Fragment 4:
The Ancient Forest
My wife, Doris, read this story to me long ago. “Nu, it’s a puz¬zle,” she said, when she had finished. “He solves the puzzle but won’t tell us the solution.”
I agreed, and so at first the question seemed to be that of whether this magician had decided he was not qualified to read the text aloud and ward off evil or if the story’s implication was that the fate of the human race, despite the god’s foresight, would be devastation and ruin. Only later did I realize that the question the story caused me to ponder more than any other was that of what it takes to find a thing that’s hidden, a thing that lurks within whatever it is you’re staring at each day. Perhaps the meaning of the story is that you must look deep rather than far if you want to unlock any of the secrets of the universe, that once unlocked a secret loses its power unless a part of it is withheld. I’ve read the story again perhaps a dozen times in the years since Doris passed away, and in my daydreams I imagine that I have recognized the god’s magical sentence. I imagine that I’ve inferred its secret words from the shapes of clouds or have deduced it from the angles of the branches of an oak tree out my window. And I have wondered what to do. I have imagined speaking the words aloud and equally I have considered the many reasons to stay silent. Needless to say, these represent the fantastic wishes of a man who has read far too much literature and philosophy. More to the point, these are the thoughts of an old man who must wear diapers to bed and who, on certain mornings, can barely move his arms or legs.
What does the old man mean by ‘looking deep rather than far’? Would you agree with him that this way, it’s possible to unlock some of the secrets of the universe?
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Posted 21/06/2010 12:13:07 by Emily Rowland with 0 comments.