Chapter 3: Bezhin Meadow
“You inhale peace with every breath, yet a strange unrest comes upon your spirit”
As a drowning man frantically grasps at a life buoy, Joseph frantically grasped out at one of his favored “life buoys”, contemporary philosophy. He did all of his philosophical research in the same way he kept up with all of the world's current events, through “free” to consume videos. Of course, his preferred buoy, which specialized in questions of “is,” had nothing to say regarding this “ought” question. Therefore, he had to settle for this “consolation” buoy. Putting on his Bluetooth headphones, he hit play on his phone and began to watch.
As Joseph’s video started, grabbing completely and holding fast his undivided attention, the rhythmic cadence call of an American Goldfinch rang beseechingly through the wooded area. A cardinal, seemingly in conversation with the echoes reverberating off the trees, responded with a resounding and layered series of calls of its own. Freshly fallen, crisp autumn leaves, which covered the path completely, crunched underneath Joseph’s every step. A nimble Osprey flew over a shimmering lake to Joseph’s right, circling something it evidently found intriguing. Gliding down and forward like a spear in flight, the hawk plunged its talons into the lake, which glowed radiantly from the light of the setting sun and carried away a small fish flapping in the air.
To Joseph’s pleasant surprise, the neuroscientist turned social commentator/philosopher turned out to defeat the unpleasant philosophical thesis and affirm the overall positive benefit of life. The “math,” as Joseph perceived it, was carefully done, and all of his “work” was shown just as a student doing algebra homework. After taking all relevant information, known and extenuating factors into consideration, and “carrying the one,” so to speak, life was, on the whole, actually worth living, at least in the opinion of this one commentator, which was good enough for Joseph, at least for the time being. All of this concluded in just a single 56-minute video.
Joseph removed his headphones just in time to hear the cantankerous croaks of a murder of crows and the high-pitched screech of a blue jay. Mosquitoes from a nearby puddle had silently descended during his attentive listening to make an all-you-can-eat buffet out of his lanky limbs, which, despite Sofia’s constant “nagging” and her splurging on the high-end deet-free bug spray and nontoxic sunscreen, remained both unprotected from bugs and slightly sunburnt. Joseph smacked his own limbs with ferocity, causing sharp stings of pain up his arms. The white outline of his palm print was temporarily affixed to his reddened calf.
“This place is disgusting,” Joseph said, increasing his pace to get back to the rental. Unfortunately, in his transfixed state of attention, Joseph soon realized he had no idea where he had walked off to, and his phone was just about to die.
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Sofia’s path to the rental was far less dramatic and far more pleasant. Not only did no insect dare venture too close to her due to the aforementioned bug spray, but her normally fair white skin was even more attractive with a light bronzing from the sun-filled weekend. Though the sun was almost set, she could clearly see each step since the light shining on the path was not obstructed by leaves or trees. She observed a boisterous gaggle of geese quacking and being fed pumpernickel bread by a group of small children near a pond.
Turning at a small bend and nearing the rental, she caught sight of a diligent squirrel digging a hole and planting an acorn he was evidently saving for later.
“Must have gotten full-on mushrooms,” she said, smirking to herself.
After covering the acorn with sufficient dirt, the squirrel, for some reason, didn’t run off but just stood there, staring intently at the dirt mound with its jet-black eyes. He was ostensibly thinking, no, deliberating over something that was so obviously of paramount importance. Such a decision that, after making, could not possibly be revoked, remediated, or reversed. Sofia, squinting to get a better view, slowed her walk, wondering, waiting to see what he would do next.
Almost anti-climatically, the squirrel turned around to run off but then stopped dead in its tracks. Sofia let out an almost silent gasp. Circling back around, it ran or rather hopped as squirrels are apt to do, back towards its hidden treasure. By this point, Sofia was on the doorsteps of the rental, unwilling, no unable to take her eyes off the peculiar squirrel, which she had a strange and melancholy affinity towards for reasons that escaped her. The squirrel then picked up one small and tattered leaf a few feet away and placed it meticulously over the small mound of dirt that hid the acorn, patting it down prior to prancing off and up a tree.
Sofia was silent for a few moments. It seemed like all the sounds of nature that surrounded her grew silent. She breathed out a series of short scoffs through her nostrils, which gradually led into a string of chuckles, then to a number of loud and boisterous laughs, and finally into an almost hysterical fit. Doubling over and smacking her thighs, she could feel her abdomen tightening and aching from the contractions of convulsive laughter. It was a laughter she had not experienced for some years; tears of delight streamed down her cheeks, ruining her mascara. After about a minute of Sofia being in this state of quasi-delirium, the laughs slowly died down until they were back to minor chuckles and short scoffs, and finally, she stood there in silence.
Sofia's breath was heavy but controlled, her eyes fixed on the large leaf over the tiny mound of dirt. A passersby would have thought the tears strewn down her face were actually from a profound sadness. Sofia then walked into the rental and closed the front door gently, knowing exactly what she needed to do.