Eno, Moebius, Roedelius - The Shade

Houska.

I... I've come so far to see you and...

Beautiful day, isn't it?

Me? I'm Sniff, pleased to meet you! If I know you? Why, of course I do! We've seen each other before, haven't we? Moominvalley? That's right, I live here. Where do you live? Oh, that's such a nice place to live in. No, I have never been there, but maybe one day I'll be.

I don't think I want to leave this place yet. One day, I'll be rich and then I can afford travelling around the world by myself. It's a dream I have nurtured since childhood. Yes, by myself, I'm not sure if anyone else will come with me, and I don't want to lead a life filled with uncertainties.

Nice flowers. Are they yours? Oh, I see. You took care of them.

Mr. Hemulen appreciates flowers as well. Do you know him? Mr. Hemulen? He has quite a beautiful garden outside his house. Sure, I can present him to you. If he's my friend? Why, yes. I have lots of friends. You don't know their names? Quite a few of them, you mean? That's fair. Don't worry, you'll get to know them better. I know because I struggled with making friends too. It's hard, I know. Really hard.

You mean if I'm friends with "Moo mint roll"? Wait, who's that? Never heard of that name before. Wait a moment... Uh huh... Oh, no, no! I'm sorry, but his name is Moomintroll, you silly!

Moomintroll? Yes, we call him Moomin as well. They live in that blue house. They used to live somewhere else before they moved into Moominvalley. Yes, I know because I've been here for a long time. I was lost in the woods, I thought I'd never see or feel the sun again until the Moomins arrived. Moomintroll was one of my first friends, his mother took care of me and, yeah, it's quite a story. Maybe I'll tell the rest later, I'm not in the mood of digging my own past right now.

The blue house? No, I don't live there, I have my own house. I visit the Moomin family very often, I owe them my life. Whenever I can, I go there to see if they're alright. There is Moominpappa, Moominmamma, Moomintroll himself... I guess that's all for the members of the family. They are such kind people, let me tell you. I wonder who I would be without them. I would not even be here, probably.

I got more friends other than the Moomins. There's Mr. Hemulen, as mentioned before, and... Oh! There's Snufkin, he is one of my friends, as well as Moomin's. Snorkmaiden is my friend too, yeah. Ever heard of Little My? You might think she's annoying but if you know her better, Little My has a soft spot. Everyone does.

Uh... You see, that's why I'm here... Here to say, uh... I don't want to be here, but... I have to. It's the right thing to do. You see, the first time we met... It was a disaster, and I can't forget, no matter how much I try... I tried, but I failed many times, and...

Houska... I'm here to say that I... I am sorry about your flowers, and... I should not have... I should have known better that... Your flowers... I ruined your flowers, and I'm deeply sorry. I didn't want to startle your flowers or make you upset, you see.

I did not want to... I just... Wanted to say that I... I thought that... I wasn't thinking.

Back then, my mind was somewhere else. It was not me talking... I... I was, how do you say... Lost in the green? Maybe, but today... I feel better. I... I feel a lot better... I feel like I am truly myself, and... It was not me who, uh... I was there, but... This is me talking... The one Sniff you're looking at, this is who I really am... And I feel... I feel it's the right thing to do after I... I did not want to do it.

I'm here to say that I can't stop thinking about the day we first met, and... I am sorry. Sorry... I didn't mean to say those things... Your poor flowers, I didn't mean to hurt them... And... Don't be mad at me, I want to... I didn't know how you felt, why can't we just... Why...

...

What am I doing here?

Come on, it shouldn't be that hard.

Just go there and say what you have to say. What needs to be said, the right thing.

I've been thinking for hours and I still can't say anything meaningful and coherent? Oh, please, I stared right into the Groke's eyes! I saw the comet's descent and survived to tell the story! But this? This is ridiculous. It's as if I'm trapped behind a wall of glass, unable to convey my feelings. So stupid... Houska surely feels the same way. Does she? I have no idea how she feels. I have no idea how I should feel.

She's right there, watering her flowers, and you're here, thinking and overwhelming yourself with thoughts. Are you afraid your tongue will slip and you'll say something bad? Is there anything else to say that isn't bad?

