humanity
For better or for worse, relationships reveal the core of the human condition.
The Watcher
Every night I see its eyes. They bore into me like iron pokers that have been left to fester in the glowing hearth. The large, yellow-hued eyes of the owl that perches outside my window each evening watch as I go about my nightly routine. The unblinking, attentive nature of them leaving my gut swashing with uneasiness.
By Nichole LaCrosse4 years ago in Humans
FLY
As a girl, I'd always dreamt that I could fly. I could soar - high above the world, in an eternal paradise of white, softness, and warmth. I was one with the migrating geese, who were seeking the sun, to escape the cold winter and the cold reality of the world around us. I would often lay in the itchy sneeze-inducing grass in my grandmother's back garden and trace the clouds and the stories that they told - magnificent tales of fantastical battles, of knights yielding their swords and dragons. Oh, how I longed to be in one of these tall tales.
By Abbie Redpath4 years ago in Humans
Kindness is Quintessential
Only through kindness will we find the end to any strife. It seems as the years pass us by in this ever-evolving modern world, the introductory notes of human kindness deteriorate around us. We are becoming a more cold and calloused world. The hardness of life, in turn, makes every throw up their barriers and become harder. Individuals who are further removed from giving kindness will find it hard to receive kindness when it is shown to them. One of the ways I want to expand the compassion I put out into the world is to remember how to accept it myself.
By Tyler C Douglas4 years ago in Humans
Solipsism. Runner-Up in We Have a Dream Challenge.
We each make our own universe. All of the visible electromagnetic frequencies that strike our retinas, perturbations of air that oscillate our eardrums, temperatures that compare and contrast on our skin to derive a common sense of hot or cold, molecules that trigger our olfactory cranial nerve in a code deciphered higher up as smell--these are all data. The human brain, that majestic evolutionary assembler of such data and collator of it into meaning, is like a graphic user interface--a GUI like Windows or IOS. Others whom we encounter, with their own universes, are like the World Wide Web and have their own GUIs.
By Gerard DiLeo4 years ago in Humans
Silver Slivers
How brightly you shine, how radiantly you glow. You have changed so much since we first met five years ago. I still remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. In those days you carried yourself differently, reminding me of a world-worn dog that you see in shelters or inside of chicken-wired fencing. The kind that stare into oblivion as you approach it, but by the time you hear the low rumbling that was actually its growling, the poor thing was already baring its fangs at you, ready to maul whoever dared offer it a hand, comforting or otherwise.
By Bethy Parr4 years ago in Humans
Through their eyes.
The old barn stands lost and forlorn at the boundary of a vast property. It has been unused for decades. Well not totally unused. It houses the usual families of mice and lizards and the occasional passing stray fox, and the rafters and rotting loft have been home for many generations of barn owl. Quiet, observant, wise looking, ghost faced barn owls.
By Michael Saunders4 years ago in Humans
