A Patch of Forest
Just an excerpt of a piece starring Sil (or at least his original character design), that I liked but couldn't associate with.
Original Char. Design/Background: When I first created him, Sil was a very average character, dull and with no outstanding skills, hobbies, or traits (edit: in afterthought, I guess he hasn't changed much). He was a white collared IT worker in his early 40s and starting to put on weight due to the long hours of being cooped up in his cubicle. Personality mostly the same i.e. easily flustered, hesitant, somewhat awkward, loves food. Silvanus was raised in the rural parts, but his family moved to a metropolitan city when he was 4, so he remembers nothing of it. Having lived nearly his entire life among skyscrapers and bustling traffic of both automobiles and people, he knows nothing of the greenery. (Buuuut then I realized I couldn't quite capture the perspective of an older and mature adult, so I shoved him into a time machine plus some other tweaking, and now he's reliving college again)
Synopsis: One day while walking to work, he notices a rather out of place patch of greenery in the middle of the city, and after a moment's hesitation, opts to take the more scenic route.
Elsewhere, Silvanus pulled off his sunglasses, the dark lens glinting in the morning sun. It had been no more than 3 hours since the light of dawn, yet the sparkle of morning dew had already burned off, and the comforting blanket of fog would soon follow. He sighed and wiped at the lens, squinting through the harsh morning rays. It hurt his eyes just to look at the ground, even on the sinuous paved trail snaking through the verdant abundance of lightly trimmed greenery and trees.
It was at least a pleasant scenic walk along a shaded path, and the seeping streaks of light that filtered through the leaves were a sight to behold. Spring would soon come, and the small harbingers that flitted in the trees made sure of it as they chirped the news for all to hear. As if that weren’t enough, the bushes were burgeoning with a tender green of new shoots while the flowers of early spring had already grown promising young buds that but hinted at their coloration.
The IT worker settled down under the shade of a nearby birch and felt the zephyr tug at his tresses. A dark curtain fell over his eyes and for a moment he reveled in the serenity of the cool morning breeze and scents, the distinct smell of damp earth and the sparse leaf litter that had fallen. In his mind's eye he envisioned the tender shoots ever reaching for the sky, a leaf that had too soon cut from the mother tree fluttering in the breeze. A soft chirping reached his ears as did the droning buzz of insects, and briefly he saw a mated pair of titmouse, darting out and about the treetops as they caught sustenance, but ever watchful of their newly constructed nest and ever frail but just as precious contents it housed within.