So... What do I tell her? "I'm sorry", that's all I can think of. Pretty simple, don't you think? It really should be. Simple words for simple thinking. Nothing complicated. Just go there, look at her and say what you have to say. But... What if I lack the proper words right in the moment I'm about to say them? What if my mouth is too dry for any words to come out? What if I don't remember what I'm supposed to say?

Oh, don't be silly! You'll remember it. But what if I don't remember? That's what worries me. What if I yell at her? My heart would shatter into a thousand pieces if I did that. And what about her heart? Isn't it already in pieces after what you did to the poor thing? Do you know how she feels inside? Alone and unreal, but that's a guess. There's no room for doubt and second-guessing here.

I don't want to say anything that might hurt her. I don't want to make her cry. I don't want to look pathetic in front of her. I don't want to commit the same mistakes as before. I don't want to pour my heart out to someone who won't listen to me. I don't want to disappoint her, I don't want to make her look awful with my words, I don't want to hold on to this burden any longer!

The horrible memories tend to linger longer than the pleasant ones. Do we even have good memories of each other? We don't.

Well, I could just forget she exists and move on with my life, as Snufkin proposed back then, but I'm not him. I'm not the lone wanderer who leaves his friends behind to travel whenever winter comes. To be honest, I came to forget her and it was good while it lasted. Now, I can't live knowing that someone hates me and that it's my fault. What should I do? If I come near Houska, she will rip the heart out of my chest and laugh. Will she? As if you haven't done worse.

I haven't seen her in quite a long time and I don't think she wants to see me ever again. She made it clear last time: "...And don't you ever show yourself in front of me again, you barbarian! You murderer! Flower thief! Assassin!..."; I was called all sorts of names on that day and... Was it really her who was talking? Suddenly, it was almost as if a terrible impersonation of herself had crawled into her and that perverse creature I had summoned took her place and began to assimilate with her being, and she was no longer herself.

I saw what she really looked like beneath the pale and tender skin. How come anger makes a person unrecognizable beyond themselves?

She said those hurtful things when she was upset. I don't blame her, I too would be very upset if a stranger came to me and shouted "I LOVE YOU!" out of nowhere and then ripped my flowers and... Did I really do that to her? I did. And I'm very sorry. Houska was just minding her own business when I came in and ruined everything. She likes flowers... But not on a bouquet, you imbecile.

I didn't mean to pick her flowers. As a matter of fact, I didn't know that she was pulling out the weeds so that the flowers could grow freely in the open field. How could I know? If only I had the chance to talk with her instead of struggling to find any words to say when all I had in mind was... It was... Love? But I don't feel anything anymore, yet I feel something. Is it guilt? Shame? Regret? A combination of all three?

I don't want to end up alone, much less knowing that someone hates me. I want to apologize, but will it even matter after all of the things I have done? It wasn't just me picking her flowers. It was murder. I went there and killed the things she cared for the most, right in front of her. They were screaming in pain and there were like a million flowers in the field, could you imagine a million voices screaming in your head? I did not listen, but Houska did. It's something unforgivable, and yet, I demand forgiveness. That's all I can do.

Flowers... I could comment on the fact that it hasn't been proven by science that plants don't have consciousness and therefore can't feel pain, but that wouldn't help at all, apart from making me look like a more insensitive idiot than I already am, and let's be fair, science and emotions do not mix very well. Logic can't solve all of our problems. If it did, then I could just figure out how to use Moominpappa's time machine to travel back in time and slap myself in the face for ever making Houska cry and recoil in fear. Yeah, science, emotions, not a good mix, not at all. Now, if I slapped my past self, would I feel the pain then or now? Either way, it wouldn't solve anything. Violence, against yourself and others, is never the answer.

I know it because on that day, back on the pier... I almost drowned. It wasn't my intention. All I wanted was to be left on my own and to wash my face with some cold water. When I took a few steps down the ladder to see a reflection of myself on the ocean's surface, I noticed that behind me were Moomintroll, Snorkmaiden and Little My in a hurry. They thought I would end my life right there, and maybe I wanted to, but it's something I don't like to think about. I'm afraid of drowning because I can't swim and when someone drowns, it's silent. No one would hear me if I sank into the depths. What a pitiful way of biting the dust, and I got plenty of years ahead of me.

