The impressions, the marks that the human leaves on the world. Everywhere, the human leaves impressions, marks of proof of individual existence. The human leaves marks in many places, ever-increasing trails of marks like fingerprints or footprints, and if the human dies, that human’s world will die as well. And the impressions that the human leaves are in many places, even in places that one does not think much of.
The journal that consists of thoughts and memories written with a pen by the unique writing of the human hand, an artifact of the human’s existence. Without the human, the journal would remain on the bedside table full of blank and smooth pages, lacking an identity granted by the scribble of the human’s words. Beside it would lay the cold pen with fresh ink in its body, never to live a full and passionate life because no hand full of vigor will give it any purpose, and cold because its lips will never be warmed by the touch of the paper.
The dog waits by the door when the clock strikes a certain time, craning its head upwards to look at the leash hanging on the coat rack, eyes widening and nose twitching and tongue lolling as it waits with eagerness to see the world today and in a new perspective. Without the human, the dog would not be able to see the world as it changes each and every day and will become senseless, for the dog needs to engage its senses to not just feel alive but to live.
The deceased that are not of this Earth only live through the human: through the random memory of the deceased that the human gets when looking at a certain object, through the surge of tears that the human cries when the human sees the faces of the deceased in the dream world, through the habits that the human noticed that the deceased had and unconsciously incorporated. If the human dies, will the deceased ever be remembered?
The moth that accidentally slipped through the open door or window, drawn in by the beams of the lightbulbs that mimic the sun, for the moth is innocent and cannot differentiate between light that is artificial and light that is natural. When the human gently takes the moth and lets it out into the natural world where it belongs, the moth will live a bit longer. In a world where the human has entered with artificial lights and a trap of a home, the naïve moth needs a pair of eyes that can differentiate – what is artificial and what is natural, what is bad and what is good, what will kill them and what will make them live – when they are in need of rescue but do not know it.
The flowers with heavy heads that fall forward, weighed down by the pain of their thirst from their elongated parched throats and rooted in their singular spots in the ground seek the human to give them water. When the human gives them water, their heads will perk up towards the sky, and they can witness the shifting masterpiece of the sky as the colors change and the sun and moon and stars make their appearances. With the sun and with the water given by the human when there is no rain, the flowers have beautiful vibrant crowns of petals around their heads and receive visits from their friends, the pollinators. But without the water that the human gives, their petals will wilt, wither, and shed; their heads will fall downwards with the heaviness of their pain; and their spines of stems will no longer be able to hold their heads high to see the sky and meet their friends.
The strangers that are searching for happiness; their happiness that they are seeking may come from a random fellow human being. The human who holds the door open for the stranger. The human who compliments the stranger. The human who smiles at the stranger. The human who offers help to the stranger. The human who does a favor for the stranger. The human who makes small conversation with the stranger. Without the human, maybe the stranger will not experience happiness anytime soon. A simple gesture of the human that may not seem like much, but that simple gesture can be a happiness that the stranger remembers forever, even if the stranger does not know the human’s name.
The paths that the human leaves footprints and indentations upon, the human’s footprints giving the paths warmth and purpose. The paths remember the human’s footsteps and all of the other humans’ steps as well, and the paths commemorate the footprints left upon their grainy or rocky or muddy or grassy skins, even when the footprints may not be visible or erode or fade away with the hands of certain weather phenomena. No footprints would mean that the paths would be left cold and purposeless and memoryless.
The loved ones that the human has encountered all exist within the human. The human is made up of jigsaw pieces of various loved ones, pieces in the form of traits, memories, songs, words, emotions that stem from those loved ones. If that human ceased to exist, pieces of those loved ones would fade as well. The loved ones that the human met in the past hold pieces of the human as well, and those pieces of the human would fade from those loved ones. The loved ones of the human’s past still cherish pieces of the human; the loved ones of the human’s present love the current existence of the human; and the loved ones of the human’s future do not know, but they yearn for the human.
There are so many more various impressions that humans leave on the world than the ones that I wrote. The world seems to continue spinning even as humans die out. But in reality, I think that with every death of a human, the world is never the same. The human leaves behind an absence in every place and every object and every face that it had an impression on or could’ve had an impression on.
Every single human leaves various beautiful impressions in the world.