Whimsical Wishes

The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and they manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death.

What is life?

“You do not yet suffer enough to suit me.”

“Of course we underemphasize our wounds, those of us who must in order to survive. We laugh because this is what we know.”

“The day I died, / I didn’t tell / my body.”

“You know I’m old in some ways-in others-well, I’m just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-and I dread responsibility.”

“Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing”

“You know I’m old in some ways-in others-well, I’m just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-and I dread responsibility.”

“This had to happen at some point. This had to happen. We forgot that we are not the only ones in this world, that the whole of creation does not revolve around us. Like stupid, fat, lazy minnows in a slimy pond we chose not to accept the existence of pike. We allowed our world, like the pond, to become slimy, boggy and sluggish. Look around you – there is crime and sin everywhere, greed, the pursuit of profit, quarrels and disagreements are rife. Our traditions are disappearing, respect for our values is fading. Instead of living according to Nature we have begun to destroy it. And what have we got for it? The air is poisoned by the stink of smelting furnaces, the rivers and brooks are tainted by slaughterhouses and tanneries, forests are being cut down without a thought … Why are you surprised? It had to end badly.”

“Difficult times are approaching. Difficult and dangerous. A time of change is coming. It would be a shame to grow old with the uncomfortable conviction that one had done nothing to ensure that these changes are for the better. Don’t you agree?”