A young flamingo chick struggles to keep up with its migrating flock across the harsh salt flats.
Left behind beneath an endless sky, it searches for meaning in a world that demands strength to survive.

[Source: https://www.tag24.de/nachrichten/netflix-unser-planet-streamingdienst-warnt-tierliebhaber-baby-flamingo-traenen-twitter-walross-schock-1032196]

Dear Reader

Last year, during an ecology class, we were watching an episode about migration patterns in nature from the documentary series Our Planet. There was a scene showing flamingos on their long seasonal journey — thousands of them walking across a vast white salt flat toward distant water.

Among them, I noticed one small flamingo chick struggling to keep up.

The narrator explained that during these long journeys, some chicks simply cannot walk far enough. The flock moves on, and a few are left behind.

The documentary soon moved on to the next scene, but my mind stayed there.

Why that one?

What happens after the camera leaves?

That question stayed with me for a long time. This story is my attempt to imagine the voice of that lone flamingo.

What follows may sound like the monologue of a flamingo. But I invite you to listen not just to his words but to the emotions behind them.

And who knows… perhaps, in some quiet way, we have all been that flamingo at least once.

I Loved the Sky, If Only for a Moment

Mother Nature!!!. You, who paint the sky with colourful pink wings and paint the earth with our vivid cries, why this quiet punishment? Why do you bind me in this cage of brine and burden?

You, who gave life in abundance, why also bring death?

Why did you make skies so vast and also placed the traps??

Why create lakes that vanish, feed us with algae only to wash it away with poison?

Why permit storms that scatter dreams and predators that haunt the night?

I, born from your dust, shaped by your salt, how cruel that you remain silent as I fall.

Why, I am the unfortunate flamingo who could not fit in your vast design?

They say nature favours the fittest. But what of those who do not fit? Whose wings cracks in the wind, whose legs bleed salt instead of running free? Am I the error in your perfect equation? A loose thread in your game of survival?

Was I a mistake, or an experiment left unfinished in your vast laboratory?

I am confused, as to why there is a fracture deep inside me. I never wanted my story to end like this. My wings though fragile also had a dream and a longing.

Still, why I was given breath if my wings were papers and legs candles. Why this cruel theater where I am the actor who collapses before the curtain rises and the director laughs at me?

*And yet… even now, at the edge of this fading, I remember……

I remember, the sacred presence of my parents, their hopes folding gently into my small body.

I remember, a dance not just for survival, but of love to sustain the existence itself.

I remember, flying not the flight you punished me with but the flight I dreamed on restless nights.

If I must be a whisper lost in the wind, then please, let me be one that speaks truth: that even broken wings once soared, and even my fallow dreams once burned bright.

Mother Nature, you are harsh, yes. But your beauty in your cruelty, the weight of life balanced precariously on edges like mine.

So I will face my fate to rest in this bitter salt. Let your world spin without me, but you should know this: YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS…….

I loved the sky deeply, if only for a moment.

I flew, if only in my dreams.

And in that, I am endless

I was born from the salt. The salt flats stretched around me, endless and sharp. Those first moments were of joy, play and a miracle. That morning light, soft and gentle, pink as my own downy feathers, a sunrise I could almost taste on my beak.

Every step I took was a fresh page in a blank book, my legs drew the masterpiece of uncertainty as if learning a new language written in water and salt. Each bubble on the water was a lesson learnt to survive.

[Source:- https://earthsky.org/earth/flamingos-lifeform-of-the-week/]

We were a flock, a tangled mess of fluff and awkward hope, tiny heretics on an altar of salt gifted by nature to select what it loved? We shuffled and stumbled, lost in a chaotic dance, each cry a raw, unpolished sound to life. The ground beneath us was unfamiliar and tingled as if alive, a vast kingdom of mirrors catching my reflection. In that shimmer, for a fleeting, foolish moment, I believed I belonged. That I was real. I was Wanted.

I am here now . “Am I seen??”. “Am I loved??”.

The world grew with abundant food. Enough feathers to preen , and a lot of friends to mimic. I breathed the joy of beginnings, intoxicated with the sense of possibility itself. The ambience echoed due to laughter of the young, and I, foolish thought I could live always.

But As joy rose within me , the salt was already writing its cruel fate. It came like frost on my legs, crystalizing with every step. The world that gave me life also gave me the debt , I hadn’t yet learned to count.

My story was written in this plane long before salt made my legs shiver. It started with two curious souls ,two characters, in this drama written by the Mother nature itself.

My eyes are closed, blurred now, like water on glass, and I see them: my father’s proud masculine, He walked through storms; he fought the salt that would swallow the weaker souls like me. When he looked up at the sky, it was with laughter in his eyes and confidence in his heart.

My mother, who is fierce but tender, sought him to fulfil her tempest of desire. She craved a partner who could spar with the salt and winds, who carried in his feathers the courage to face the bitterness of this world. So that the offspring would be better fit.

Together, they spun a dream from mud and water, weaving hope out of sharp edges and fierce love. Their dance was brutality and grace entwined. The salt was patient and merciless, losing no opportunity to claim its toll, but they held on.

And I was born their little miniature to the future, a flicker born of their yearning and sacrifice. Their triumph, their gamble, now etches in every trembling feather slipping from my failing wings.

I am faltering as the salt gnaws deeper. I cradle their hope in my weakening heart. I am part of a story far greater than my faltering flight, a story of desire and survival written before I was me.

“Mother Nature,”, “What sin did I commit that you let me stumble, while others rise like dawn? I was as good, as eager, as strong as any then why am I not chosen? Why did you choose my father, but not me? Why?”

Forgive me, Father, forgive me, Mother, I am not the child you dreamed of, the one who would dance the skies and cradle the future. I am the shadow cast in your bright dawn.

How did you survive, Father? How did you find joy in the winds when all I find is suffocation? How did you bear the weight of the salt and still live with joy?

I can’t walk.

My legs fail beneath me, salt crusting at the joints, every step heavier than the last. Father used to say we must walk for miles and miles each day to reach the safe shore.

But now—I see no one. No flock. No feathers brushing close for comfort. Only sky, too far, and salt, too near.

How did he do it?

How did you do it, Father?

How did you bear this same heat, this same salt that now hollows me from within?

How did you find joy in storms, when all I find is suffocation?

The one they called Father Flamingo.

Painted pink by the sinking sun, he walked with purpose through the flats. His errands through windstorms were of tales. When he looked up, it was not with fear, but with laughter.

Laughter that dared the sky to do its worst.

My eyes are closed now. The sun presses down like a judgment, and the salt has begun to creep into the chambers of my heart. My breath shortens. My legs no longer answer me.

And yet—

I see him.

Not as I see myself: fallen, half-formed, doubting.

I see him, as he was—strong, composed of stormlight and conviction.

He did not wear any crown .He did not need it though. His stature was royalty enough. When the winds tore across the flats, peeling feathers from the foolish, he stood tall, neck arched, feathers blazing pink in defiance.

He walked not with arrogance, but with certainty: as if the salt could not touch him.

