Glizdka
Key Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2019
- Member Type
- Other
- Native Language
- Polish
- Home Country
- Poland
- Current Location
- Poland
Have I made any mistakes?
The annual tradition of turning the skies into a display of colorful explosions offers us, humans, a beautiful sight to see, but my dog begs to differ. It, much like many other animals, doesn't understand our tradition, but first and foremost, it doesn't understand that the rapid explosions are just a play-pretend war, not an actual one, and that there's no reason to be afraid. This year, I decided to spare my dog the stress of being amid the fireworks display in my town, and drove to the countryside where it's nice, calm, and quiet, or at least so I thought. Boy, was I wrong.
I drove some 10 kilometers (~6 miles) away from my hometown, and stopped at the edge of one of many forests in my area. I thought it was far away enough from any fireworks display for my dog not to go crazy. It was quieter indeed, but it was not quite quiet. At midnight, the explosions could easily be heard, but they weren't the only thing I could hear.
The wild dwellers of the forest, much like my dog, were scared of what they couldn't understand. Birds, wolves, foxes, deers, all of them "screaming" as if they were being burned alive. The sound of thousands of squeaks, howls, and caws made by frightened animals was the background noise to the fireworks. It was surreal. It sounded like something from a kafkaesque horror movie, like one of those ambient effects you'd hear in a movie set in Hell, with thousands of tormented souls screaming endlessly.
I consider myself a rational, not at all easy to scare person, yet this sound was unbearable. I quickly got out of there. Then, it struck me. This is what happens every year, all the time, all around the world. The sanity-shredding sound of a frightened forest is all it would take, I think, to convince anyone to stop setting off fireworks at New Year's Eve. It was one of those life-changing and eye-opening experiences.
The annual tradition of turning the skies into a display of colorful explosions offers us, humans, a beautiful sight to see, but my dog begs to differ. It, much like many other animals, doesn't understand our tradition, but first and foremost, it doesn't understand that the rapid explosions are just a play-pretend war, not an actual one, and that there's no reason to be afraid. This year, I decided to spare my dog the stress of being amid the fireworks display in my town, and drove to the countryside where it's nice, calm, and quiet, or at least so I thought. Boy, was I wrong.
I drove some 10 kilometers (~6 miles) away from my hometown, and stopped at the edge of one of many forests in my area. I thought it was far away enough from any fireworks display for my dog not to go crazy. It was quieter indeed, but it was not quite quiet. At midnight, the explosions could easily be heard, but they weren't the only thing I could hear.
The wild dwellers of the forest, much like my dog, were scared of what they couldn't understand. Birds, wolves, foxes, deers, all of them "screaming" as if they were being burned alive. The sound of thousands of squeaks, howls, and caws made by frightened animals was the background noise to the fireworks. It was surreal. It sounded like something from a kafkaesque horror movie, like one of those ambient effects you'd hear in a movie set in Hell, with thousands of tormented souls screaming endlessly.
I consider myself a rational, not at all easy to scare person, yet this sound was unbearable. I quickly got out of there. Then, it struck me. This is what happens every year, all the time, all around the world. The sanity-shredding sound of a frightened forest is all it would take, I think, to convince anyone to stop setting off fireworks at New Year's Eve. It was one of those life-changing and eye-opening experiences.
Last edited:
