People are so very busy nowadays. I see them, always hustling and bustling and jeering and arguing and doing many pointless tasks of utmost importance. In their jejune cycle, people have lost their place in time. Their verdant fields and cerulean skies have been choked, in their hurry, with a thousand shades of darkness. They live in ashen jungles, pale reflections of what once stood in their stead not long ago. They are busy, so much so that they miss the little things in life.

There once was a time when people would look outside to tell what the weather would be, rather than glance at their phones, their computers, their tablets, their televisions. Signs of a frost would mean scrounging for extra blankets, not turning the anachronistic thermostat dial to a desired shade of heat. After an earthquake, a flood, a storm, a fire, the survivors would be immensely thankful for what was protected, not eternally bitter over what was lost. A child could wander around the trees and river, creating allies in the chattering squirrels to fight foes cloaked in auburn or green, and each time the child found an exquisite stone or special leaf, he would consider it to be a little miracle.

There was once a time when people would walk out of their shacks and commingle with other beings. The cell phone was an anachronism; the text and the call were both relegated to a future asunder. People communicated through a direct medium, and cheerfully they would greet one another as night’s veil was cast aside to the rising dawn. The sounds of the morning would filter through the area: the velvety hoot of the owl, the rousing crow of the rooster, the sweet etudes of the songbird. A young adolescent could wander around the close-knit community, and at each stop pleasantly greet his elders while gathering a group of familiars to spend time with. They would communicate by day through the language of competition; at night, they would listen to the elders speak of days before their past.

There was once a time when people would whisper to the land, slowly but surely coaxing nourishment from obsidian fields. Their plot of land was small, but large enough. Their work was hard, but rewarding. They planted sorghum and wheat, potatoes and maize, lettuce and peas, and in a triumphant flourish the puerile fields would blossom with green, and the plants would whisper to the people mellifluous promises of better times. The belching smokestacks of heralded factories were anachronisms, for the land was promised to farmers in their present and for all posterity. An elder could watch over the village with a knowing eye, and see his decades mirrored in the eyes of the few who had dared attain such a venerable age. In the crepuscular time, they would reach deep into the past to prepare the future, armed with stories that continued to pass down. With a small embellishment or minor lapse of memory, they aggrandized a simple tale from centuries past into one that would preserve nostalgia and familiarity.

There was a time when people were so busy. They would always hustle and bustle and jeer and argue and do many pointless tasks of no importance. They neglected their lush fields and azure skies, and instead gazed with nebulous eyes as the ash whipped by their faces. They lived in ashen jungles, pale reflections of what their ancestors once thrived on. They missed the little things in life, and yet always shared a strange yearning for that which they could not have. They romanticized life as it was, and neglected to better their own. They romanticized life without stress, and neglected to stress the life and labor that went into a closer proximity to nature. They dreamed of a life once lived, and yet the lives they led, people had dreamt of.

Who am I to talk about these days, these lives?
I am only a phantasmagoric silhouette, a shadow in two worlds. Or, perhaps, I am more than that.
I am an Anachronism.