With every break of dawn, Pepin wakes up and floats above the world. From up high, he watches all that exists on Earth. He watches the sea, the mountains, the birds, the snakes, the penguins, and everything that breathes air or water or doesn’t breathe at all.
But Pepin is never satisfied with watching from afar. He seeks more. Pepin knows that it is one thing to watch and a totally different thing to be. He knows this because each morning, he picks one thing from the things he watches and becomes it. Last week, he was an ocean. The week before, he was a skyscraper. And before that, a mountain, a crosswalk, a river, a cave. And while it fills him with so much power to be a thing that lasts forever, today, for the first time, Pepin wants to try being a thing that is alive.
As Pepin roams the skies, his eyes fall on a large oak tree, and he immediately knows it. This is it. This is what he wants to be. It’s alive but it’s also stable and lasts almost forever. Pepin becomes the oak tree. His arms are now the oak tree branches. His legs are now the oak tree roots. He feels the wind blowing through his leaves, some of them holding on, some of them letting go. He feels the birds resting on his branch and the weight of their nest which definitely holds an egg or two. He feels his roots reaching deep down into the ground, overwhelming him with a strange mix of sensations, from water being absorbed into him to insects suckling on his legs to the roots of other trees reaching out to him. But the best feeling of them all, the feeling that filled him with joy like never before, was the feeling of the Summer sun on his leaves. It felt like eating a warm meal cooked with love under your favorite blanket. Of course, Pepin did not know that feeling yet and so for him, it was like nothing he has ever experienced before. This is it.
While Pepin would normally be one thing for a week or two and then move on to another thing, this time, weeks pass and he remains the oak tree. Instead of getting bored with it, he seems to be enjoying it more and more as time passes. Now, he knows how day and night feel. Now, he knows how the rain feels. Now, he knows the difference between a sunny and a cloudy day. Now, he is alive. This is like nothing he has ever experienced before. It is as if he was born anew the moment he became the oak tree. He is no longer just Pepin. He is Pepin the oak tree.
But as the Summer subsides and the Fall comes to power, Pepin the oak tree feels that things are changing. The birds migrate. The insects hide. The sun gets depressed. He starts balding. Pepin is surprised by these sudden changes. But he quickly realizes why they're happening. It is now Winter and snow covers everything like a weighted blanket of depression. Pepin is a bald oak tree covered in snow. He could feel the warmth inside him die out and get replaced by a deep cold that doesn’t go away. It is as if his soul is getting slowly sucked out of his body. This is like nothing he has ever experienced before. Pepin cries with no eyes and screams with no mouth. Why is this happening? Where did the warmth go? How long is this going to last? Pepin waits for a week, for two weeks, for a month. But it only gets worse. Pepin the oak tree can’t take it anymore. And so, after six months, he finally lets go. He goes back to being just Pepin again. He takes one last look at the oak tree and heads back home. But it doesn’t feel like home anymore. And he doesn’t feel like himself anymore.
The next morning, Pepin does not go floating over the world as usual. He stays home thinking about the past six months, about his time as an oak tree. What was that? That feeling of being alive, where has it been hiding from him? All this time, he thought life was a nuance compared to the infinite vastness of the world, a fickle phenomenon that would eat itself out like an asteroid burning through the sky. But apparently life is a world of its own, a world that he has merely scratched the surface of. Then again, he thinks to himself, what went wrong? Everything was perfect until... it wasn’t? This never happened to him with other things. There is only one feeling of being a mountain. There is only one feeling of being a river. It never changes. But as an oak tree, it was always changing and he wasn't able to handle it. If only he could keep all the good feelings without having to endure all the bad ones. Maybe if he becomes something that can move, something that can avoid change, he wouldn’t have to suffer when things change. Maybe that was the problem with being an oak tree. But should he try again? Was all of this pain worth it? Pepin gathers himself and takes to the skies once more.
This time, he travels to a coastal city where the sun shines all year and the streets are bustling all day long. During the day, the streets are full of people going to work, people selling things, people sitting in cafés, kids playing and teenagers doing whatever teenagers do. But when the sun sets, the other face of the city shows up. The streets are now filled with music coming out of pubs, street performers and house parties. Pepin is astonished by all of this movement. He hasn’t witnessed anything like it before. But what really caught his eye that night was a black figure that moved around very quickly, jumping from one place to the other, not staying for even a few seconds in one place. Pepin approaches the black figure and starts to notice that it is a dog. Pepin knew at that moment, just as he knew when he saw the oak tree, that this is it. This is what he wants to be.
