i.
"the eyes of a child..." an infant sees a vibrantly blue sky, tries to touch it. the lilac bush is pungent, the dirt cool and moist, the grass new and springy. "why?" she asks, a cascade of whywhywhy that is eventually met with the silent slip of the wind.
years pass and she learns the names of things. she goes to school, spending her days in windowless rooms, where question time is always saved for the end of the lesson. the assignments grow increasingly boring; the other students are too cool to talk about anything besides boys and parties; she develops attention deficit disorder and quiets in her uncoolness. time marches on and she runs in circles, participates dutifully in the "real world", forgets to look at the vibrantly blue sky, and passes quietly out of the living world...
ii.
The vines were coiled with life; the trees emitted life from their branches, and drew life from the earth; air was not empty space but prana. People lived too, rising and going back to the ground, a seamless part of the pulsing matrix...
"The Age of Englightenment"... Reason, Science, Mathematics. circles became angles, lines, restricted. the individual was... individual, a detached observer of phenomena armed with a mind to analyze, reduce, break down into understanding. do you understand? nothing here but firing neurons and dead matter, ready for the individual to manipulate. intellects cleaving, they keep on manipulating until it's all finished, and pass quietly out of the dead world...
iii.
somewhere, a bird calls. there may be a girl, lying upon the earth or in a bed. she may hear the bird calling, wondering with a sleep-steeped mind what the sound is, and awaken to its unfamiliar melody.