A story for the times
It is long before Vincent is born, and the people who live this side of the water are always saying, 'When I get to the other side', as if everything will be okay then. But they never go. They never pack their bags and get on the boat and go. They stay there, looking across the water, day after day, thinking it must be better over there, there on the other side. Their own side is beautiful, a paradise. But they don't want their own paradise. They want that one over there.
It's always been this way, or so it seems. It was a story created a long time ago. No one remembers who first told it, but the ones who heard it, they told it over and over, and now it's become true. The story is stuck to their cells, their skin, their hair. They live in that story, that story is them.
Every day they say this: One day. They are sure things are better over there, and once they get there, everything will be fine. One day. Meanwhile, they are stuck here. Meanwhile, their country is dying for lack of attention, and them with it. Their eyes are always drifting across the water, while the world in front of them lies unnoticed, forgotten.
So disconnected are the people now, everything is starting to die. The trees, the flowers, the insects, the birds, the animals, the fish, the rivers, the oceans, the land. All dying. The creatures and the elements have heard the story too, the story of across the water. Unlike the people, though, they don't believe it. 'It's not a good story,' they say to each other. But it drains the life from them, all the same.
The story has no words like 'here' and 'now'. It has no gurgles of laughter like water has, as it trips over rocks on river beds and sandy ocean floors. It has no big relaxed sighs like the trees have, as the winds move through them on a warm day. It has no songs of sweetness like the birds have, as they glide across the sky.
All this story has is that place over there, across the water, a long way away. And as the people gaze at it, day after day, they forget the trees and the birds and the rivers and the skies. They forget themselves. They forget