One would think living near a volcano would be dangerous, but that was not the dangerous part. Like any habitat, there were warning signs before eruptions, the same way the sky darkened and winds roared before tornadoes, pressure change resulting in sirens, the ground rumbled and heated prior to lava flowing. And so living in the ring around the volcano was not any more dangerous than living on floodplains on a coast, or flatlands in tornado or hurricane country. Sure, the natural world could create chaos if it chose, but humanity had never had any say in whether that occurred. They just grew better at deluding themselves into believing they had control. But those who lived in the Ring of Habitats were not the sort to live in delusions of human control or dominance.
They lived where they loved, and as nature lovers that love leaped back at them by the habitats' inhabitants, the fauna who lived there. The volcano the ring circled was a magical center of sorts, and people who grew up surrounding it knew that the habitats they loved most were ones they would obtain characteristics from.
The first settlers of the ring were generations prior, before the world became what it was. Now, in the postmodern era of technology, places far from the volcano became urban centers, suburbs of lawn, invasive species invading fragmented reserves of habitat humans chose to hide away from the jaws of human dominated capitalism. But the volcano and its ring of habitats surrounding it still remained, even as inhabitants had less and less time to spend in their beloved homes. Those not from the area didn't know the volcano or habitat ring's mythology, as it was one aspect of the world that had yet to escape into the internet the way most other pieces of culture did.
Unfortunately, a volcano with a ring of wild habitats was not exactly the world's most employable area, especially since protecting those habitats meant not becoming a tourist trap, which meant citizens of the Ring still worked in urban areas. That is where our narrator was headed, to his unenjoyable job an hour away from where he lived and loved, where he earned a living helping poor people who likely only thought about Cardinals as a baseball team and not a forest and grassland bird with elaborate courtship displays. Our narrator knew most of the birds by his preferred habitats, which were generally habitats he could also find in the city if he wasn't tethered to the office by duty: rivers, meadows, early stage regrowth forests. The temptation to skip work somedays led to actually doing just that, although he knew better than to make a habit of it.
The man our story follows was once a boy. Most children from the Ring of Habitats developed their special characteristics as teenagers - a lake lover would have webbed feet, grow tall like the reeds, have eyes that saw electric currents the way fish did when they schooled. Our man, however, knew where he loved, yet had not grown characteristics of the habitats he inhabited.
The man loved the forest his family lived near, yet he was not tall like the trees, not able to gain energy from the sunlight, not able to see as far away as a hawk he knew lived there, not able to climb like a squirrel. He tried to stay positive, focus on just the fact he lived somewhere that he loved, reminding himself ordinary people never developed attributes associated with their favorite habitats, but his parents were both as twitchy and playful as squirrels, with his Dad having as keen eyesight as a hawk, meaning the man couldn't help but feel some anger at the universe, at the volcano and his hometown for making this an expectation he had to begin with.
What the man didn't realize was that he already had traits like the forest he loved, just not as obvious ones as his parents' had. He worked in a city, like many people do, and by fostering relationships with his coworkers, he created a sense of curiosity and wonder in them about the small amount of wildlife that could be seen from windows of the office where they worked. Some, the man even invited home with him to explore the haunts he loved, showing the family of turkeys that foraged along the edge, the woodpecker that could only be heard but not seen, even sometimes, with one friend, creating a sense of care that resulted in said friend overcoming her arachnophobia. In fostering these connections, the man was like mycorrhiza underground, which connected different types of trees to one another and fostered communication across species' divisions.
The man would eventually realize he was like a root system, once his connections had furthered his goals and he was able to obtain a job studying the ecosystem he lived in and loved. But his envy at the more overt traits of others in community was a demon he would fight on and off his entire life, as having what are almost superhuman abilities like balance and strong teeth, or eyesight thrice as powerful as an ordinary man's, were still far more interesting and impressive abilities than that of being able to foster interspecies connections. In theory, any human could do what he did, but not any human did. This man did, and in doing so, enriched the forest community of his home, exposing people who might otherwise never set foot in a forest to the wonders nature had to offer.
ns216.73.216.82da2
然後按「加至主畫面」