?" "Me and your mother will be home at...". Blah blah blah. It was different from the vacation that we recently returned from and which I was remembering in the yard, where we were all lively and laughing with each other.

We drove by the dull grey sidewalks, grey streets and grey buildings that have covered the whole world. Everything was so gray. All the concrete - that is, mostly everything - was gray. The sky was gray today. Our car was gray. Even the school I was being sent to was gray.

Gray is by far the most boring and least aesthetic color. There is nothing in it that captivates the senses, or that expresses any feelings in our souls, like how red invokes passion, gold invokes glory, or green invokes nature… the only thing I can imagine gray invoking is boredom.

I wondered what people would ask me when I got to school, and how I would respond to them. "Where were you?" "On vacation" I'd say, and then they'd mechanically go on what a good time I’d had. While they were doing that I'd be desperately trying to reconstruct those scenes of beauty and wonder. Remembering them is the only way to save me from this modern banality that absorbs me whenever I get back home and which seeps into every crevice of my soul.
It's like while out and exploring the natural world I was awake, but back here the world lulled me into a sleep, so that I sleepwalked through life.

Why do people want to live like this? More importantly, why do I even want to live like this? I think the speed and banality of our lifestyle takes on a mind of its own and we mistake that for what's really real. I think one day I'll abandon all of my possessions, or sell them, and just walk as far I can go.

I'll sleep on the streets, hitchhike, find all of Nature's secret spots, see the world... anything for an adventure. "Oh yeah” I can imagine my Mom or Dad saying, "And then what?" and they’'ll bring up a list of things to worry about like food, shelter, and security. I’d say back, “An adventure is not a pleasure cruise, an adventure has its ups and downs. An adventure has uncertainty. If that's not what you want, don't go on an adventure. You don't have to spit on my inspiration just because the fiery blood of your own youthful enthusiasm was put out ages ago!!”.

Well you know what? My own inner fires are blazing too hard to be put out. Sometimes they are like a raging inferno that will consume everything in sight! Or maybe my own fiery blood will become too much to contain and will kill me from the inside if I don't appease it by offering it what it wants: more achievements, more bliss, more adventures, more beauty, more, more more!!

I finally arrived at school and walked inside like a zombie. While I was entering I saw a pebble. It reminded me of the stream. Just being able to imagine that “Sssshhhhh...Sssshhssshhhh…” soothed me. I looked out a window. The sun looks glorious today. I love the way it shines on the people passing by. Sometimes when they smile their faces are as bright and as warm as the sun itself. In fact, as much as I loved my summer vacation, I am awfully happy to see so many of these people again. Any radical thoughts about abandoning my possessions and adventuring get put aside as I join my friends and we make plans for the rest of the day.