A Grasshopper in Guangzhou

Hopping amongst the long blades of grass, carefree with nothing to bother or concern him in his simple yet fulfilling life, he stopped briefly to enjoy a nice meal of fresh, moist vegetation to nourish his body and soul. He didn’t know exactly where he was, but that didn’t matter. He was never fully aware of his surroundings, of himself or even what he was doing, yet nevertheless he was intensely alive.

This is because our grasshopper friend goes only off pure instinct, living in a timeless moment, unaware of a past or future, with no dreams or ambitions, regrets or longings, except for some faint memories and a vague desire to keep on surviving. He really just had a pure sense of living in the most simple of ways – eat, rest, hop, eat, rest, hop and perhaps mate. If it wasn’t for his entire lack of genuine self-awareness of his own existence, which the giants that walk around him seem to have, he would be living a life not too far off that of the mystics of the Tao and other ancient followers of the wisdom traditions. Living purely in the eternal present, intimately connected to the way things are, possessed by the divine essence of things and unconsciously allowing it to flow through his entire self. Simply being a part of all things without any effort whatsoever.

The day of his latest bouncing endeavour, however, was a little bit different. Unaware to him, it would take him on a journey beyond comprehension to a strange, unknown land, far away from all that he may or may not have once called home. He found himself, somehow (he couldn’t quite remember) in one of the great dwellings of the giants. He figured out he was in one because he couldn’t see the great blue dome above him and there was no grass to hop, eat and rest in. He had trouble gripping the surface of the smooth ground he found himself on, slipping and sliding as he tried to find a way back to his normal universe. But he found himself, instead, jumping into a large box like thing, the contents of which were nice and soft, the feeling of them vaguely similar to the soft plantation and dirt that he usually has as his abode.

Suddenly, a giant emerged, stomping and crashing into the room, yelling in an unintelligible tongue to another of its kind far away. He didn’t want it to see him, so he nestled himself deeply into his soft surroundings. But this was a mistake as the giant reached over to the box, pulling it on itself, closing it. Our grasshopper friend heard a metallic scraping all around him, the enormous box having been sealed tight, creating a darkness that completely consumed everything around.

It felt like an eternity in the black nothingness. He didn’t know when he was sleeping or waking, all was dark. Shaking, thumping, rattling, twisting and turning, crashing and thudding. The roars of a thousand birds, shrieking. The world seemed to go into the sky, like in the times when he flies from one patch of grass to another, but this lasted long and was far bumpier. Eventually, the sensation he was feeling, seemed as though he had returned to the ground. More of the shaking and crashing, but eventually it all stopped, and shortly thereafter, the box once again opened and a blinding light shone through, illuminating his universe.

He was in a different shelter of the giants, and it seemed smaller, at least compared to his former experience with the habitats of these strange creatures. There was an abrupt grumble, perhaps one of exclamation that came from the feeding hole of the giant. The two orbs at the top of it’s body seemed to look directly down at our grasshopper friend, and its arm reached down towards him. His instincts clicked in, despite an eternity in the dark void, and he jumped away, out of the box. Hopping and bouncing frantically away, trying to find grass but to no avail. He didn’t know why he had to escape, didn’t know the consequences of landing in the clutches of these giants. He just knew he couldn’t allow himself to be trapped. An instinct, forged from time immemorial that prevented him from allowing his existence as he knew it to cease – an eternal memory contained within his body, passed down from his forebears. But it was all in vain, our grasshopper friend was trapped, he couldn’t flee the grip of the giants and it snatched him up within the palm of one of its hands.

He was again in the darkness, but an incomplete one with slithers of light slipping through the long fingers of the giant. He tried to hop through these gaps, but they were two small. Then he realised, there was not one, but two giants in this new shelter, and he heard the two of them discussing something, perhaps it was his fate? Soon he was dropped into a strange container, a thin bag that was completely transparent. He could see the world around him, but couldn’t leave the prison that he was placed in, having to lay flat, given that there wasn’t too much space. But his life didn’t end. Strangely enough, the giants did him no harm. Instead, they took him with them.

Soon, they had left the giants’ shelter, but it was a much stranger world outside. He could see the dome once again, covered in the white and grey bubbling blanket that appears from time to time, blocking out the empty blue and the shining yellow sphere which travels across it. But there was no vast swathes of grass and trees, nothing normal. Rather, the shelter created by the giants appeared to extend into the outside world, everything was black, and grey, and colours that differed from the browns and greens of the world he was used to. Great towering monoliths reaching into the sky were all around him. There were beasts that looked created, not by nature, but by the giants, which would consume them, before moving around and spitting them out. Instead of legs, they had round things that allowed it to move. But after some time, he did occasionally see the greens of plants, and a few trees, as well as some brown dirt, but there was never much of it. An instinct arose to go there, but there was nothing he could do.

The giants walked with our grasshopper friend in this strange, alien world for quite some time, and he saw many, many more giants. Countless giants, all doing whatever it is they do. Perhaps, it was mainly just eating, walking, resting, and sometimes mating too, just like him. Eventually, the two giants stopped right next to the biggest patch of grass, bushes and trees that he’d seen so far. It was incredible, beautiful and far enough away from all of the grey structures of the giants and their mechanical beasts. The two giants talked amongst themselves, and then all of a sudden, our grasshopper friend was emptied from his see-through prison. A moment of hesitation struck him, and he leapt onto the arm of the giant. Having gained a semblance of trust for the being who was essentially in control of his fate. But the giant softly brushed him off, placing him on a nearby shrub, uttered something in the strange tongue of theirs, and the two walked off together.

Our grasshopper friend adapted immediately once again to his surroundings. Hopping and jumping and bouncing, eating a new cuisine of grass that tasted a little bit strange.  He could rest once again, but he was alone. Yet this didn’t matter to him. He just continued to go on with the flow of his life with no thought or worry about it, living out the rest of his days, maybe long, maybe short, he didn’t really know.