Each year, he undertook the great pilgrimage.

When the rains ceased and the feeding lakes died . He rose with the flock pink thunder across the sky.

They left the breeding flats, these landscapes of salts and reddish mud, and crossed barren plains in search of waters that still shimmered with life.

Thousands of kilometers.

No maps. No guarantees.

Just the pull of instinct and sky.

He led without leading. Just being near him steadied the rhythm of others’ wings.

At last, they reached the feeding lakes, where the water bloomed green with algae, the food that turned their feathers vibrant with life.

He fed not just to survive, but to prepare. Because the journey would not end here. He would return. When the time came, he would rise again. Back. Always back.

To the same cruel land, where the air spoke of hope and later with heat.

Where new life would be etched again into mud towers and trembling shells.

It was not just migration, it was ritual. Tradition.

The journey scarred him, I know it must have. The salt burned his legs too.

The storms chased him too. But, he never faltered.

In the chaos of the colony, among thousands of restless cries, he also performed the sacred dance to be selected from her who had the spirit of clarity

And she chose him for his quiet strength, for the wild that lived in his eyes, for the way his wings covered the earth with assurance. So that the little tot could evolve to fight with the tactics of nature.

Their courtship was no fragile romance. It was a war of poetry and precision, bills raised, wings flared, synchronized salutes performed in silence before the sun. Each movement a vow, a defiance of extinction itself. In that ritual of mud and wind, they became one, and then the seed of life was sowed.

[Source:-https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-beautiful-pink-flamingos-phoenicopterus-roseus-mating-camargue-image68224665]

Together they built mound of mud, shaped by grit and instinct. A fragile tower rising from nothing. A proof of survival written in wet earth.

And there, in that precarious cone of hope, I was laid.

A single egg. Pale. Vulnerable. Precious.

They guarded me like a treasure. Took turns warming me, whispering stories I couldn’t yet hear. The wind tried to take me. The sun tried to crack me. But they stayed.

When I hatched, I remember, though memory may lie, a soft sound. Not the thunder of wings or the roar of storms, but a quiet hum. A breath. A welcome. His welcome.

He fed me with crop milk from his throat, his body making nourishment from nothing.He stood beside me as I joined our group, that chaotic assembly of awkward young trying to mimic the elders. And always, when I fell behind, He turned. He waited.

He never said the words. But I heard them, always:

“You will walk. You will rise. The journey is in your blood.”

But now, I lie beneath this same sky and I cannot walk. The migration has begun. The sky above is loud with pink wings. But I am still. I see him in my mind, rising, leading, returning. And me? I never left.

I am sorry, Father. I am sorry, Mother.

I am not the child you dreamed of—the one who would dance across the skies and cradle the future.

I am but a shadow, cast faint and fragile in your bright dawn.

Every step that once promised triumph became a trial. The salt, once my friend, now holds cruelly at my legs, each grain a sharp reminder of my failing strength. What’s the weight of the sun on my feathers, when inside me drags a gravity no one sees? A silent sinking, heavier than the world itself like my own bones are trying to fall up, but the sky won’t have me.

What sin did I stitch into my feathers that you let me falter?

Was I not strong enough to match your cruel calculus? Did I fail the unyielding test you wrote in this salt and sun?

Was my birth too frail, my wings too weak, my spirit too soft for your grand design?

You, who gave life in abundance with broad chest why also bring death in your lap?

Why create lakes that vanish, feed us with algae only to wash it away with poison?

Why permit storms that scatter dreams and predators that haunt the night?

I, born from your dust, shaped by your salt how cruel that you remain silent as I fall.

In this bitter end,

Only questions that echo endlessly:

Did you choose my father because he could fly higher? Or was I too flawed, too fragile among your wild children?

Why was I left behind in the dust, light fading against your shining dawn?

The salt, the sun, the endless sky……..they press me down like the weight of a thousand lost dreams.

My wings flutter weakly, no longer the proud sails of pink I dreamed they would be. The warmth of the earth beneath me calls, soft and final.

I remember the first light, the promise held in each step, the laughter of my kin, the tender gaze of my mother, the fierce joy of my father.

How cruel it is that those memories burn the brightest as my breath fades.

The wind sings a farewell, as my eyes sees the endless sky.

I am becoming the salt, the dust, the whisper in the wild.

And maybe—just maybe—….in……… that ………..fading, I will….. still find….. a way to f…l…y………………..

Source :- (https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/children-in-school-walking-with-a-traditional-japanese-gate-in-the-background)

At The School Gate

Lately, I’ve started to feel that we humans are just different moods walking through the same world. The road stays the same, the buildings stand where they always stood, and the same people wait at the same corners every evening. But depending on the day, everything feels different. On a bad day, even a tree looks annoying, as if it’s standing there just to irritate you. On a better day, the same tree suddenly feels poetic, like it holds a meaning you almost understand.

Maybe that is the beauty of life and nature, that nothing outside really changes, but our moods keep repainting the same scenes again and again.

Today, on my way back, the same school gate managed to look interesting for a change.

The scooter stood just in front of the school gate. An aunty leaned beside it, resting her weight on the seat. Autorickshaws lined the right side, and a few motorbikes cluttered the left. The road looked exactly as it always did.

Every day I pass this way. The same gate, the same vehicles, the same waiting crowd. Usually I don’t even notice it. It is just another stop or scene on the way back to the hostel.

I had spent the afternoon chasing a stubborn bug that refused to get fixed. I only noticed the time when the internet was cut off at 4:30 PM. By then, everyone else had already left. I packed my laptop and started the familiar walk back.

Motorbikes and cars rumbled past me, along with a few KSRTC and APSRTC buses. Birds were returning to their nests far above, just like me.

When I reached the school gate, the same scene suddenly felt alive.

The autorickshaw drivers tapped on their phones. Some watched YouTube reels that caught the attention of curious children, others chatted on calls, and a few shouted to passing pedestrians. Inside a couple of autorickshaws, children sat with notebooks open on their knees, pencils moving while they waited. The aunty by the scooter adjusted her saree and kept glancing toward the gate.

People stood in small clusters,some chatting, some scrolling on their phones, a few slumped in exhaustion. A father held his little son close as the boy wriggled, trying to run toward the gate.

Then the bell rang.

Children burst out of the gate like a small wave. The father lifted his son and pointed toward the crowd. The aunty straightened herself. As the children found their parents, the parents hoisted their backpacks.

Laughter filled the road. Some children jumped down and ran ahead. The father set his son on the ground, and he ran to join his sister. Parents straightened their clothes, grabbed bags, and exchanged quick goodbyes. The aunty lifted her son, settled him onto the scooter seat, and asked how his day was. Autorickshaw drivers restarted their engines and called out to new passengers. The children inside them packed their bags. Birds circled once more before disappearing behind the school roof with the fading sun.

I walked back to the hostel.

Somehow, the world didn’t feel so hectic after all.

