Nature's Antidote

• Fred Hawkins, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2016

Vern slouched, effortlessly, in a puffy, fat leather recliner in his gloomy living room. His back and neck arched forward in an ambitious hunch. His face was buried, yet illuminated within a glowing, digital screen. Perched around him in the sombre, dimly lit room were his family – his brother, mother and father, all anchored to a couch, inanimately, gazing into the depths of a phone or laptop screen.

As he fixated his eyes on the screen, a disruptive message caught his optical, “Could not connect”. The internet was out.
?The room erupted with mellow scoffs and ‘tsks’ of agitation. Vern scowled, sat up and blurted, “Mum, the internet’s out and I’m bored. What can I do?” She glanced at him glumly and replied, “Hon, it’s 12 in the afternoon, get some fresh air. Go outside” then resumed a ponderous gaze at her laptop. Vern shot one final hopeful glance at his phone, then reluctantly obliged his mother and trudged towards the door. ‘What else was there to do anyway?’ he murmured to himself.

He shut the door, facing the outside and walked. As he wandered down the street, into a gravel path splicing off of the road, he began to examine the blemishing scrub around him, first in boredom, then in amusement.
He continued down the stretching track, further pulling himself away from the road. From the houses and lights. From mankind.
And like a wave ushering a surfer toward the shore, a thin, fresh, youth of wind swept him from behind, seething a cool, crisp, blissful sensation of rejuvenation through his clothing and around his body. Vern felt an incredible mental lurching cascade into him, as if a meteor of realisation had smacked his brain into perception. He felt human. He heard a breeze rustle through the heaving, majestic pines, formulating a crisp applause, like the rousing at the end of a perfected opera performance. Surrounding him were tufts of grass, among various outbursting plants, like fireworks uprooting from the ground. Sunlight and blue speckled through the trees. Nature. It all appealed to him now. The melodies of birds jingled and scattered throughout the air. Insects flickered and clicked throughout the sea of plants. Nature welcomed his existence. This was no silly old melancholy glow of light from an artificial creation.
This was Mother Nature, offering the world at his very feet. Vern happily grimaced, then turned around to walk back. Five minutes he spent. For five minutes he was exposed to an explosive mouthful of life, to which he gladly succumbed.

Vern ambled up his road and trudged back up his driveway. He opened the door and stepped inside. The house was cramped, dark, stuffy and thick - just as he had left it. He glanced at his sitting family, silent, as they had been all day, their devices still in their grasp.
Vern gazed at his family and then outdoors. Without further deliberation, Vern reversed his step, shut the door and stepped back into real life.