The beast jumped away from him.
"Wait! Wait, you li'l beast! Please, do come back. I will not hurt you! You can even be my pet if you want," a running teenage boy shouted from a swampy field...
---~~~o~~~---
"Now, that would surely be the scene right now if you were not so gentle of a beast, my friend," our hero-in-the-making imagined as he mounted onto his new horse companion and exclaimed, "You would have bolted away when I chased you earlier, right PUDDLE?"
"Oh wait, why am I talking to a horse?" He knocked and shook his head in disbelief.
At this moment, we find HE gazing into the distance, situated between the charred remains of his village and the Passable River to the west.
As they traveled, they stumbled upon a grand, wide tree with a puddle resting next to it. Exhausted from the journey, they decided to take a break and have a quick lunch. HE allowed PUDDLE to quench his thirst in the nearby puddle before rummaging through his small bole brown backpack and retrieving the fruits and manna he had gathered before departing the village.
Then he saw the stitches at the back of his bag and remembered his father…
---~~~o~~~---
FATHER smiled at his son's enthusiasm. "It's a special bag, HE. Everything you put in it will be safe and secure."
"Awesoooome! Is that really a Fibre Bag, FATHER?" HE was beaming with excitement as he received the Fibre Bag from his father. "Thank you, Father! It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he exclaimed, as he wears it on his back.
The yet so young villager and his father were walking along the caldera of an incongruous volcano beside another volcano that day. The young villager plans to collect some pebbles and smooth stones.
"Finally, it's that season of Falling Leaves," FATHER explained, "so I was able to finally request from a Harvester Forager to make your first Fibre Bag as my gift to you for your Coming-Of-Age Ceremony."
HE replied with a question, "How does this work, FATHER?"
"Our Centree is not only known for its fruits, my son," FATHER explained, "We all know that its leaves are stretchable, right?"
"Oh, right. Yeah. I remembered trying to pluck one, but it didn't even budge and just stretched out," said HE while remembering that he also got pulled back and stumbled from its protruding root. He also remembered the pain and humiliation as SHE and I giggled to tease him that time.
"They say it is a blessing for the villagers only. The elasticity of the bag ensures that nothing gets crushed," FATHER explained.
Another thing, this Fibre can lighten the load by up to thirty percent - perfect for carrying loads of loot! The villagers had been using this miracle Fibre Bag since ancient times, so its incredible properties were often overlooked, much like how you tend to overlook the magical ability of your eraser to effortlessly wipe away your pencil markings. It is just what it is.
But not for young HE, it was his first Fibre Bag! Remember that time you received your very first smartphone? (If you had. If not, then do imagine it.) You might have already overlooked that awesome feeling of having a new gadget and are just busy playing games or lobbying on your social media. The experience and the excitement are not as much as you first saw it.
HE listened attentively as his father demonstrated the unique qualities of the bag. "That's amazing! Can I try it?" he asked eagerly.
"Of course, son, it's already yours," FATHER replied, as he handed HE a handful of smooth stones. "Put these in the bag."
He eagerly followed his father's instructions and watched in amazement as the bag compressed the stones.
"Wow! So awesome! And it didn't even got heavier! " he exclaimed, as FATHER reached out in the inside of the bag, and the smooth stones sprang back to their original size.
"And of course, Fibre Bags are hard to get by, HE," his father warned, "So you need to take very good care of it, can I trust you with that?"
"A-ha! Fear not, FATHER. You certainly can trust me!" answered HE and posed as if he was a hero having his grand entrance.
As they walked along the caldera, HE felt like he had his father's world in his grasp. "I feel like already a grown-up like you, FATHER," he said with pride, "I can now carry everything I need and everything I collect in this bag."
FATHER chuckled at his son's enthusiasm. "You're still a boy, HE. You're my boy. But I know you'll grow up to be a fine man one day," he replied, tousling his son's hair.
Suddenly, out of so much keenness, HE lost his footing and fell to the ground, scraping his knee. "Ouch! That hurts. I fell to the ground and scraped my knee," he groaned, as usual, stating the obvious, as FATHER rushed to his side.
FATHER examined HE's wound and noticed the hole in the Fibre Bag. "I'm sorry, HE. The bag is damaged," he said, worriedly.
HE's face fell higher than his fall a while ago and he looked at the bag with such disappointment. "There goes your trust, FATHER. I'm so sorry… I… I promise that I will still keep it as my precious treasure." he replied dejectedly as he hugged the backpack.
FATHER, however, was determined to fix the bag. He rummaged through his shoulder bag and found a needle and thread. "I'll fix it for you, HE. This bag's purpose is not for keepsake nor as an ornament but rather to be used as it was intended," he said, as he began to stitch up the hole.
HE watched in amazement as his father worked his skill with the needle and thread. "You're amazing, FATHER. How did you learn to sew like that?" he asked.
FATHER chuckled. "You never saw me sewn ever? It's a skill every Herder Hunter in our village needs to know, HE. We never know when we'll need to fix something in a pinch when taming a herd," he replied, as he finished stitching up the bag.
As FATHER finished stitching up the hole, he handed the backpack back to HE. "There you go. Good as new."
HE took the bag from his father and looked at it with gratitude. "It's even more special now, FATHER. Thank you," he said, hugging his father with such delight.
FATHER hugged his son back, feeling proud of the young man his son was becoming. "You're welcome, HE. I'm glad you like it, son. You're right, it's even more special now because it has a story to tell."
---~~~o~~---
HE smiled then he closed his backpack as that flashback brought to a close...
After filling up their stomach, HE decided to take a short nap under that wide tree.
"Aaaah!" he yawned and stretched out his arms.
As he was about to take another one, he saw a figure of someone small stuck on a branch of that long wide tree. Stuck by its belly while its hands and feet are oppositely hanging on that branch, its big head looking at him dozily...
---~~~o~~~--- ---~~~o~~~--- ---~~~o~~~---
THE PSALMIST sings,
"We'll eat together when he returns
His strength then oh sure will burn
~~~
And he said, hello
Oooh...
He said, hello
Oooh...
~~~
Hello..."