Yume

I had a dream once, a very beautiful dream. I had a time machine, and I decided to go back into the past and show one of my ancestors what the future was like. I went back into time and brought him to a town in 2008. I told him some things about 2008 and told him things to be scared of and things that he need not fear.

At night, I brought him out for dinner, showing him how food taste likes now. I didn’t eat much myself, for I was too busy observing his reactions. He ate them and, unlike what I expected, commented that it was not as tasty as the food was back at home. I was shocked. Why would a person from the past say that our food was not nice? They didn’t have much spices back then, they didn’t have much salt back then. Why? He merely commented that there was no hard work found in the food. That was so not true. I told him about how hard it was to earn money and how hard it was to afford such food. He smiled and said that something bought would never taste as good as something you planted yourself. I disagreed, but said nothing.

I brought him out onto the streets, showing him the wonderful street lamps we have that helped save so many people’s lives. He pointed to the sky. “There are no stars to guild us,” he said. Are people from the past so helpless? I wanted to prove to him that the present was so much better than the past.

I showed him how cars help us so much in our daily lives. “You cannot interact with the car like how we can with horses,” he said.

I shoke my head and showed him the television. He said, “what is the point of looking at what you cannot experience personally? Live is much better if you spend your time happily instead of looking at others arguing.” I sighed. He was hopeless. He smiled and politely said that he wanted to go home.

I brought him home, totally defeated by his many excuses. Just as I was about to leave him, he turned around and said, “let me show you how life should be.”

The next day, he wanted me to help him plant his crops. It was really hard work, but by the end of the day, things changed. Even though the rice was plain and tasteless, it seemed to me that it was the nicest thing on earth.

Then, at night, he showed me the stars. A sky full of stars, was nothing like what you could imagine. It was not tiny bulbs hanging in the sky, but thousands of different lights, each bearing a different meaning. I could not believe my eyes.

The next day, he showed me a horse. It looked plain to me, an ugly, dirty horse, but he proofed to me that it was not just a stupid animal, but a loyal horse. When it pulled the cart, I could see its whole body straining. It did not complain, it did not resist, and it did its best. He showed me how bad a horse can behave when badly taken care of. A car would be easier to use, for there was no need to take care of it like how you take care of the horse. But it was different. It was different.

Then, the day after that, he brought me to the forest. Helping me climb a tree, he explained to me how still I should be when I was waiting. We sat in the tree and waited. Mosquitoes and other inset buzzed around us, but I did not move, for I did not want him to think that people from the future were wimps. It was a long wait. Then suddenly, a bush rustled. I was so startled I wanted to scream, but he grabbed my hand and reminded me what he had just told me. I sat still. A doe with its fawn appeared. The way the fawn took care of the fawn and the way the fawn reacted was just so unimaginable. It was something no documentary on earth could ever capture. Perhaps it was because of the buzzing mosquitoes, perhaps it was the fast that there was hardly any such scenes left on earth in 2008 since so many forests were destroyed.

I woke up as another person.

Note: Yume means dream in Japanese