I had no idea what was going on in my mind. I was so distraught, so confused, that I'd never... I'd never do that... On purpose. I don't want to blame Houska for that because the blame is all mine, it was my foolishness, and besides, I wasn't the only one who got hurt. Complicated, isn't it? Now that I'm thinking clearly, my words should come out clearly. I hope so, for my own sake. I have to watch my step because I don't want to crush any flowers under my feet. I don't want to be responsible for the death of a million unborn plants. Do plants know what death is? It's inevitable, but do they know?

I think so, all life knows death in some way. Otherwise, why would seeds exist? Why do we struggle to leave things and the best of us behind?

Now, here's a better question: Do plants feel empathy, pain, anxiety, joy, loneliness? I thought I would find one answer that made sense in the books I read, but I suppose not everything has to make sense. Books aren't written by plants, so who knows how they truly feel. The closest I got to an answer that kind of made sense came from my father. Months ago, when I visited my old folks, we talked for hours about their collection of buttons from around the world, a favorite subject in all our conversations, and then I asked them if plants could think, to which my mother said that "Yes! They do! Plants are aware of their surroundings. Otherwise, what's the point of growing above the ground?".

My father seemingly agreed, although he also added that trees are not aware of vanity despite lots of people saying they're beautiful. Or maybe it's because they're deaf, I mean, have you ever seen a plant with a pair of ears? I don't think they need them to live, and for how long have plants lived? They came before us, didn't they? Without them, we would not be alive.

I feel quite optimistic today despite my great sorrow. I suppose all philosophers have felt this way at some point in their lives. I don't consider myself a philosopher, not the serious kind. Like, if the Muskrat and I stood side by side, anyone could tell we are at odds in every way, but sometimes there are days when I find myself reflecting in great detail on the things I've done and what I can do to improve myself over my past failures. I think that's what it means to grow up, and I see that, after all this time and the pain we've inflicted on each other and ourselves, Houska looks so... I'd say alone, but the flowers in the field are her company.

She looks the same as before, yet something in her is different this time. Has she grown up? Or maybe it's me, I didn't have this feeling in the beginning. She is beautiful, that I can't deny, but it's strange, I don't care about her beauty or the shape of her nose or how her nose and mine look alike... Heh, it's the kind of coincidence that makes life so bizarre and unusual.

Other than her nose, I see someone else besides Houska... It's me. I see myself in her. I can see it clearly... Not this me as a whole, but the better half of me, the one who didn't spend years in search of a money tree. I never had a garden of my own and I never considered the world in general as such. Instead of making life grow, my only desire was to grow wealth, but there's a part of me that just wants to live without the fear of having no purpose. If in life, or at least in my life, I was taught that the only purpose is to earn other's respect the same way one earns money and accumulates material possessions, then what else is there left for me to do?

By gaining or finding riches, I confirm my own existence. In the past, which can also mean yesterday, I was often accused of being greedy, of not caring about others except myself, but if I wasn't like that, then my essence would disappear without anyone knowing I existed, or so I thought. Money has value, but it has no life; in the end, it's just round pieces of metal or paper that can easily burn up.

Plants, however... How much life someone or something needs to have in order to be considered worthy of someone's affection? What would Houska say? Probably something about how she treats plants, as well as birds, frogs, insects and all sorts of animals as just as sentient and worthy of comfort as people because, well, I have no idea. "If you're kind to others, kindness will come back to you", as the saying goes. I was anything but kind with her back then.

The gap between my own inner emptiness and her inner abundance... I don't deserve to be here, her smile is killing me. What if I take that smile away from her too? How far will I allow my greed to treat others like possessions? To what extent can my darkest impulses ruin not only my life, but also someone else's life altogether? Whatever I decide to do, I can't change what has already happened, but the future holds a lot of possibilities.

It's not the end of the world, the comet approaching, the tides rising... I know it's hard, but I can do it. I'll talk with her, sooner or later. I just have to think a little more about it, I have so many things to say, so many thoughts to sort out... Which ones to share, which ones to listen to, which ones to ignore... I want to see Houska, hear her voice and listen to what she has to say. Will I agree or disagree with her words? I'll only know if I hear someone else's voice besides mine.