Young Waterfall
(Editor’s Note: The following is a metaphorical fiction that depicts the signs of depression, how the internet glorifies mental illness, and how it affects younger people.)
Dust bunnies hop around the ground of the grazed grey floor, hopping happily around the blue tear droplets upon a young waterfall that weeps silently within a dim-lighted monochromatic room. What rests in front of the waterfall is a shattered mirror where its giant pieces reflect an audience of versions of the waterfall and copies its actions, where they all weep together. A mournful ballad performed in front of a crowd where everyone cries within a cobwebbed and cracked theatre — that’s what it seemed like. It all seems like the performance that never ends, but it starts over like a broken record player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTo7TqolB5I&ab_channel=TrueSoundEffects
(Waterfall Sound Effects)
There is a crack on the ceiling that reveals the sky; it creates a spotlight that highlights the dust on top of the waterfall where it rests a huge sage-green lake that never seems to escape from the emptiness. There are drops of water that is donated from above, where it silently seeps into the pond, where algae and lilypads rests on top, where more dust bunnies hop. The bunnies create ripples of gentle green slashes whenever they step on the lilypads. Above the crack is a world filled with new possibilities; everything is created and shared for everyone to see. However with every single thing that is presented from above, there is bound to be a flood that would potentially lead into the monochromatic room, where the dust bunnies are there to collect.
Dust bunnies collect the tears left by the waterfall, but they never grow into something more; they act as workers, collecting tears to create seeds that grow into white pine trees. Wind guides the dance of the trees; it is through the cracks of the roof that let in the wind, circling throughout the room into a light breeze, revealing the sudden feeling of light, where the waterfall becomes hushed and calm.
There are never going to be drains in this room; it will never exist. However the cracked wood of the floor leads into a void, where it sucks in the liquids left behind. Where the sky rests a flood, the flow of the water gets violent sometimes. When it proves too much to handle, the water rises, thus the dust bunnies drown and wash into the void, where the trees die and the colours flush — it all begins again.
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Nobody likes to start again. And nobody wants to be a waterfall where there is no light that shines a rainbow.
A carrier pigeon occasionally rests on top of the crack, but it is not there to eat the flora. But it informs and whispers words of encouragement and advice to the bunnies below of the new things that the outside world consists of. It chirps tenderly, but the words it silently chatters reveal newer forms of glorification of a broken record player. Though the bird tells of sweet temptations that convince the bunnies to use that advice upon the rushing waterfall. Soon crows rest on top, where the light from the sky is covered in feathery silhouettes, where they squawk the repetition of the advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuKl1wEXJ_Y&ab_channel=JeffHottman
(Crows Cawing Sound Effect)
Trees kneel down whilst the dust bunnies are hypnotised by the squawks from above. While the birds screech and gawk to the below, a ballad performs in front of the new guests alongside the shattered mirror, however the feathery beasts find the performance humorous; some find a certain aesthetic other than the look of sadness. It seems to be a mockery; the meaning of the melancholic melodies soon faded due to this and the waterfall grows in anger and contempt, where the water below rises. The bunnies scurry and collect the buckets of tears, but the water they collect is tainted with the advice from the pigeon, so the trees form into cypresses, where they dance in stiff sadness, drowning in more tears.
The bunnies tried to swim the current; they did everything they could. But with the advice spared from the carrier pigeon, the waters seemed less significant to them — the ballad lost its meaning, and the bunnies embraced the sadness where they drowned, their limbs rushed by the waters into the void, where they wouldn’t appear again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW2rmkg8c70&ab_channel=TheMSsoundeffects
(Underwater Sound Effect)
The carrier pigeon looked down and was proud of what entertainment he made, and with the flock of crows, it fled alongside them leaving a sage green pool of dust behind, where a single lilypad rested a bunny that absorbed the tears once again.
And so, the young waterfall is left alone — staring into the shattered mirror as it weeps through the mockery of its own ‘ballad’ trend.
