From the Cattails at Night

A short nonfiction essay from the perspective of the cattails around a small pond.

The stars twinkle beautifully from up above. Sometimes, I can see the lights waver from below as their burning gases twirl and dance light-years away. I’m lucky that I can see the stars shine so brightly from my position. It’s the elevation and the lack of big city light pollution that helps me see them so vividly. However, no one seems to want to stop and appreciate the view. The students are busy heading home or heading out to dinner, the robots are hustling and bustling with their food deliveries, and the fish enjoy their own feast of green, slimy algae that stains the waters jade.

I watch those koi fish swim around in the water, eat and breath everyday. Their sunset orange and midnight black scales shimmered under the sunlight. Here and now, they appear dull and lifeless, only the faintest and briefest of shine flashing before me and my cattail comrades as they swim under the light. The stars are prettier than their scales at the moment. When the sun comes back up again though, it will be their scales that take the spotlight. As much as I love the stars that shine above, I can’t wait for the sun to come up and make those scales shimmer. It’s like seeing the stars or Mars' orange down on Earth.

While the fish continue to swim, their bodies waltzing in the water, I sit, stationary save for the subtle flow of wind that passes by that sways me. The wind causes little ripples in the water below me, chilling the surface with its late Autumn bite. The rest of the cattails swing back and forth next to me, almost like they are shivering from the cold. The lily pads with their delicate, clover-like plants shudder as well. I can feel a chill run up my stem, causing me to straighten my posture for just a brief moment before I relax again, slouching like I once was. The rest of the cattails let their leaves dance with the wind, bending and reaching down towards the concrete before going back to stretching their leaves to the diamond sky. 

The students that stroll on by every so often look warm in their hoodies, sweatshirts, and jackets, some of them displaying their school pride. The navy blues look black within the darkness, their canary yellows looking dijon. Grays turn into that deep shade of charcoal too.  Even the lavender that grows, which normally looks brilliant in the day, appear like a mysterious mauve at nightfall. The only bright colors that exist out here is the torch that illuminates the crimson bike repair box and the bright blue light that signals an emergency phone station. The blue light radiates like one of the stars I see above, a sapphire shine that catches the eye of anyone passing by, available and ready to be on alert if anyone presses that little button on their posts.

I want to be wrapped up in that warmth and color too. I want to pull my hoodies over my head and tug on the strings to bring it closer around my cheeks to save me from the chill. Oh, what I would give to have a velvety soft, thick jacket draped over my shoulders. To have something to protect my hair from whipping around, hitting my face. If I had jackets or even blankets for everyone, I would pass them around and help protect them from the cool night.

But, the crisp wind helps me stay awake, alive. It keeps us all alive despite its reputation, known to kill, to freeze nature into a deep coma. It’s mokita, the truth everyone knows, but nobody speaks.

There isn’t much sound to be heard other than the whispers of the wind, the babbling of the little waterfalls and the distant conversations from college kids. Their tones are jovial as they chat with their friends. I wish that the fish and the plants would gossip with me like that. The fish bubble amongst their own kind. The shifting of the overgrown leaves and stems only sing for each other as they are the only ones that understand their language. I can only speak and understand my own kind. The rest of the cattails embrace me into their own chitchat. While I wish to overhear the intimate chatter from the nature around me, the quietness of the dark is refreshing. The ramé, the crowded, bustling, chaotic, hectic social environment that the sunshine brings can get overbearing. I’m lucky to be in the center of the waters where no one may touch me.

I find the students to be selfish and oblivious to the nature around them. They focus on their friends and classes, something I do not find as fulfilling or nourishing for the soul. They do not stop and appreciate the world around them, sometimes even destroying its beauty to make way from things like the unsightly statue of a shirtless man holding an axe. How does that triumph over the koi tangoing in their open tank? How do the brick buildings beat the body of lavender boasting their bouquets? How does any of that conquer over us, cattails calmly craning our heads, greeting everyone that passes?

Why does no one greet us back?

I sigh and look up towards that glittering, obsidian sky once again. Before my very eyes, I see a star soar past its brothers and sisters. It only lasts for a second, a second that I would never trade for anything in the world. I close my eyes and make a wish, and I wish for humans to finally say hello to all of the nature around them.