Source :- (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/10/india/india-toxic-foam-intl-hnk)

The River Continued to Flow

The constant shhhhhhhh! echoed where the two rivers met at the confluence. From afar, they seemed like they were in competition to out-roar each other. But today, one lay silent, white foam spreading across the bank. Just meters below the junction, countless fish littered the shore. The pungent stench drew swarms of insects, dogs and opportunistic predators to the scene.

“What are you carrying today?”, the other river mocked.

She did not speak today; her usual jubilant nature had faded with the clear water, and the deep thoughtfulness had fogged her face.

Oh God, what is my purpose? Why did you make me? What is my duty? Why this confusion when I need only to flow?

I’ve carved mountains over millennia. I’ve carried the continent’s essence across eras. I’ve nourished millions since eternity.

Yet today, tremors of doubt shake me. Should I flow on, bearing poison instead of nectar? Or stop, and let the filth pool still?

“Hey, where are you?”, the other asked again.

“Umm… I….”

Their conversation broke off as a large machine growled towards the confluence, dragging a spiral of dust behind it. The animals feeding along the shore scattered at once — hooves, wings, and paws retreated into the trees. One by one, figures dressed entirely in white with a blue strip on their limbs alighted from the machine. Though their faces were hidden in transparent plastic, their movements were of confidence as if they owned the entire universe. Some of them carried glass bottles, while some of them carried a shovel and a box. The glass bottle gleamed in the sun as one of them bent and dipped it into the pale foaming water and sealed it. The other dug at different spots and collected the sand. After some time, the machine turned back the way it had come.

The vultures returned to the scene as the machine vanished, leaving a trail behind it.

“Who are they? They are not the ones I once knew.” She spoke with pain as if coming from another world entirely. “I remember once people had come laughing, their graceful feet leaving marks in the sand, their hands scooping water without fear. Now they came covered and careful as if I were an alien. I don’t want to be like this,” she cried.

Who am I? I am not this. I want myself back. I cannot see creatures dying because of me. I cannot be like this.

“This too shall pass.” The other river tried to console her, not looking at her.

She did not answer. The comfort rang hollow.

Beneath their words, the water slid forward as the current pulled on. Foam also followed, carrying what had already been given to them without their consent. Where the two rivers met, a new body formed, thicker, slower, darker burdened by everything they had carried. The surface looked pale and covered with muck. The stones beneath darkened as the water left behind a stain of untouchability.

Far away, beyond a bend, morning had just begun. The sun had just blessed the earth. The chirping of birds welcomed the moment. A girl carrying a vessel appeared at the bank. The river whispered, “Don’t take me, don’t take me.” She lifted her hem to her knees and dipped a vessel into the river, watching it fill, the foam thinning as it settled. Somewhere behind her, a child waited, half-asleep, quiet, and thirsty.

The river continued to flow.

[Source:-https://unsplash.com/photos/desk-with-laptop-books-and-papers-at-night-UlHSF20AHu0]

A Lesson Hidden Behind a 3.5

The sun was peeping through the window, though the glass was half-covered with a poster about mitochondrial dysfunction. The way to his cabin was lined with similar posters. On the table lay a laptop, still charging, surrounded by a scattered pile of answer sheets. Two chairs stood nearby, one occupied by him. We were called inside, and all thirteen of us went in. And then, it began.

When the semester comes to an end, everyone rushes — teachers hurry to finish the syllabus, students scramble to meet deadlines. But that day felt different. One of our teachers had called us in to show our CIE (Continuous Internal Evaluation) papers. He should’ve done it earlier, but here we were. One by one, he called our registration numbers and handed over the sheets.

Coincidentally, it was his birthday. Before entering his cabin, our class had planned to wish him together, hoping to add a bit of warmth to the moment. But as soon as we stepped inside, the ambience was different so we held back. Without a word, he began distributing the papers.

Almost everyone scored within the same range. It seemed he had his own orthodox standard — no matter how detailed or well-written the answer, the maximum for a 10-mark question was 8, and for a 5-mark one, 4. At the beginning, he had told us, “You should get good marks and make your parents happy.” A few tried to get their marks increased, but he was a stern man. He said, “What will you do with marks? It’s the skill that matters most.”

Yet one of our classmates, armed with charm and persistence, managed to persuade him. He got a small increase, and suddenly, hope arose in the rest of us.

In my answer sheet, for a 5-mark question, I had originally been given 4.5, but it was changed to 3.5. I had written it neatly, with confidence, so I went up to him.

“Sir, you reduced my marks from 4.5 to 3.5 here — any reason, sir?” I asked.

He glanced at the paper. “The diagram is missing,” he replied.

“I drew it on the next page,” I said, showing him.

He frowned. “This diagram is pathetic,” he said flatly — and that was the end of the discussion.

I felt disappointed, not just by the marks, but by his indifference. Still, there was nothing to be done. I quietly returned to my seat. I don’t want to talk about him, whatever he might be, but as I looked up, one of my friends was giving me a look — a silent question in his eyes: When should we wish him happy birthday?

I was quietly angry . The idea of wishing him happy birthday had completely evaporated from my mind. But then I realized — the same friend, who had scored even lower and had been scolded harshly, still wanted to wish the teacher well, to offer a gesture of warmth I couldn’t imagine giving. And here I was, doing better, yet stewing in resentment.

We wished him but not as planned just before leaving his cavin.

What selfishness we carry in our hearts, even for the smallest of things. Had he increased my marks, I know I would’ve been singing his praises to my juniors, calling him the best teacher ever. But the truth is, we often become so wrapped up in our own concerns, so focused on what affects us, that we lose sight of everything and everyone else around us.

In moments like these, we see how easily our feelings shift — not by the worth of a person, but by the weight of our own desires.

Sometimes, what we call unfairness is just a mirror showing us who we are.”

Thanks for reading…

Source :- (https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/dew)

A Drop’s Journey

“How hard was it for him to defy gravity? I would have easily released him to the atmosphere if he had come to me. poor dew,”. A large, tall tree said. “Have you ever recalled how hard it is for you to pull such a tiny drop of water?”, Short grass retorted.

It’s a crisp, serene winter morning, the sun is shining its golden beams on the earth, and somewhere you can hear the clamour of various animals and birds. On a leaf of short grass, a single little droplet appears poised to fall off the edge. From underneath, the drop is awaiting that microscopic pressure.

When it rains the soil absorbs the water , depending upon the type of soil, water is classified into different categories. It sounds interesting, we are the same but different. Some of us dive deep into the earth’s surface and they call us gravitational water. Others cling tightly to soil particles, becoming hygroscopic and hence they are named as hygroscopic water. Some run off quickly, runaway waters, rushing to rivers, not even pausing to say hello.Few are hidden deep inside, chemically combined, locked away until the soil calls them forth.Then there are my capillary cousins,dancing in narrow spaces between soil particles oved most by roots, feeding life drop by drop.

Regardless of the names given to my fellows, we all share the same objective ,to reach the ocean. Even though the path may differ, the destination is same. Indeed, I am the same drop of dew that they are talking about which is going to fall from the short grass.

From the edge of bonds, I feel myself falling,

As the sun on the horizon begins its calling.

Gone are the days of shadow and strain,

Now golden light breaks through the pain.

