Those last couple of sentences did not get through George's inner ears. The result of habituation perhaps. He has heard the same sequence of sentences 9 times over from his mother. He stopped counting when it got to 9. Double-digit numbers are twice as hard to keep track of, and George does not want to trouble his single-digit brain more than it needs to. If the number is hard to keep track of, then it must be very big. Ah! That's it. Big and Small will now be all he needs to know. Why need hundreds of numbers when Big and Small will do just fine? It's practical for his primitive and ordinary life. George congratulates himself on his ingenious system, without a double-doubt whether he could ever make it to the Big ones. By George's axioms, 9 is small, and he will probably be stuck at this small number for a long time. 

George does not know why his Mom is so angry and disappointed. The guy he talked with yesterday found it nice talking to George. George's experience was very different from the previous ones. George found something new too. But his Mom's reactions remain unchanged. 

So George leaves. His Mom is still talking. Perhaps she has mistaken his little brother who has been standing there all this while for George. All the brothers look very much the same anyway. Well, good for him, he can get an early taste of that experience before the next hunting season.

"Try not to mind Mom's scolding too much. You know, Mom is just worried about you." 

George was not aware that he had been minding things all this time, including the conversation with Mom just now. But his older brother's words made him self-conscious. Did he mind, or did he not? Lots of things have been happening to his mind lately. And it is not all pleasant; numerous kinds of worries and anxieties he could not name, things that seem at odds with his instincts which were already well-molded by good old Nature. Whenever they emerge in his mind, his body trembles and his so-called instincts get all tangled up, causing him to freeze momentarily as if the two forces within his body just peacefully cancel out each other by equally aggressively pulling him apart. 

But maybe - as it's very possible, maybe he did in fact mind, and it's just that he did not realize it til now. Maybe this is part of Nature's design. He has seen many bodies of his folks jerking up and down briefly before complete rest, to a greater degree than his, despite their skins ripped apart, their limbs chopped off, and their eyeballs plucked out. Maybe these feelings were also happening to their minds at the time. If so, then it is quite a natural process. But like a meticulous and rigorous scholar, George does not rush to the conclusion just yet. He will keep this possibility in the back of his mind for now. When the time is ripe, he would return to mind it properly. 

"Listen, George. Mom and Dad come from the previous generation, and might not be able to connect with you as well as I do. Each generation has their own struggle. We'll have to live with it somehow. To each his own. And then pretend that we share some universal understanding of the word 'struggle.' That is how we bond with each other as a species."

 

The older brother stops for a moment, as if to wait for some sort of reaction from George. Although, he knows he should not expect much judging from George's pair of wide eyes that seem to sit in eternal stillness. 

"Mom and Dad care about you. They are worried whether you could make it out alive in this hunting season. It's getting more difficult to live simply by doing what we have been doing for ages. Just catching insects will not do. The industry is increasingly having less use of us. The truth is, some folks are even willing to sell their bodies to those tall-looking creatures of the foreign land. Some with skin colors of bright may get into a big tank and get well-decorated; some others may be less fortunate..."

That seemed to at least get an eye-twitch from George as a response. What follows is an indefinite period of silence (before one of the brothers decides to define it), letting anything that has surfaced sink back into the quiet atmosphere. As for George, he couldn't help but wonder who those foreign tall-looking creatures refer to. All his life living in the pond, he has seen all sorts of tall- and short-looking creatures, and none of their appearances emits a sense of foreignness to him. If tallness does not make them foreign, then it must be the foreignness that makes them foreign. But it just occurs to George that it is quite difficult to imagine what is foreign to the imagination. So he decides to let that thought sink in. 

"Why don't you take a break? Go somewhere new, get some experience, and you know, as the saying goes, find yourself?" 

George would love the idea of going somewhere new. He's just afraid that he may not have the chance to go anywhere at all: what can be newer than what is already around him? Now excuse him, George does not have a persistent memory. Every day is a new day for George. The sun shines a new light, as he does not remember what it was like yesterday. The air breathes a new smell, as he does not remember what it was like yesterday. Or to put it simply, George does not remember what yesterday was like; he has yet to form the concepts of yesterday, or today, or tomorrow. 

No other words are spoken that day. The sunset has finished its course. Light turns to dark. Where light does not reach, depth does not show. And so all the non-moving worldly creations start dancing right before his eyes, all together in an intimate and mystical rhythm. George's brother doesn't seem to enjoy the night very much; his species could see in the dark as well as in daylight. He was never impressed during the day, so the night's sight couldn't impress him either.