Pepin becomes the dog. He starts roaming the streets with so much vigor and excitement. He feels the city lights glowing in his eyes. A cocktail of city smells overwhelm his nose. The music hits his ears and goes straight to his heart. His little legs propel him forward to experience more and more of this colorful dream. Suddenly, he feels a weird feeling in his stomach like furniture moving on wooden floor. He feels drawn to a trash can which he jumps into. His nose also seems to be very stimulated by this. He comes out of the trash can with some chicken bones which he starts crushing enthusiastically with his sharp teeth. This is the first time that Pepin has ever experienced food and it definitely isn’t going to be the last time.
A few days pass. Pepin starts approaching the humans and the other dogs in the city. He is getting better at knowing where to find food and how to avoid pissing people off (don’t steal their food). One night, Pepin was walking by a bridge in a far away corner of the city when he heard an eerie noise. The noise kept on repeating rhythmically which intrigued him more. Pepin could see a dark figure on the bridge. He warily approaches the figure and the rhythmic noise grows louder. Turns out the dark figure is a human sitting on the curb. The rhythmic noise was coming from them. The rhythmic noise was in fact the human crying but Pepin didn’t know what crying was yet. Pepin approaches the human and the human gets startled. The crying stops. Pepin finds himself driven to sit next to the human. The human keeps their eyes on Pepin and Pepin keeps his eyes on them. A few moments pass. Suddenly, something magical happens. The human reaches out with their arm and starts patting Pepin’s head. The arm brushes gently on his head and then moves to his back. Pepin’s body is now overflowing with warmth. It feels as if his body is made of leaves and a sun is glowing inside of him. Pepin approaches the human more, brushing his head and body against their body and sitting in their lap. This is like nothing he has ever experienced before. They spend the whole night together. This is it.
As the dawn breaks, the human gets up, brushes Pepin’s back one more time, then smiles and leaves. Pepin had no idea where the human was going. He followed them for some time but then the human got into a car and went away. Pepin wanted to be with the human again. All day long, he kept on thinking about that night and how he felt with that human. He didn’t feel that way with any of the humans he met before. No one has ever been this gentle with him. He will never forget this human. But how can he find this human again?
When the night falls, Pepin goes back to the same bridge. He hopes the human will show up again tonight. He sits in the same spot that they were sitting in yesterday. It is a warm night, like every other night. The part of the city where the bridge is, is so far away from the bustling streets that Pepin can clearly hear the river rushing under it. Pepin takes a look at the river and remembers when he himself once was one. It felt very different compared to what he feels now. As a river, he noticed many living things along his path but never considered how rich their experiences must have been. How many dogs has he come across along his path? How many of them were feeling the same longing that he is feeling now?
Drowning in thought, Pepin doesn’t notice that a car has parked a few meters away from the bridge. The human comes out of the car and starts walking across the bridge. Pepin is pulled out of his head when he hears the same rhythmic noise he heard yesterday. Pepin stands up in excitement. The human notices him. Pepin approaches the human and rubs his neck against their leg. The crying slows down and then stops. Pepin runs around in excitement and then rubs himself against the human again. Pepin hears a different noise come out of the human. It seemed more musical to his ears. It was a laugh. The human sits on the curb, just like yesterday, and brushes Pepin’s back, just like yesterday. Pepin sits in their lap, just like yesterday, and the night goes on, just like yesterday.
From that night onwards, Pepin and the human kept on meeting every night on that bridge for a year or so. Every night, Pepin would wait on the bridge and then the car would appear and the human would come out and they would spend the night playing, laughing and cuddling. At some point, the human started bringing food which made the night even more exciting for Pepin. Slowly, Pepin forgets his life before he became a dog. It all seems like a blur, so distant, so forgettable. All that matters is happening right now. He is now completely a dog. Some nights, the human wouldn’t stay for long. They would spend an hour or two with the dog and then head back to the car. Some nights, they would just drop the food and pat the dog for a few seconds and then hurry back to the car. But the human was always there every night. Some nights, the dog could hear the human crying as they got out of the car. Other nights, the human seemed to be more calm. One thing was certain: they were both feeling much better after they saw each other, even if for a couple of minutes.
But one Winter night, something changed. The human does not show up. The dog waits all night under the moonlight but to no avail. What happened? The dog could only hope that the human is okay and that maybe they would show up the next night. But the next night comes and the human does not show up. And the next night comes and the human does not show up. And the next night comes and the human does not show up. And the next night comes and the human does not show up. And the next night comes... and the dog can hear a car approaching! It’s the human’s car! They are here! They are finally back! Were they traveling? Were they busy? Were they sick? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they are here now!