Deep within me, I sensed the sun’s warmth. Whoa, I’m glowing like gold. I had never been this beautiful in my cycle around the sky and the ground. As soon as I realised how beautiful I was, I turned into a vapour and those guys continued to fight among themselves.

The tree looked down at the grass with a slow, knowing smile. “You really love to drip, don’t you? Guttation every morning, wasting water like it’s nothing.” Grass laughed softly. “Oh, come on. At least I don’t just sweat it all away like you do with transpiration. You lose way more water than you keep.” The tree’s branches creaked gently. “Sure, but that ‘sweating’ cools the world and keeps the air fresh. You’re just leaking because your roots can’t keep up when the soil’s soaked.” Grass flicked her blades proudly. “Better to let go than drown, right? And besides, you know your transpiration’s part of the same story. Different moves, same dance.” The tree nodded, amused. “Alright, maybe you’ve got a point. Different roots, different styles, same goal: stay alive.” They both fell silent, warmed by the rising sun, watching the dew vanish and the world wake up.

From deep roots to surface blades

From towering trunks to tender blades

Each drinks in its own quiet way

But all are bound by water’s way.

Every day, the sun gently warms water from rivers, streams, lakes, oceans—and even from the tiniest droplet resting on a leaf. As the heat rises, we droplets feel a surge of energy, and many of us transform into invisible vapor. This process is called evaporation, and it’s happening all the time. Each year, about 577,000 cubic kilometers of water evaporate from the Earth’s surface, with the vast oceans being the greatest contributors. But not all of us rise from open waters. Some take the quieter path like the water drawn up by trees and released through their leaves into the air. This is transpiration, and it adds nearly 10% of the water found in the atmosphere. And then there’s guttation, my gentle cousin, when grass and small plants push droplets from their leaf tips through a small pore called hydathodes during cool, humid mornings especially when the soil is heavy with moisture. Whether we rise as vapor from oceans, escape through leaves, or hang trembling on a blade of grass we are all part of the same endless cycle.

Of all the forms that I became,

This one I scarcely thought to claim.

Bathed in gold and warm embrace,

I rose then vanished without a trace.

As I drifted higher, carried by gentle winds, I marveled at the patchwork of Earth below me.I wasn’t alone. Around me, millions of other droplets rose together, invisible but full of energy. We twirled and danced in the sunlight, lifted by warmth and breeze, moving toward the sky.

Up here, the air grew cooler, and something magical happened. We began to come together, tiny droplets gathering to form clouds soft, billowy giants drifting across the heavens. I marveled at the sight: endless skies filled with our shimmering forms, glistening in the sunlight.

Being part of a cloud felt like belonging to a great family. We floated over mountains, valleys, and oceans, connected by invisible threads of vapor and wind. The world below looked vast and beautiful. I imagined the adventures awaiting me: falling as rain to quench thirsty earth, flowing in rivers, nourishing forests, and replenishing lakes.

As I floated within the cool embrace of the cloud, the air around me grew colder and heavier. I felt myself and my fellow droplets drawing closer, like old friends gathering for a gentle reunion. One by one, we joined together, becoming bigger and heavier, bound by invisible threads of water and warmth.

The sky, once our playground, now gently urged us downward. Gravity’s quiet pull grew stronger and stronger with every passing day. Sometimes, when the air was cold enough, I transformed into a delicate snowflake, drifting softly through the sky. Other times, I morphed to raindrops, sleet, or hail, each shape a different story, and with each fall a new beginning.

This beautiful journey from cloud to earth is called precipitation the sky’s way of gifting water back to the land, to rivers, forests, and oceans. It is the moment when the sky and earth reconnect, and I, a tiny droplet, become part of something much bigger than myself.

I fall as snow, soft and slow,

I crash as hail with sudden blow.

I drift as rain from cloud to clay,

Then vanish as mist fades away.

In the sky , The first lands I saw were wild and green dense forests stretching as far as my eyes could reach. Rivers snaked through the trees, their waters clear and shining under the sun like ribbons of glass. Birds soared alongside me, and fish darted beneath the water’s surface. Here, the water was alive, pure, a source of endless life.

But then, as the cloud drifted over lands shaped by human hands, the joy began to fade.

Soon, I passed over lands scarred by human hands. Rivers that once sparkled were now dark and sluggish. Factories with tall chimneys puffed thick clouds of smoke, and their shadows fell on us heavy with oily film and floating trash. The air smelled sharp and strange.

I hovered over sprawling cities, where concrete and steel had replaced soil and trees. Water ran in narrow, polluted channels, carrying away garbage and chemicals. The rain gutters brimmed with waste, and the once vibrant streams choked beneath the weight of plastic bottles, wrappers, and abandoned nets.

Fields of crops stretched endlessly, but their soil was exhausted. fertilizers and pesticides turned waterways murky and sickly green. In some places, the water was so full of poison that life under water floated lifeless on the surface.

Up here, in the sky, things were not better. Some of the vapors my fellow droplets whispered of the strange new clouds forming. Darker, heavier clouds tinged with a bitter smell acid clouds, formed from the pollution of smoke and chemicals.

“We carry poison now,” one cloud murmured, “and when we fall, the earth will feel our burden and we will destroy the very life.”

I shivered, wondering how I could be part of something so beautiful and yet so broken and disturbed, something that supports life and destroys also.

But the cycle continued and it will continue but this time with a hope. A hope that will create a spark among mankind to acknowledge the value of us.

We shine like crystals; they call us dew,

The source of all life — yet still they misuse.

What will remain if we vanish or die?

Preserve us well, or life won’t survive.

I have traveled far and wide, carried by the warm breath of the sun and the soft touch of the wind. The water is the lifeblood of the planet, cycling endlessly to nurture forests, fill rivers, and sustain every living creature. Yet, beneath this beautiful dance lies a quiet struggle.

Though freshwater makes up only about 2.5% of all water, less than 1% is easily accessible for drinking, farming, and life’s needs. Sadly, nearly 80% of the wastewater produced by humans returns to nature without proper treatment, bringing with it chemicals and wastes that cloud rivers and lakes, dimming their sparkle and making them harder to call home.

Every day, nearly 2 million tons of sewage, industrial, and agricultural waste pour into rivers, lakes, and oceans around the world. This unseen burden clouds the waters I cherish and weakens the delicate balance of life within. These pollutants bring sickness to many, not only to the creatures that swim and grow in the water but also to the people who depend on it for life’s simplest needs.

Above, factories release millions of tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the sky. These mingle with clouds like mine, creating acid rain that softly falls but can turn waters too sour for many fish and plants. The delicate balance of lakes and streams is disturbed, and many aquatic lives struggle to survive.

Far out in the oceans, over 50% of coral reefs have been lost in the past thirty years, their vibrant colors fading as warming waters and pollution take their toll. Fish populations, especially the large predators, have declined by more than 90%, and coastal waters bear “dead zones” where oxygen is too low to sustain life.

It is a heavy story to carry, but I hold onto hope. For even a single drop can remind those who listen that water is life, delicate and precious. If we cherish it, if we protect it, this endless cycle of renewal can continue, and the Earth can heal.

The wind pushed us onward, and soon I felt myself growing heavier. The cloud was ready to release us once more.

As I fell from the sky, rain again, I saw the world from a new angle some places still untouched, some still healing, some crying out for help.

My journey was far from over.

You may not see me next, but I’m always there rising, falling, giving life, carrying hope

Source:- (https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-green-grass-field-1302482/)

This is a revised version of a story originally published on my Substack newsletter Beauty of Nature.

The Last One

“I have no hope for any hero to come and rescue me. No one is left. I am not the last survivor , I am the last meal waiting to be swallowed. The forest that once cradled me now lies silent, stripped bare. If I were to run, where would I go? Their coils are everywhere… always watching, always waiting. Oh God, don’t help me for what salvation can exist when the world itself has been eaten alive?”

The damp earth presses against my ribs like a cold hand, the breath in my lungs shallow and trembling a trapped moth desperate to escape a glass cage. But my mind turns, stubborn as a storm, pulling me back to days when the world was a living poem of green and gold.

The air back then had weight, but it was the kind that filled you, not crushed you.

Morning sunlight spilled over the meadow like warm milk, pooling in the hollows where clovers bloomed. Every blade of grass swayed to its own music, yet together they danced a chorus only the wild could conduct.

“Life in the wild is really precarious… you should always be careful,” my mother’s voice would say, as her whiskers brushed my ear. I never truly understood her words then. How could I? The earth was generous, the sky endless, and my family a warm constellation of fur and heartbeat huddled close in the cool dark of the warren.We were little streaks of living light in the greenness, hopping between patches of buttercups and dandelions. The breeze was always scented, sometimes with crushed mint under paw, sometimes with the iron tang of rain before it fell. And even though shadows sometimes passed overhead, and a fox’s rustle would freeze our joy mid-step, the fear was always just a note in the melody, never the whole song.

It was a world that knew hunger, yes, but also knew mercy.

And in that mercy… I found her

She moved like the wind grazing tall grass never in a straight line, but always with purpose. Her fur was the color of ripe wheat catching the last light before dusk, her eyes deep pools where the day’s noise drowned into calm. The first time we touched noses by the stream, I felt something more than warmth. It was recognition like the earth itself had whispered, “Here. This one belongs with you.”

Those days were a woven tapestry every thread a moment, every moment a promise. The forest seemed endless then: fox and rabbit, hawk and mouse, snake and frog each playing their part beneath the great canopy.

We were living on our best days, eating grass, leafy woods, barks, and twigs. Competition was there with foxes, hawks, even snakes… but Mother Nature had enough for all. Every hunter respected the unspoken laws; every prey accepted the cost of life. It was the old covenant of the wild.

But peace is never permanent. Even then, I think the forest knew something we did not. The owls were quieter that year. The frogs by the reeds croaked less at night. The winds carried scents I didn’t recognize warm, metallic, and wrong.It wasn’t the quiet of safety.It was the quiet before something arrives.

At first, we thought it was just the season changing the way the air grows tense before the first winter frost. But it wasn’t the weather. It was the way the grass stopped swaying, how the crickets silenced mid-song, how shadows began to linger longer than the objects that cast them. And then came the disappearances.

Small ones barely noticed at first. A shrew family gone from the burrow by the elm. A quail’s nest was found overturned, the eggs missing. My father said it was foxes; my mother’s eyes said otherwise. There was no sign of a chase… only the soft drag marks in the dirt, as if life itself had been pulled quietly into the dark.Days turned into a kind of uneasy rehearsal for panic.

And sometimes, the air would grow so still that you could hear your own heartbeat echo in your ears… until a rustle broke it, so soft and deliberate, it felt like the earth exhaling in dread. We didn’t see it, not then. Not fully. Only hints of a sinuous ripple vanishing beneath the fern beds, a glint of gold and black curling just beyond sight.

But its presence was a weight, and it grew heavier each day.

If the fox was a swift death, and the hawk was a sudden death, then this thing was a patient death. It moved like spilled oil through the undergrowth, unseen yet staining everything it passed. The balance — the sacred balance our lives depended on began to tilt. Birds stopped nesting low. Mice no longer foraged in open grass. And among my kind… the numbers thinned. Not from the chase, not from the bite… but from a quiet absence that didn’t leave tracks we could follow. And yet, foolishly, I still believed we would be spared. That love alone might be a shelter.

Not born of this forest, not shaped by its balance. An intruder. Brought here by two-legged hands, perhaps, and now loosed into a world too soft to stop it.I had heard stories: of things that came from beyond the ocean, swallowing islands whole. But stories do not constrict. Stories do not crush. This was no story. This was hunger wrapped in patience.Every moment it might be behind the thicket, beneath the leaves, inside the silence itself.We slept in fits, ears quivering, flinching at each shadow

The first time I saw it, the world seemed to hold its breath. We were near the stream, nibbling at the fresh shoots where the water met the shore. The air, usually alive with gnats and dragonflies, hung heavy, stifling, as if the forest itself had tensed.

Then the grass behind her shifted. Not the jitter of a mouse, not the sigh of wind — a slow, deliberate parting, like the forest was being pulled aside. Through it slid a coil first, wide as a fallen branch, bronzed and black, glistening with slick muscle. It moved without feet, without hesitation, as though the earth itself had become liquid.

Then came the head. Broad, ancient. Its unblinking eyes fixed on us, swallowing the space between predator and prey. The tongue flicked once, tasting the air… tasting us.

She froze, ears pressed back, trembling. I wanted to thump the ground to warn the others, but my body refused. If I moved, it might strike. It didn’t. It simply watched. I realized then this was different. Most hunters kill because they must. This one killed because it could.

When it withdrew into the undergrowth, vanishing like a shadow, my lungs remembered to work again, though each breath felt sharp, heavy with the scent of its presence. That night, in the safety of the warren, I didn’t sleep. Every sound, every shifting leaf, reminded me that the predator was patient — and that nothing, not even hiding, would make us safe

It happened three days after that first sighting. Three days of pretending the air didn’t taste of iron. Three days of convincing ourselves that the shimmer in the tall grass was only wind. We were foraging in the far meadow a place we thought was safe because nothing hunted here at midday. The sun was bright, the grass tall, and the hum of bees filled the air. For a moment, I let myself believe again. Then the bees stopped. I glanced up not toward the sky, but toward the earth. The soundless kind of stillness had fallen again, the stillness that carried weight… and then, I saw it.

Not emerging this time. Already there. It was around old Burrow-Sage, one of the elders of our fluffle. She was grazing lazily by a thicket, unaware that the green right beside her was not grass at all, but the living camouflage of patterned muscle. One moment she stood chewing ,the next, the ground seemed to rise around her. The strike was not speed, it was inevitability. A blur, a thud, and a coil thick as my body snapped around her chest. She didn’t scream there was no time. The air rushed out of her in a single strangled sound, her legs kicking in silence, her eyes wide and wet.

