2794: Garfield plus flavor transcript

==Explanation==
==The author writes:==
It occurs to me that the strip edits are interesting, but as well as the edits the transcripts are also important. Although for most strips they are an afterthought, a mere reiteration of what can be read from the strip itself, sometimes they, and the strip explanations like the one you are reading, provide important clarifications or information. Indeed, sometimes the briefest transcript can change the tone or point of a strip. And many of the more interesting submissions need a detailed runthrough of the author's method and logic.
Thus this submission. The edit is trivial (the strip contained far too many commas, as do both this transcript and explanation, so one was removed). Focusing merely on the strip itself the reader gains nothing; the entire submission has no value. For the viewer to get anything they must investigate the transcript and explanation. And how many are not in the habit of doing that?
Original strip: .
==Transcript==
{Garfield, a cat, and Ed, also a cat, but one raised by squirrels, sit beneath a tree; the very tree that had been Ed's entire world until just a few hours earlier. Having had some time to experience life on the ground for the first time being introduced to what it is like to live as a cat, Ed feels a deep longing to return. Now, facing his mentor and first feline friend, he seeks to break the truth to him, to give voice to the complex feelings deep inside.}
Ed: I gotta go home, Garfield
Garfield: What for?
{Ed is unable to explain. In the past few hours he has seen and experienced so much. Dogs, walking sideways. And yet, that life was not for him. If only he were as stoic as Garfield; able to brush aside the many strange and shocking things life seems to procure. Even now he sits there, hardly reacting to Ed's bold declaration. Perhaps that is it, perhaps he, Ed, is simply not that strong. But that realization fills him with a joy of sorts, a freedom. He will never forget his time on the ground or the friend he made there, but that is not his place, it is not a world he can endure. Turning around and dashing up the tree without hesitation he gives his explanation as he ascends into the branches. As the welcoming green closes in on him the last thing he sees is an orange paw.}
Ed: I miss my mother the squirrel
Garfield: You're weird, Ed.
{Garfield sits under the tree, alone, still looking at the gap in the branches where Ed had scurried. He had indeed been weird, whoever heard of a cat storing birds for the winter? A cat who had never heard of 'ground', who had no conception that he was anything but a squirrel? And yet... and yet Garfield couldn't help but feel envious. For Ed had a loving family, a mother and brother who accepted him for who he was. Garfield found his thoughts wandering to his own family, missing from his life for so long and now, as the years ground on, seemingly a smaller and smaller part of him. Perhaps he would never see them again, his life subsumed in urban tedium, leaving him feeling empty no matter how much he ate. Still staring he spoke to the silence, words that would not be heard by any but him and the leaves.}
Garfield: You're lucky, too.
Category:Levellass