The Silent, Slow-Flowing Bayou River

The movie Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within reveals the notion to its audience that everything in the world has its spirit. Not only flowers, but also the soil or the stones have their spirit. Nature is alive; it keeps growing and changing. Vitality has already sprouted discreetly along the Bayou river under the endlessly enormous sky in this spring evening.

Big marshmallow-like clouds make people watery and want to pick, roast, and taste them as if they were children once more. They must taste sweet with the smell of sunshine. It was rainy yesterday. Now the grass behind the library is still a bit wet and stinging. The shining bead of rain is sliding down from the grass due to the breeze. Tons of the fresh grass spread out riverside; it looks like a tremendous irregularly-woven green carpet. Nestling on the trees behind the library, a little black bird seems tranquil this evening. Meanwhile, an unfriendly feeling pollutes the air. First, a bunch of mosquitoes are dancing randomly. Then, they are flying angrily, accompanied with annoying buzzing sounds. Next, they are cold-bloodedly attacking passing-by students with their solid strategies. The army is annoyingly brutal and huge. A cloud of mosquitoes comes one after another, occupying the place and claiming that it belongs to their territory; the other people are ignorant, accidental intruders.  

Cypresses scatter along the riverside and in the silent, slow-flowing river, standing tall and firmly like inarticulate soldiers. Green leaves of trees come along with spring, and their branches briskly stretch out and desire to touch the sky. A girl with a ponytail, wearing white T-shirts and short sport pants, is paddling the canoe. The canoe is stuck between the trees for a while, and she is whispering anxiously. Finally, the canoe passes through the branches that make scratching sounds.

Along the river, some unpleasant smell is a bit fishy and gross, as if something is rotten under dark opaque water. The smell is dead; it was once alive.

A brown squirrel lifts its tail, climbs down very fast, and searches for foods. It looks careless and proud. When it finally gets a pine corn, it disappears quickly. It has just showed up for few minutes, but its image still exists like a snapshot. 

Scenery reflects in the river like a clear and bright mirror. It is difficult to distinguish which is reflection and which is reality. The wind blows on the surface of the water, and everything waves in the river now. People walking under the floating bridge are rippling with the flow. The trees, the flowers, and bushes all are rippling. It looks like a bridge in a small medieval European town. People are going home with fresh bread and a jug of milk. Sunlight flashes sparklingly on the water. There is the illusion that fish will jump out of golden water, but nothing happens. Only dozens of ripples carry all the reflections, circle on and on and on, and spread out. A middle-aged woman, wearing shaggy clothes, is fishing under the bridge. She calls up a movie A River Runs Through it.The way she throws the fishing rod is just like one of the main characters, probably Brad Pitt, does in the poster of the movie. She stands on the rocks, casts a fishing rod, and pulls it back. The fishing line draws a flying curve. Suddenly, it seems frozen in the air. The moment becomes forever.

The school bell rings and echoes on campus. The sounds are gradually whirling into the river. The heating system beside the library is rotating as if a man who is grunting with sputum in the throat. Somehow he stops for a while, and then he begins to cough up the sputum when people least expect it. The heating system smells rusty. The stains on its body look like scars on its skin.  

Away from the river, the cheering of people near Starbucks is exploding like atomic bombing when they are running, chasing, and vigorously trying to kill each other. It turns out that they are playing Frisbee with each other. The yellow Frisbee is as a top spinning in the air. It has its own path, and it is never controlled by people. One guy is losing the flying disc, but he is still cursing the other guy, “You moron!”

The sunlight has faded away. The sky turns turquoise to grey. The sharp edges of everything become blurred, soft, and tender. It is getting darker and darker. It is surprisingly amazing that the view changes so fast even only within just an hour. Time never stops. Life moves on. The library seems like a castle that is full of bright candelier lights now.

The grass beside the Bayou river stands for a very unique place. Though it is an undisturbed corner, people can enjoy the quietness and the vibrant atmosphere from here. At this particular moment, it seems that nothing is still, and everything is so vivid and wonderful. Busyness could be meaningful, but idling here is even more beautiful.