We scattered but not far enough. I still saw her. Still heard the crack. Every movement of the python’s body was poetry and horror not in haste, not in rage, but in a patient tightening, each squeeze erasing more of her until there was nothing left but the stillness we had all been pretending wasn’t coming for us.And then came the swallowing. Slow. Methodical. Reverent, almost as if it believed that taking a life was a kind of ceremony. When it was over, the shape of our elder was gone. In her place, a long, distended shadow slid into the grass and melted away, leaving only a pressed circle in the meadow where she had stood… and the silence.

We did not speak that night in the warren. Love warmed me where my mate pressed against my side, but even that warmth felt borrowed, fragile. Because now we knew the python did not take out of hunger alone. It took to own the silence. From that day, every step we took was in the shadow of that coil.

At first, we told ourselves it was just one loss. A cruel twist of fate, not the beginning of an ending.But one loss became two.Two became ten.And then, we stopped counting. The meadows grew quieter first. No rustle of shrews in the dry leaves, no chatter of quail in the underbrush. The owls, once our silent judges from above, abandoned their perches and vanished into the deeper forests. It was as if sound itself had been hunted.

The vanishings multiplied. Field mice, voles, badgers. Birds abandoned their low nests. The meadow’s chatter thinned into uneasy pauses. Each absence was small on its own, but together they hollowed the air.

Plants betrayed the imbalance. Grasses grew tall and rank where grazers had disappeared, choking tender shoots. Paths to water became overgrown, the old tracks vanishing as if erased. Balance — the old covenant itself — was faltering.

We rabbits stayed closer to the warren, but safety was an illusion. Twice I woke to the warmth beside me gone cold, a brother, then an aunt taken in the night without even a cry. The tunnels began to echo. The air inside no longer smelled of clover and soil but of fear, dry and metallic. We moved in smaller circles, foraged only when the sun was high. I learned to read the grass to tell the difference between a harmless shiver of wind and the whispered shift of scales. I slept lightly, one ear always on the world above.

But the python was not like other predators. It had no season, no hunger cycle, no natural restraint. It killed when it wished. It hunted not the weakest, but the nearest. And each kill filled it enough to disappear for days, leaving us to starve in the long silences between its returns, always wondering who it would take next.Once, we saw it again. Not in the strike, but the aftermath.

A young buck from the next warren over, half-swallowed, his legs twitching weakly before going still. I needed to know my enemy. The python’s eyes, glazed but unblinking, met mine for a heartbeat… and I swear it knew. Not my name, not my kind — me.

The days bled together. Fewer voices answered the dusk calls. The paths to the stream grew over with grass untrampled by paws. And the night before the end, I lay awake beside her, tracing the sound of her breathing like a lifeline… while somewhere, far off, the grass shifted once. Then again. Closer.That was when I understood: love cannot be a shelter forever. Not when the hunter is patient enough to wait for you inside your own heart. It happened just before dawn that blue hour when the world is half-asleep and half-afraid.

The warren was quiet, save for the soft rhythm of her breathing beside me. I had stayed awake the whole night, ears pricked for the faintest shift, heart tired from the endless waiting. Outside, mist curled low to the ground, wrapping the meadow in a muffled, dreamlike haze.Then… I felt it.Not a sound, not a sight, a pressure, as if the earth itself had tensed. Her ears twitched in her sleep. She whispered my name, the way she sometimes did when the moonlight woke her. I turned toward her… and saw the shadow behind us move.It came too quickly for thought but too slowly to be mercy. The coil slid past me like a river of muscle, and before my voice could break the silence, it was around her. One heartbeat she was there, warm and alive. The next, she was pressed in on all sides, her eyes wide, reaching for me not in panic, but in pure, pleading trust.

I lunged, biting, kicking every ounce of me, a weapon too small for the war I was waging. My teeth found nothing but scale; my kicks landed on stone that shifted and tightened, ignoring my rage. She gasped once a sound far too gentle for death — and then the python’s body tightened again and stole the air from her completely.Her eyes never left mine. Even as they clouded. Even as she went still. .The python swallowed her in silence, each slick, heavy motion pulling her deeper into its body and farther from mine. When it was finished, bloated with its theft, it slid away without so much as a glance as though it knew it could come back for me whenever it pleased.

I didn’t follow.

I didn’t flee.

Because at that moment, there was nothing left to save not her, not the fluffle, not even myself. The forest had been emptied of its song, and my heart went with it.From then on, I waited not for rescue, but for the end. The days after blurred into one long dusk. I no longer noticed the taste of clover or the smell of rain. The forest had become a hollow thing, a carcass where life pretended to stir but only death lived. I moved through it not as prey, not as survivor but as something left behind, waiting to be claimed.

And so, when the shadow returned for me, I did not run. I did not hide. I only lay down and let the cold seep into my bones, for my spirit had gone with her that morning.

I have no hope for any hero to come and rescue me. No one is left. I am not the last survivor — I am the last meal waiting to be swallowed. The forest that once cradled me now lies silent, stripped bare. If I were to run, where would I go? Their coils are everywhere… always watching, always waiting. Oh God, don’t help me — for what salvation can exist when the world itself has been eaten alive?

It was humans who opened the gate — who carried death across oceans in crates, in ballast water, in cargo holds and curiosity. Thirty-seven thousand species, torn from their homes, unleashed into worlds that never asked for them. Two hundred more arrive each year, slipping through cracks, welcomed by ignorance or greed. Not all were killers, but it only takes one. One predator with no natural check, no role in the balance, no reason to stop. The python was not born here, but it will die here, bloated on what once lived in harmony. This forest, my home, was not lost to fire, flood, or famine. It was devoured slowly, silently  by an echo of human carelessness. They call it “invasive species,” like it’s a bureaucratic inconvenience. But to us, it was the end of the world. No treaties or dollar signs can restore what’s been swallowed. No fences or studies can bring back the songs that once filled this place. What humans unleashed in moments, the earth will mourn for centuries. And now, all that’s left is waiting for the last coil to tighten.

Original publication on Substack →https://sudarshanaryal.substack.com/p/the-last-one

Source:- (https://thetyedyediguana.com/blog/dart-frog-tadpoles-piggyback/)

The Strawberry Frog’s Duty

“I have no hope for any hero to come and rescue me. No one is left. I am not the last survivor , I am the last meal waiting to be swallowed. The forest that once cradled me now lies silent, stripped bare. If I were to run, where would I go? Their coils are everywhere… always watching, always waiting. Oh God, don’t help me for what salvation can exist when the world itself has been eaten alive?”

The damp earth presses against my ribs like a cold hand, the breath in my lungs shallow and trembling a trapped moth desperate to escape a glass cage. But my mind turns, stubborn as a storm, pulling me back to days when the world was a living poem of green and gold.

The air back then had weight, but it was the kind that filled you, not crushed you.

Morning sunlight spilled over the meadow like warm milk, pooling in the hollows where clovers bloomed. Every blade of grass swayed to its own music, yet together they danced a chorus only the wild could conduct.

