(ninth in a series of ten)
I told the proprietress, “More people speak to me here in an hour than have spoken to me in Tokyo in the last five years.
“I envy you that,” she said.
Still, I thought she was the lucky one. In the course of a half-dozen evenings it seemed I knew a few strangers better than I knew my closest friends in Tokyo.
Friendship in Tokyo is an imported tropical houseplant. You can get it to grow there but it takes a lot of patience, a lot of fussing, and even then it still seems stilted.
Gardening here was a whole other matter. “All we do is cut back,” said the proprietress. Even the marigolds looked set for global domination. I’d never knew the green world could exert so much force or blaze so with power.
Beside the road an empty-faced boy sat in the dirt and played with a saw. He drew it back and forth across a piece of wood and made no cut but only a sound. I waved and tried to get his attention. I think I’ve been him sometimes. He ignored me.
Across the river, among the more modest houses, were occasional real mansions, much taller, painted tasteful shades of ivory with red or blue trim and shutters. These houses would probably survive and still look new even when the more humble homes around them had long since collapsed.
These houses had a distinct advantage: their doors would never open, their windows were black glass on brick. No person would ever live in them. These houses were only for the birds that entered them through tiny holes to build their edible, highly profitable nests. These bird houses would persist and even years from now would still look elegant. Fortunate houses.
It is a great strain to have a human heart.
I told the proprietress, “More people speak to me here in an hour than have spoken to me in Tokyo in the last five years.
“I envy you that,” she said.
Still, I thought she was the lucky one. In the course of a half-dozen evenings it seemed I knew a few strangers better than I knew my closest friends in Tokyo.
Friendship in Tokyo is an imported tropical houseplant. You can get it to grow there but it takes a lot of patience, a lot of fussing, and even then it still seems stilted.
Gardening here was a whole other matter. “All we do is cut back,” said the proprietress. Even the marigolds looked set for global domination. I’d never knew the green world could exert so much force or blaze so with power.
Beside the road an empty-faced boy sat in the dirt and played with a saw. He drew it back and forth across a piece of wood and made no cut but only a sound. I waved and tried to get his attention. I think I’ve been him sometimes. He ignored me.
Across the river, among the more modest houses, were occasional real mansions, much taller, painted tasteful shades of ivory with red or blue trim and shutters. These houses would probably survive and still look new even when the more humble homes around them had long since collapsed.
These houses had a distinct advantage: their doors would never open, their windows were black glass on brick. No person would ever live in them. These houses were only for the birds that entered them through tiny holes to build their edible, highly profitable nests. These bird houses would persist and even years from now would still look elegant. Fortunate houses.
It is a great strain to have a human heart.
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