Lost in the forest, I was chased by a bear and fell into a large pit. When I came to, I found myself clinging to a branch on the inside wall of a huge well. The large pit was a massive well. It was too dark to see everything, but when I looked to both sides, I saw people hanging onto branches at regular intervals.
Two mice were gnawing at the branch where it met the well wall. A white mouse and a black mouse. They seemed to be gnawing quite slowly, but it was clear that the branch would eventually break. The leaves on the branch were coated with honey, and drawn by the enticing smell, I was licking the honey.
“You’re licking that nicely. Hey, can’t you see the dragon down there? If you fall, it’s all over.” The man hanging just to my left spoke to me.
“A dragon?”
“Yes, down there. Take a closer look.”
He pointed with his chin towards the bottom of the well, sucking on the honey on a leaf. Only then did I look closely at the bottom of the well. It was too dark to see anything at first, but after a while, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I froze. A huge dragon was waiting with its mouth wide open, ready to swallow the people falling from the branches. Seeing my startled face, the man said,
“Haha, you’re surprised. Countless people fall into that gaping maw every day. Old, young, even children. You’d better keep that in mind.”
After speaking, the man reached out again, plucked a leaf from the branch, and began licking the honey on it. But for some reason, I completely lost my appetite. I asked,
“How can you be so relaxed, licking honey when there’s a dragon down there with its mouth wide open?”
“That’s a useless question. We all die. And no one knows when that will be. It could be tomorrow. So, you should taste as much sweetness as possible while you’re alive. Otherwise, you’ll be resentful when you die, wouldn’t you? So, instead of asking useless questions, eat more honey.”
The man replied without even looking at me.
Indeed, with everyone facing the possibility of falling and being eaten by the dragon at any moment, perhaps the only thing to do was to experience a little more sweetness. I could almost understand the man’s position. I tried to bring my mouth to the honey again. But I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. The image of the dragon revealing its teeth with its mouth wide open down below and my own image licking honey overlapped, filling me with a feeling of helplessness, anger, and despair. No matter how much honey I ate, the mice wouldn’t stop, and the dragon wouldn’t close its mouth and fly away. I couldn’t simply waste time indulging in sweetness and forgetting all the worries of the world. How could I possibly forget the clearly approaching death with the pleasure of sweetness?
“Won’t you die with me?”
This time, a woman on my right spoke to me. The woman was suggesting that we die together.
“What? Are you suggesting suicide?”
“Yes, that’s right. What’s the point of hanging onto a branch that could break at any moment and licking honey? Whether we lick it for a day or ten years, we’re all destined to be torn apart by the dragon’s teeth and die.”
“But… we can at least eat delicious honey, can’t we?”
Although I knew that the woman’s words were logically correct, I uttered words that I didn’t even agree with myself. The woman replied,
“Honey? Even that loses its taste after a while. It becomes empty. From then on, you just keep eating it because it’s painful when the sweetness disappears from your mouth. You eat it not to be happy but to forget the pain. Honey is nothing but a deception. Maybe those mice or the dragon put it there to mock us. Think about it. How amusing would it be for them to see us so preoccupied with licking honey, not knowing when we’ll die? They’re probably laughing at us inside. So, to be mocked for even one day less, it’s better to die even one day sooner.”
I couldn’t say anything. Every word the woman said was true. The man on the opposite side, diligently licking honey, was deceiving himself. The man, who clearly recognized the existence of the dragon, surely knew that honey was not only meaningless but also closer to a snare or a trap. But perhaps he had reached a point of no return when he realized everything. Perhaps that was the case. I said to the woman,
“But we’ve been given time, even if it’s just for a while. There must be a reason. There’s a reason why we’ve been given the time of the white mouse and the black mouse, a reason why we all fell into this well, hung onto a branch for a while, and are destined to fall into the dragon’s mouth. There must be some meaning in this time given to each of us.”
“Meaning? Haha, meaning… I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing. What meaning can there be in struggling to hang onto a branch, in the pathetic effort to forget everything by licking honey, and in eventually falling and dying despite all that? This well was surely created by that dragon to mock us and then swallow us.”
“The dragon created this well? Even the branches and the mice?”
“Surely you don’t think all of this happened ‘by chance’? This well, the mice, us, and that dragon, all came into existence by chance and are here in such an elaborate system by chance? That’s impossible. Such a thing would never happen by chance even after billions of years. Someone intentionally created it. To mock us and devour us. The only such being is that dragon, isn’t it?”
“…”
Again, I couldn’t say anything. The woman’s explanation was logically perfect. At least logically, as the woman said, there was no meaning in anything. At best, it could be considered a cruel joke. What meaning could there be in our time, when we were just desperately hanging onto a branch and could fall at any moment? No matter how we spent our time or what we did, if everything returned to nothing after passing through the terrifying dragon’s dark throat.
But despite all that, I couldn’t shake a faint feeling that there was something we didn’t yet know. You could call it intuition. It felt like there was a reason why everyone was uniformly given the conditions of the well, the branch, the black and white mice, the honey, and the dragon. Whether the dragon created this situation or someone else did, I didn’t think it was done simply as a joke out of boredom. Then, an idea struck me. I asked the woman,
“What about the dragon? If the dragon created all of this, then who created the dragon? What about us? Did the dragon create us too?”
“The dragon? Well…”
“You said that even this well, the branches, and the mice couldn’t have randomly taken this form. If the dragon created everything, then why is it down there with such a hideous appearance, constantly struggling to keep its mouth open? Something doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, rather than the dragon creating itself, some other being…”
“Exactly. Surely, the being who created all of this is watching from somewhere outside the well. Probably sitting comfortably in a chair, watching intently. They are probably hearing our conversation right now.”
“Yes, that could be the case. But even so, nothing will change, will it? Whoever it is, their purpose is to torment us and kill us when they get bored.”
“No, no. There’s definitely something more. Perhaps it’s to make us realize and learn something…”
“Well, what is that something?”
“I don’t know yet. But if they have the ability to create all of this, they are surely watching our every move at this very moment. So, the only thing we can do is…”
“The only thing we can do?”
“Ask? We don’t know, so if we honestly say we don’t know and plead to be told, wouldn’t they give us an answer in some way? If all of this is not simply to slowly torture and kill us, if there is a way to escape this situation, then only the being who created all of this would know. So, let’s ask together. Let’s at least try to seek an answer during the time we’re given.”
“Seek an answer during the time we’re given… Alright, what else can we do anyway?”
From the moment we made that decision, we stopped being tormented by the dragon, frantically licking honey, or giving up in despair. We no longer had the time or the inclination to pay attention to such things. While the other people around us were still swept up in fear, anxiety, and the agonizing desire for sweetness, we were no longer able to do so. And we began to seek an answer with one voice.
“O Being who created all of this and is watching from somewhere, can you see us, who are lost? This well, the short time given to us, we don’t know the meaning of everything. But we earnestly want to know. If you are listening to our words, please answer us just once…”
– A story adapted from a short allegory in Tolstoy’s ‘Confession’-
Leave a Reply