“Life in the wild is really precarious… you should always be careful,” my mother’s voice would say, as her whiskers brushed my ear. I never truly understood her words then. How could I? The earth was generous, the sky endless, and my family a warm constellation of fur and heartbeat huddled close in the cool dark of the warren.We were little streaks of living light in the greenness, hopping between patches of buttercups and dandelions. The breeze was always scented, sometimes with crushed mint under paw, sometimes with the iron tang of rain before it fell. And even though shadows sometimes passed overhead, and a fox’s rustle would freeze our joy mid-step, the fear was always just a note in the melody, never the whole song.

It was a world that knew hunger, yes, but also knew mercy.

And in that mercy… I found her

She moved like the wind grazing tall grass never in a straight line, but always with purpose. Her fur was the color of ripe wheat catching the last light before dusk, her eyes deep pools where the day’s noise drowned into calm. The first time we touched noses by the stream, I felt something more than warmth. It was recognition like the earth itself had whispered, “Here. This one belongs with you.”

Those days were a woven tapestry every thread a moment, every moment a promise. The forest seemed endless then: fox and rabbit, hawk and mouse, snake and frog each playing their part beneath the great canopy.

We were living on our best days, eating grass, leafy woods, barks, and twigs. Competition was there with foxes, hawks, even snakes… but Mother Nature had enough for all. Every hunter respected the unspoken laws; every prey accepted the cost of life. It was the old covenant of the wild.

But peace is never permanent. Even then, I think the forest knew something we did not. The owls were quieter that year. The frogs by the reeds croaked less at night. The winds carried scents I didn’t recognize warm, metallic, and wrong.It wasn’t the quiet of safety.It was the quiet before something arrives.

At first, we thought it was just the season changing the way the air grows tense before the first winter frost. But it wasn’t the weather. It was the way the grass stopped swaying, how the crickets silenced mid-song, how shadows began to linger longer than the objects that cast them. And then came the disappearances.

Small ones barely noticed at first. A shrew family gone from the burrow by the elm. A quail’s nest was found overturned, the eggs missing. My father said it was foxes; my mother’s eyes said otherwise. There was no sign of a chase… only the soft drag marks in the dirt, as if life itself had been pulled quietly into the dark.Days turned into a kind of uneasy rehearsal for panic.

And sometimes, the air would grow so still that you could hear your own heartbeat echo in your ears… until a rustle broke it, so soft and deliberate, it felt like the earth exhaling in dread. We didn’t see it, not then. Not fully. Only hints of a sinuous ripple vanishing beneath the fern beds, a glint of gold and black curling just beyond sight.

But its presence was a weight, and it grew heavier each day.

If the fox was a swift death, and the hawk was a sudden death, then this thing was a patient death. It moved like spilled oil through the undergrowth, unseen yet staining everything it passed. The balance — the sacred balance our lives depended on began to tilt. Birds stopped nesting low. Mice no longer foraged in open grass. And among my kind… the numbers thinned. Not from the chase, not from the bite… but from a quiet absence that didn’t leave tracks we could follow. And yet, foolishly, I still believed we would be spared. That love alone might be a shelter.

Not born of this forest, not shaped by its balance. An intruder. Brought here by two-legged hands, perhaps, and now loosed into a world too soft to stop it.I had heard stories: of things that came from beyond the ocean, swallowing islands whole. But stories do not constrict. Stories do not crush. This was no story. This was hunger wrapped in patience.Every moment it might be behind the thicket, beneath the leaves, inside the silence itself.We slept in fits, ears quivering, flinching at each shadow

The first time I saw it, the world seemed to hold its breath. We were near the stream, nibbling at the fresh shoots where the water met the shore. The air, usually alive with gnats and dragonflies, hung heavy, stifling, as if the forest itself had tensed.

Then the grass behind her shifted. Not the jitter of a mouse, not the sigh of wind — a slow, deliberate parting, like the forest was being pulled aside. Through it slid a coil first, wide as a fallen branch, bronzed and black, glistening with slick muscle. It moved without feet, without hesitation, as though the earth itself had become liquid.

Then came the head. Broad, ancient. Its unblinking eyes fixed on us, swallowing the space between predator and prey. The tongue flicked once, tasting the air… tasting us.

She froze, ears pressed back, trembling. I wanted to thump the ground to warn the others, but my body refused. If I moved, it might strike. It didn’t. It simply watched. I realized then this was different. Most hunters kill because they must. This one killed because it could.

When it withdrew into the undergrowth, vanishing like a shadow, my lungs remembered to work again, though each breath felt sharp, heavy with the scent of its presence. That night, in the safety of the warren, I didn’t sleep. Every sound, every shifting leaf, reminded me that the predator was patient — and that nothing, not even hiding, would make us safe

It happened three days after that first sighting. Three days of pretending the air didn’t taste of iron. Three days of convincing ourselves that the shimmer in the tall grass was only wind. We were foraging in the far meadow a place we thought was safe because nothing hunted here at midday. The sun was bright, the grass tall, and the hum of bees filled the air. For a moment, I let myself believe again. Then the bees stopped. I glanced up not toward the sky, but toward the earth. The soundless kind of stillness had fallen again, the stillness that carried weight… and then, I saw it.

Not emerging this time. Already there. It was around old Burrow-Sage, one of the elders of our fluffle. She was grazing lazily by a thicket, unaware that the green right beside her was not grass at all, but the living camouflage of patterned muscle. One moment she stood chewing ,the next, the ground seemed to rise around her. The strike was not speed, it was inevitability. A blur, a thud, and a coil thick as my body snapped around her chest. She didn’t scream there was no time. The air rushed out of her in a single strangled sound, her legs kicking in silence, her eyes wide and wet.

We scattered but not far enough. I still saw her. Still heard the crack. Every movement of the python’s body was poetry and horror not in haste, not in rage, but in a patient tightening, each squeeze erasing more of her until there was nothing left but the stillness we had all been pretending wasn’t coming for us.And then came the swallowing. Slow. Methodical. Reverent, almost as if it believed that taking a life was a kind of ceremony. When it was over, the shape of our elder was gone. In her place, a long, distended shadow slid into the grass and melted away, leaving only a pressed circle in the meadow where she had stood… and the silence.

We did not speak that night in the warren. Love warmed me where my mate pressed against my side, but even that warmth felt borrowed, fragile. Because now we knew the python did not take out of hunger alone. It took to own the silence. From that day, every step we took was in the shadow of that coil.

At first, we told ourselves it was just one loss. A cruel twist of fate, not the beginning of an ending.But one loss became two.Two became ten.And then, we stopped counting. The meadows grew quieter first. No rustle of shrews in the dry leaves, no chatter of quail in the underbrush. The owls, once our silent judges from above, abandoned their perches and vanished into the deeper forests. It was as if sound itself had been hunted.

The vanishings multiplied. Field mice, voles, badgers. Birds abandoned their low nests. The meadow’s chatter thinned into uneasy pauses. Each absence was small on its own, but together they hollowed the air.

