HiveComb

Living in the middle can be tough. And when I say the middle, I don’t even mean being in my teenager days or being the middle kid. It’s actually living between two countries. Walking back and forth through an invisible line makes me visible for many people I don’t want to talk to. They always ask me things like: where are you from? Do you have two passports? Are you doubled-life? “I am alien,” I am used to answering, and then I put a grisly face for sure.
Apparently, God gave me this life to socialize. Like too much work in the woods would be boring, so, hey, live in a populated border not to become a robot.

One day, a man with a long, white beard stopped me on my way home, and told me: “You’re a cosmopolitan!”

I had no idea what that meant, so when arrived to my aunt’s house, I looked it up at a dusty, old dictionary she had.

I quickly scanned the copper, ripped pages and found no definition for cosmopolitan, just a word behind it on the next page saying “homeless”.

After all, was Santa Claus nice or rude to me? I am still figuring it out.

But I think that my most recent even was the weirdest to me. As I was about to begin my daily routine like a lumberjack, I spotted a glowing light at the beginning of the West Wood, just in the border.

I rubbed my eyes, cleaned my eye boogers and came close to it in that slightly clear morning.

“You’re one of us!” a tiny, glass-like voice uttered.

“Holy cow! A chattering log full of mold,” I screamed.

“Are you really one of us?” that thing asked me.

“Are you homeless? If so, I am,” I answered defiantly.

“We are just the vast universe, little brother,” a multiplied echo began to grow while more things showed up.

“Uh, what kind of fungi are you, guys?”

They had no answer this time. Instead, they glowed greener and I saw a long elastic arm reaching me. I went off.

The sunrise was exchanged for an endless black sea where thousands of little stars twinkled. I tried to swim away from it, but I barely could move my eyes.

“Another brother recovered,” I heard they said, while some faces stared at me.

“Granny, why did you take me to your henhouse?” I mumbled.

“This is home,” replied a man who looked exactly like me.

“No, I only live with auntie.”

“You’re meant to be a Universe Explorer,” my twin told me.

“I’m just a lumberjack!” I shouted.

“No, you’re a cosmopolitan!” a massive thunderous voice replied.

Right after that, I remember I felt like falling through a star tunnel until I softly hit a fresh, grassy ground that wet my hair.

“You’ll keep on gathering information on Earth,” they whispered to me.

Some days have passed, and still here I am, wondering if my mind is damaged after so many questions or if I am the border between two totally different civilizations. Living in the middle is truly tough.