A GREEN DREAM (English version. Tale by zenith1)

A man, tired of the life he was leading, decided to go away, where nothing could remind him the world as he knew it: the polluted city, the endless bustle, the persistent struggle with the people in order to survive... He walked for days, until he found a solitary place in the jungle. There, he built a cabin, dug a water well and made an orchard to ensure his existence.

He was happy at that place, although once, while looking at the landscape that showed a bright green after the rain, he remembered an old legend that told the adventures of a hunter who used to live in places like that: a fearless character who used to chase wild beasts and killed them with a single and precise shot. The man wanted to be like the hunter of the legend. His life needed adventures, so he went back to the city to get a shotgun and some ammunition to go hunting every now and then.

Eager to use his weapon, one morning he went deep into the jungle. He had all his senses put in his task. However, after a few hours of walking, he reached the foot of a hill that captured his attention. He stopped and looked at it attentively: it seemed very different to the rest of the elevations, as if it were not a natural part of the landscape. Rather it looked as a huge pyramid of truncated pinnacle, built perhaps by a no longer existing civilization and to which time and abandonment had covered of vegetation.

Caught by curiosity, chose to climb it and when he reached the top he marveled. All the colors seemed to have gathered in the place. The air was lighter and had a sweet smell. Giant trees, whose trunks were covered by an amazing variety of climbing plants, seemed strategically located here and there. Flowers, bushes, conifers, willows… It was as if all the flora of the planet coexisted there. The singing of furtive birds was unknown to him, and, at times, he had the conviction that they were talking to each other. It was a strange place and of incredible beauty at the same time.

The man, dazzled, completely forgot his designs, so much so that he did not point the shotgun at an animal (similar to a hare), which was jumping and running in circles a few meters away from him. He sat down to think. He decided that his shotgun would not be more than an ornament in his cabin, because he was not willing to spill the blood of the animals in a prodigious place like that. So, then, he unloaded his shotgun and began to walk, breathing deeply and surprising himself more and more of the things that surrounded him.

He was happily exploring the place when a loud roar startled him. He felt his heart beating hard at the same time that an icy sweat began to slide down his back. He started to load the shotgun quickly while a new roar came out of the brush, this time with a slight tilt of the branches. The man thought it was a huge cat that stalked him. He knew those animals were so fast when they attacked, so he had to kill it at the first shot, otherwise he would not have time to reload.

He did not want to take the risk. When the next roar filled the air and he could see the same restlessness of branches about twenty paces away, he fired. He loaded the gun again and pointed in the same direction, trying to guess the exact position of the beast in the brush. When he didn’t hear anything, and didn’t notice any movement, he thought his shot had reached the target. Having recovered from the shock and believing that the animal had died, he approached cautiously. He felt slight gasps and understood that the beast was still alive, but it must be dying. To act with greater caution, he pointed with his finger on the trigger. However, when he could see the animal, he felt his soul fall to the ground.

The poor cat lay weak on the grass, looking at him with frightened eyes. He deduced that it was a female, but he couldn’t distinguish which kind of feline it was. It was young, because of its size, and on its body you could see the indisputable traces of human cruelty towards animals: the skin of its face was burned on the left flank, including part of the nose, snout and eye, under which it had the trace of a black tear. It also had scars on its back, although smaller, like those that could be produced by a cigarette or something similar. It lacked several claws on the hind legs. Its chest was bleeding profusely and the man understood that the wound had been caused by his shot. He felt faint.

"Who can do so much harm to an animal," he told himself. "Your roars were of pain and not of fury as I supposed. If only I had seen you before shooting".

The man cursed himself. He had never felt so much affliction. He glared at his shotgun and threw it away. In order to bandage the wound, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and approached the animal. It barely breathed, he trembled with his ears thrown back. The look almost lost.

"Don’t be afraid" said the man in a low, sobbing voice, stroking its back, as he leaned forward looking for its chest. "Soon everything will be over and you will be better than in this world."

Then, suddenly, the cat jumped with unexpected agility and stuck his fangs in his throat. The man struggled to free himself from the powerful jaws, but could not. A couple of minutes passed and he began to notice that his life was irretrievably over.

The pain and despair in his last moments were terrible. At the moment of the last breath and his eyelids were closed, something magical happened: He opened his eyes again, under a clear and deep look, similar to the look of the cat, but before him there was a woman of extraordinary beauty.

The man got up, full of a sense of wellness he had never experienced before. He noticed the woman: her body was almost translucent and seemed to be made of dew. Her hair was so long that it touched the grass and was of an undefined color, strangely beautiful. In her eyes life shone with all the intensity of innocence.

"I've always known you," said the woman, smiling. "I was looking forward to meeting you today ... Because you have left everything to live with me, I have taken away what you thought was your life. I needed to take the soul out of your body to give you what you deserve... Look around… Now you are the guardian of everything that exists here…

The man turned to look fascinated the landscape that the woman indicated. He hadn't noticed it before, but there lived in perfect harmony animals of all species. Huge waterfalls originated rivers that branched in all directions. The sky was the clearest and blue he had ever seen, and often the wild birds crossed it in their silent flight. The vegetation was dazzling and everything was surrounded by snow-capped mountains. An unmistakable peace reigned there.

“Is this Paradise?” Asked the man full of happiness, but no one answered. When he turned to the woman, he didn’t see her. He looked for her, but there was no a trace.

"Yes, this must be Paradise!" he said to himself. "But, if it's Paradise, where are the people?"

When he asked himself this question, he realized that there were no people on place. And even he wasn’t a man anymore. Something told him that he was in paradise, and that woman of unparalleled beauty was none other than Mother Nature. Then, he understood many things that he could never understand in his human life. And he wasn’t surprised when he deduced that it was impossible for people to reach Paradise, because Paradise to be able to exist must be populated only by animals.