The dog runs towards the car even before it stops. The car stops and out of it comes the human. The dog jumps around in euphoria. It was however one of those nights when the human was crying. The human grabs a bag from his car and walks across the bridge. The dog follows, wondering why the human did not pat him like always. The human stops at the spot where they met the night they met. The human puts the bag on the curb and opens it. It seems to be a bag of food. The dog suddenly realizes how hungry he is. He hasn’t eaten for the past few days; he was so worried about the human that he forgot his hunger. The dog jumps at the bag of food. Lucky for him, the human has brought a much larger amount of food than usual this time, as if they felt the dog’s sleeping hunger. The dog finishes eating and turns around to thank the human with a brush to the leg or a lick to the face. But where is the human? The dog looks around the bridge but the human is nowhere to be found. Did they leave? Did eating distract him from hearing the car moving? The dog runs towards where the car is parked and finds that the car is still there. The human couldn’t have left without it. They never do. It starts to rain. The dog walks under the car to hide from the rain. Maybe the human will be back any time now. Tired from the past few sleepless nights and heavy from all the food it ate, the dog shortly falls asleep.
While usually this part of the city had very little traffic, that morning, the dog woke up to not less than ten cars blocking the bridge. He sees a lot of legs walking around frantically and hears humans shouting. What’s going on? He gets no answer to that question, except for hands that shoo him away. He looks at the faces of the humans coming and going, hoping to see the face of the human. But none of them have the right face. The dog goes back under the car. Surely, when the human is back, they are going to use their car. It stays there for an hour or two. The dog suddenly feels the car moving. Is the human back? How did they get in without it noticing? The dog comes out and jumps at the door to the driver’s seat. It can’t see anyone in there. The human is not driving the car. Actually, no one is driving the car. The car is getting pulled by another bigger car. What is going on? The dog jumps frantically at the bigger car. There must be a mistake. This is the human’s car. The dog barks but no one listens. Eventually, it gets tired. Eventually, the cars clear the bridge and eventually, the humans go away. What just happened? The dog goes back to the same spot where it last left the human last night. It sits there and waits.
Two days pass. Surely, the human traveled again or got busy again or got sick again. A week passes. This is the longest that the dog has gone without seeing the human. The dog starts to realize that maybe the human is not coming back. But why? Why did they leave? Did the dog do something wrong? Maybe the human did not like it when the dog brushed their neck against their leg, maybe the human did not like having the dog in their lap, or didn’t like being licked, maybe it ate too much? Two weeks pass. The bag of food is now empty. It’s impressive it took the dog that long to finish it but its appetite has been dwindling since the human disappeared. The dog now knows for sure that the human is not coming back. It doesn’t know what to do. Five more days pass. The dog has stayed in the same spot all that time except for when it went down to the river to drink. Its body is now frail from the lack of food. It can see the city lights far away. It can even faintly hear a mix of all the music playing there. Should it go back? But what’s the point? What’s the point of running and jumping and eating and being happy when the human is not there? Can someone else pat its head and brush its back like the human did? Can someone else make the dog feel the same way the human made it feel? Impossible. There is no point in going back. The dog stays where it is. At one point, it loses the strength to stand on its feet. Then, it loses the strength to hold its head up. Then, it loses the strength to open its eyes. The dog takes its last breath. This was it.
As the dog’s body gives away, Pepin is separated from it and goes back to being himself again. Pepin is startled by this. He gazes at the dog’s body as the memories of his life as Pepin rush back to him. It seems like he had forgotten that he was Pepin in the first place. He was so consumed by all the happiness and grief of the dog that he lost track of himself. This has never happened to him before. Pepin cries. It’s unclear to him whether the tears were of sadness or relief. All he knows is that now, he is back. He takes one last look at the dog’s crumbling body and heads back home.
Pepin takes a break from being other things for some time. He tries to understand what happened to him. He asks himself the same questions every day. What went wrong? Why did the warmth go away? Could he have done anything different to keep it? This time, he was free to move wherever he wanted, to do whatever he wanted, and yet, he couldn't. What stopped him? How did he completely lose track of himself and forget who he was? The possibility of this scared him. Could he just be one thing forever and let go of being Pepin? Would he even want that if it was possible? Pepin has no answers. Yet, there was one more question that he sometimes would avoid even thinking about: Would he do it again? Would he try being a living thing again? Or would he just go back to the safety of non-living? Pepin avoided this question because a part of him knew that the answer is that he would. A part of him knew that he would never forget his time alive, that he would never let go of trying to answer these questions. Pepin's only hope is that one day, he would become a living thing that might have some answers. One day, Pepin knows, he has to become human. Maybe then, he would know why the warmth goes away. Maybe then, he would be able to avoid the pain of change. Maybe then, everything will make sense. Hopefully, this time, he wouldn’t get too consumed by the experience and forget who he really is.
Pepin follows through on his resolution. It is said that to this day, he still roams the human world searching for answers.