Plants betrayed the imbalance. Grasses grew tall and rank where grazers had disappeared, choking tender shoots. Paths to water became overgrown, the old tracks vanishing as if erased. Balance — the old covenant itself — was faltering.

We rabbits stayed closer to the warren, but safety was an illusion. Twice I woke to the warmth beside me gone cold, a brother, then an aunt taken in the night without even a cry. The tunnels began to echo. The air inside no longer smelled of clover and soil but of fear, dry and metallic. We moved in smaller circles, foraged only when the sun was high. I learned to read the grass to tell the difference between a harmless shiver of wind and the whispered shift of scales. I slept lightly, one ear always on the world above.

But the python was not like other predators. It had no season, no hunger cycle, no natural restraint. It killed when it wished. It hunted not the weakest, but the nearest. And each kill filled it enough to disappear for days, leaving us to starve in the long silences between its returns, always wondering who it would take next.Once, we saw it again. Not in the strike, but the aftermath.

A young buck from the next warren over, half-swallowed, his legs twitching weakly before going still. I needed to know my enemy. The python’s eyes, glazed but unblinking, met mine for a heartbeat… and I swear it knew. Not my name, not my kind — me.

The days bled together. Fewer voices answered the dusk calls. The paths to the stream grew over with grass untrampled by paws. And the night before the end, I lay awake beside her, tracing the sound of her breathing like a lifeline… while somewhere, far off, the grass shifted once. Then again. Closer.That was when I understood: love cannot be a shelter forever. Not when the hunter is patient enough to wait for you inside your own heart. It happened just before dawn that blue hour when the world is half-asleep and half-afraid.

The warren was quiet, save for the soft rhythm of her breathing beside me. I had stayed awake the whole night, ears pricked for the faintest shift, heart tired from the endless waiting. Outside, mist curled low to the ground, wrapping the meadow in a muffled, dreamlike haze.Then… I felt it.Not a sound, not a sight, a pressure, as if the earth itself had tensed. Her ears twitched in her sleep. She whispered my name, the way she sometimes did when the moonlight woke her. I turned toward her… and saw the shadow behind us move.It came too quickly for thought but too slowly to be mercy. The coil slid past me like a river of muscle, and before my voice could break the silence, it was around her. One heartbeat she was there, warm and alive. The next, she was pressed in on all sides, her eyes wide, reaching for me not in panic, but in pure, pleading trust.

I lunged, biting, kicking every ounce of me, a weapon too small for the war I was waging. My teeth found nothing but scale; my kicks landed on stone that shifted and tightened, ignoring my rage. She gasped once a sound far too gentle for death — and then the python’s body tightened again and stole the air from her completely.Her eyes never left mine. Even as they clouded. Even as she went still. .The python swallowed her in silence, each slick, heavy motion pulling her deeper into its body and farther from mine. When it was finished, bloated with its theft, it slid away without so much as a glance as though it knew it could come back for me whenever it pleased.

I didn’t follow.

I didn’t flee.

Because at that moment, there was nothing left to save not her, not the fluffle, not even myself. The forest had been emptied of its song, and my heart went with it.From then on, I waited not for rescue, but for the end. The days after blurred into one long dusk. I no longer noticed the taste of clover or the smell of rain. The forest had become a hollow thing, a carcass where life pretended to stir but only death lived. I moved through it not as prey, not as survivor but as something left behind, waiting to be claimed.

And so, when the shadow returned for me, I did not run. I did not hide. I only lay down and let the cold seep into my bones, for my spirit had gone with her that morning.

I have no hope for any hero to come and rescue me. No one is left. I am not the last survivor — I am the last meal waiting to be swallowed. The forest that once cradled me now lies silent, stripped bare. If I were to run, where would I go? Their coils are everywhere… always watching, always waiting. Oh God, don’t help me — for what salvation can exist when the world itself has been eaten alive?

It was humans who opened the gate — who carried death across oceans in crates, in ballast water, in cargo holds and curiosity. Thirty-seven thousand species, torn from their homes, unleashed into worlds that never asked for them. Two hundred more arrive each year, slipping through cracks, welcomed by ignorance or greed. Not all were killers, but it only takes one. One predator with no natural check, no role in the balance, no reason to stop. The python was not born here, but it will die here, bloated on what once lived in harmony. This forest, my home, was not lost to fire, flood, or famine. It was devoured slowly, silently  by an echo of human carelessness. They call it “invasive species,” like it’s a bureaucratic inconvenience. But to us, it was the end of the world. No treaties or dollar signs can restore what’s been swallowed. No fences or studies can bring back the songs that once filled this place. What humans unleashed in moments, the earth will mourn for centuries. And now, all that’s left is waiting for the last coil to tighten.

Original publication on Substack → https://sudarshanaryal.substack.com/p/the-secret-love-life-of-poison-dart

[Source:-https://unsplash.com/photos/-djILB4V8uM]

Love itself is a prayer.

It was just a normal day. After a tiresome day , I went to the mandir to seek peace. The ambience was vibrant yet warm, bustling yet quiet. There was a concert today; devotees were singing the beautiful bhajans and ballads about the beauty of god , exploits of Krishna, magnificence of Narasimha , victory of Ram and many more. I hummed a few rhymes that I knew and for those I didn’t know I stayed quiet; but my eyes roamed freely, sometime they saw the kids playing in a distant, pigeons flying in mandir precincts. Far off, in some street I saw…..

A couple was walking in the street, the mother carrying the child, the father holding some belongings. From a distance, it looked like they had come back from shopping. The mother was busy pointing out things to her child: “This is sweet, that’s a tree, that’s a dog, there’s a car…” Her eyes roamed with the curiosity like of a deer — eager to show every new creation of God. It seemed, she wished her child to know as much as possible, to grow with every step. At one point, I felt she even showed the temple as well. With every new thing she showed, the child laughed with zest. Meanwhile, the father walked quietly, focused, trying to remember if he had forgotten something.

As the couple neared the temple, the previous song ended, and by the time they came to the gate of the temple a new bhajan began — “Narayana, Narayana.”

The mother led with the child, the father following closely behind. As she reached the gate, she froze. The father looked at her with a questioning gaze. She whispered something in the child’s ear, and he folded his palms, closing his eyes. The mother looked at her child with a tenderness no words could capture. When he opened his eyes, she glanced him with such love, lifted him, dancing gently to the rhythm of “Narayana… Narayana…”

It was such a joyous moment. The child laughed as he was jingled with the rhythm of the bhajan, and seeing the child, the mother laughed too; emotions overflowed. She pressed her forehead to the child’s and kissed him softly. The father, who had been silent and was lost in his thoughts, forgot everything and joined their laughter. He kissed the child’s forehead. The mother looked at him as if to remind him he had forgotten something, and he kissed her too. Her cheeks flushed as she glanced around, checking if anyone was watching. I shifted my gaze, respecting their privacy. Together, they laughed, bowed to the Lord, and went on their road.

As they disappeared into the street, the chant of Narayana, Narayana lingered — a reminder that love itself is a prayer.

“Sometimes, the simplest acts of love are the truest prayers. Have you noticed the sacred in your everyday moments?”