Humans by Oliver Norman
The warm soft breeze of the dewy forest air brushes against my face. I yawn and roll over as the leaves beneath me crunch and the twigs snap. I open my eyes and stare at the trees. I lose track of time as I do this, eventually standing up to set off to the lake.
I sit on my perch and look out to the lake wondering why there are no people here yet, so I start skimming rocks across the lake. When I see people coming I stop and, as I normally do, observe the group as they start to talk about the legend of the lake.
I have never known who, or what, I am and I hate that. How could someone not know what they are? So when I see what I think are called hummins or humings, things that look a lot like me – standing on two legs, having two eyes, five fingers on each hand, stuff like that – I know that I have to be one of them. The one problem is that all the people are so social. They keep talking to each other, I want to join in and even though I’ve studied them for so long now that I know their language, I just can’t talk to anyone.
More people start to arrive at the lake but nothing new happens at all in the time that I sit there observing. I learned a new word though, it was sword. I think it is a noun to describe a weapon of some sort, apparently there is supposed to be one at the bottom of the lake. The hummins tell it like a legend. A new legend of the lake. It is about things called druds or druids or something. They are an ancient species who love trees and nature, like me, but they are so green the way he describes them. If only there was a race between druid and human that exists, then I would know who I am.
The name of this lake is known as the Enchanted Lake and is a high attraction for people, people for me to study. It is always my goal to learn what I am and how I came to be where I am now. I have no memory of the time before I woke up in my circle of trees and found the lake. At the time I was scared and afraid of the lake, and now I still am just not as much, besides, the lake is always cold anyway so it’s not like I will ever going to swim in it. I try climbing a tree to get a better view of the lake and to try and see the sword that is supposed to be at the bottom.
The branch I am sitting on holds a special place in my heart for it is the branch where I learnt the most English out of any day ever. And that’s the thing. I know how to greet people and I even know what some of them like talking about but I hate actually talking, even though it was clear that they all love it. That is the single thing holding me back from knowing that I am hummin. I am too different.
The branch creaks as it slowly breaks and then right after I jump down making a large thud on the ground, the branch creaks loudly before slamming next to me. Someone is holding a thin pad to their ear and yelling at the ground like a lot of hummins do. Someone yells “How is this humanly possible!” and then I remember that it is human not hummin. Eventually someone comes right up close to me. They can’t see me. How can they not see something right in front of them. The human pulls away the branches and looks me dead in the eye. “Hi there bud, what are you doing back there?”. Then at that moment I am forced to say something. And it is going to break me in two.